N.Y.C. Test Sizes Up ELLs With Little Schooling

The New York City school district has rolled out what is believed to be the first academic diagnostic test in the country designed solely for English-language learners who have missed years of schooling.

The district has identified 15,500 out of its 148,000 English-language learners who are “students with interrupted formal education,” or SIFE. That subset of ELLs has grown rapidly over the past decade, with about 3,000 to 5,000 students entering the school system each school year. Students may have missed or stopped attending school in their home countries for a variety of reasons, including displacement by war, necessity to work, or inability to afford textbooks or school fees that many countries require even for public schools.

Maria Santos, who directs programs for ELLs in New York City, said in an e-mail message that the test is a tool for identifying SIFE when such children enter the school system. The test “will provide teachers with more information about each student and shape the instructional services these...