Report Finds Long-Term ELLs Languishing in Calif. Schools

A portrait of long-term English-language learners in 40 California school districts shows that the specific needs of such students are largely being ignored, a statewide coalition of education and civil rights groups contends in a new report.

Based on survey data, the study by Californians Together found that 59 percent of English-language learners in secondary schools in the districts had been in U.S. schools for more than six years without reaching a sufficient level of English proficiency to be reclassified as fluent. It also found that few school districts had programs or formal approaches designed especially for the long-term English-language learners.

So many English-learners have retained that classification for so long in California in part, the report argues, because many haven’t been placed in an English-language-development program at all or haven’t been given school curricula and materials designed for ELLs. When they’ve received special help to learn English, it says, it’s often...