A federal review has found that Boston’s public schools fail to adequately teach thousands of students with limited English skills nearly five years after the system promised the U.S. government it would overhaul programs to comply with civil rights laws.
The review, conducted by the U.S. departments of Education and Justice, says the situation is worst in middle and high schools, where 49 percent of English-language learners are receiving insufficient levels of specialized instruction or none at all.
Twenty-four percent of elementary students with language barriers are in a similar predicament. About 30 percent of the system’s students are classified as ELLs.