By 2025, an estimated 25 percent of K-12 students will be English language learners.
By 2025, 12.9 million students in the US will need language support services to help them achieve standards in grade-level content.
But, by 2025, will we be able to meet their needs?
English language learners (ELLs) are students with limited proficiency in English who typically come from non-English speaking homes and require additional support both in the English language and in their other academic courses. They are a diverse group of students representing a variety of linguistic, ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. While some ELLs are immigrants, refugees, or newcomers to the United States, a majority of ELLs are native-born U.S. citizens, many of whom are children or grandchildren of immigrants. Constituting 10.1 percent of public school students, ELLs are the fastest growing segment of the school age population.
What COVID-19 taught us about ELLs
COVID-19 and the transition to distance learning unveiled the harsh reality of educational inequities for underserved and under-resourced populations in the U.S. As early as April of 2020, educators reported that their students – particularly immigrant and refugee students, students in low-income families, and ELLs – were not showing up online for class. In some districts with large ELL populations, less than half of the ELLs logged on to participate each day.
The rise in absenteeism was in large part due to ELLs’ disproportionate lack of access to reliable digital devices and internet connection, language barriers between parents and administrators, inadequate remote learning training for teachers, and parents’ inability to support their children’s home-learning needs.
In addition, school and business closures jeopardized ELLs and their families by threatening their access to food and income security as well as social support and mental health resources. Finally, because most ELLs come from non-English speaking homes, they have not had the same opportunity to consistently speak, read and write in English as they did in a non-virtual school setting.
As schools transition back to in-person learning later this year, students will likely take assessments that measure the extent of the ‘COVID slide.’ Considering what we already know about summer learning loss in normal years, compounded by the 40 percentage point achievement gap between ELLs and English proficient students in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math, the impact of the ‘COVID slide’ on ELLs will likely be substantial. It is imperative that policymakers, administrators, and educators re-evaluate how to better serve ELLs.
Dr. Bruyère’s critical questions
I asked Dr. Justine Bruyère, a professor at Vanderbilt who specializes in second language learning, ELL education, and early literacy learning, what she considered to be the biggest challenges for ELLs in the public school system today. She posed two questions that stood out to me: “Are EL [English learner] students in community with their English-speaking peers or are they separate? Do ELs have access to the same supports and opportunities that non-ELL students have access to? If not, why?”
The lack of access to resources and the exclusionary model of traditional ELL education were problems long before COVID-19. ELLs are disproportionately placed into remedial classes, overrepresented in special education classes, and underrepresented in upper level and advanced classes. Not only does this limit their access to academic content to which their non-ELL peers are exposed, but it also limits their academic achievement and performance on assessments.
Although policymakers seemed to move in the right direction toward more equitable education for ELLs with the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, one of its major pitfalls is that it does not require states to offer native language assessments. To better meet the needs of ELLs, policymakers and administrators should move away from a model focused on deficit and separation and more toward an inclusionary model that champions cultural and linguistic diversity. Ideally, this would be a class in which ELLs and non-ELLs can learn together. If a completely mixed classroom is not tenable, then curriculum policy and professional development should aim to guarantee ELLs’ access to rigorous grade-level content in their sheltered classes.
An inclusion-based solution
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work as a teaching assistant for a first grade Dual Language Learning classroom at a public school in Richmond, Virginia. The class was a mix of ELLs and students proficient in English. The teacher taught the first half of the day in English and the second in Spanish. This inclusionary educational model gave both sets of students hands-on access to their non-native language and seemed to create a two-way cultural and linguistic appreciation.
What stood out to me, however, was how this model allowed the Spanish-speaking students to learn English without losing appreciation for their native language. The two languages were equally important in the classroom. Multilingualism was celebrated, not condemned.
Although COVID-19 highlighted the educational inequities that ELLs face every day, it also offers an opportunity for reflection on what has been successful and unsuccessful in the past. It can give us insight into how policymakers, administrators, and educators might be able to use these successes or limitations to create meaningful impact as schools transition back to in-person instruction. These changes can be institutional, like shifting toward an inclusionary educational model for ELLs, or even individual, by asking ourselves how we can make knowledge and information more accessible to all students.
Still, it’s a little shocking that a global pandemic might have to be the wake-up call to policymakers and administrators, forcing them to realize that it’s time to meet the basic educational needs of such a vulnerable and valuable population. As the ELL population continues to grow, we cannot let these longstanding educational disparities grow with it.
