NEARLY 30 percent of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) students placed in English language programs are not reclassified as proficient by the end of middle school, according to a report released by the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California.
Researchers tracked the data of 28,700 students from the time they started sixth grade in 1999 until graduation in 2005. More than half of those students were not recent immigrants but rather US-born, and three-quarters had been in the school district since first grade.
The findings have national significance because LAUSD is the nation’s second largest school district, with substantial numbers of English language learners, and they raise questions about language teaching, about whether students are staying in the program too long and what educators should do for those who start school unable to speak English fluently. “The United States has never learned what is the best way to teach English to English learners,” said Harry Pachon, president of the Institute. “That’s really a shortcoming.”
