Students who began kindergarten as English Learners had similar achievement and growth, and higher attendance, compared to students never classified as ELs¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2019 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? When all students who began kindergarten as ELs were included, their NWEA-MAP math scores were only slightly lower (about 5 percentile points) than never-EL students, with almost identical math gains from third to eighth grade. → de la Torre 2019 q2 i? Students who began as ELs had higher attendance rates than students never classified as ELs, despite being more likely to be economically disadvantaged. → de la Torre 2019 (2)

Evidence¶

de la Torre 2019¶

de la Torre, M., Blanchard, A., Allensworth, E.M., & Freire, S. (2019). English Learners in CPS: A new perspective. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu

q2 · i? · associational · r?

Descriptive analysis of three continuously-enrolled CPS kindergarten cohorts (18,000+ began-as-EL students) comparing K-8 trajectories. The report finds math scores "only slightly lower than those of students never classified as ELs, by about 5 percentile points" with near-identical gains. No effect size is printed.

"their NWEA-MAP math scores were only slightly lower than those of students never classified as ELs, by about 5 percentile points; and gains on math scores from third to eighth grade were almost identical."

de la Torre 2019 (2)¶

de la Torre, M., Blanchard, A., Allensworth, E.M., & Freire, S. (2019). English Learners in CPS: A new perspective. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://consortium.uchicago.edu

q2 · i? · associational · r?

Descriptive attendance comparison across the same three cohorts. The report notes this is especially notable because EL students were more likely to be economically disadvantaged, and attendance is influenced by economic factors. No effect size is printed.

"Students who began as ELs in CPS also had higher attendance rates than students who did not enter kindergarten as ELs."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• ELs lag behind peers in achievement and attainment partly due to limited exposure to academic content — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Publicly reported statistics based only on active ELs give a biased picture of EL performance because proficient students exit the subgroup — related
• Students who began as ELs and demonstrated proficiency by eighth grade had academic outcomes similar to or higher than students never classified as ELs — related
• ELs who did not reach proficiency by eighth grade showed continued growth but started first grade with much lower ACCESS scores, and rising grade-level thresholds meant they never met the proficiency cut — related
• GPAs were very similar for students who did and did not enter CPS as ELs, with a reading-grade gap that closed by seventh grade and similar Freshman OnTrack rates — related
• ELs who received bilingual education services had higher long-run attendance and academic outcomes than kindergartners who refused bilingual services — related
• Students who began as ELs were not overidentified for special education services relative to students never classified as ELs — related
• The study operationalized high achievement as scoring at or above the 90th percentile on the NWEA assessment — related
• English Learner classification in kindergarten negatively impacts teachers' perceptions of students' academic abilities, with a reduced negative effect in bilingual classroom settings — related
• In Virginia, Hispanic/Latino children labeled English Learners with low kindergarten literacy were 20 percent less likely to achieve grade-3 reading proficiency than similar peers — related
• AI/AN students perform lower than other student subpopulations on common academic measures, per statistics the report cites from the Education Trust — related
• Attending higher-rated schools (CPS School Quality Rating Policy) is associated with better math, reading, and English proficiency test outcomes for ELs — related
• English learners can learn to read in English at the same rate as their monolingual peers in the primary grades — related
• Students who began as English Learners graduated from high school at a slightly higher rate than never-classified EL students and enrolled in college at about the same rate, with more two-year enrollment — related