blog post Video: Improving Outcomes for English Learners By Mary Severance Jun 5, 2018 Recent K‒12 reforms change how California funds, assesses, and holds districts accountable for English Learner students, currently about 21% of the public school population.
Report K–12 Reforms and California’s English Learner Achievement Gap By Laura Hill May 30, 2018 English Learner (EL) students have been a key part of California’s K–12 system for decades. They currently make up about 21 percent of the public school population. English Learner status is meant to be temporary, and indeed, reclassified English Learners (those who are deemed English proficient) are among the best-performing students in the state. But students who remain ELs for longer periods generally have poor outcomes.
Report Charter Schools and California’s Local Control Funding Formula By Iwunze Ugo, Laura Hill Sep 21, 2017 Over the two decades since their inception, charter schools have become a significant part of the California public school system. Quasi-independent, but publicly funded, these schools educate about 10 percent of the state’s students.
blog post Helping English Learners Succeed By David Lesher May 12, 2014 At a recent event, PPIC researchers Laura Hill and Julian Betts addressed the way English Learners are reclassified as proficient in English in California. It is the focus of their latest report.
event Pathways to Fluency May 7, 2014 About the Program About one in four students in California's public schools is an English Learner. As the state overhauls K-12 standards, testing, and funding, questions about how and when English Learner students should be reclassified as fully English proficient take on new urgency. PPIC researchers Laura Hill and Julian Betts will talk about their findings on the relationship between reclassification policies and academic success among students in the two largest school districts in the state. This research is supported with funding from the Donald Bren Foundation and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. SPEAKERS Julian Betts, Bren fellow, PPIC Laura Hill, research fellow, PPIC
press release English Learners Reclassified as Proficient in Elementary School Are Top Academic Performers May 6, 2014
Report Pathways to Fluency: Examining the Link Between Language Reclassification Policies and Student Success By Julian Betts, Andrew C. Zau, Laura Hill, Karen Bachofer May 6, 2014 As California overhauls K–12 standards, testing, and funding, questions about how and when English Learner students should be reclassified as English proficient take on new urgency. This report looks at the links between reclassification policies and academic success in the state’s two largest school districts. This research was supported with funding from the Donald Bren Foundation and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund.
blog post Moving English Learners to English Fluency By Laura Hill, Margaret Weston Apr 9, 2014 School districts across the state have different standards for reclassifying English learners as fluent English speakers. This means that students with the same skills may be reclassified in one district, but not in another.
Report Full-Day Kindergarten in California: Lessons from Los Angeles By Shannon McConville, Jill Cannon, Alison Jacknowitz, Gary Painter Sep 17, 2009 Almost half of California public school kindergarten students attend full-day classes. To understand how a longer class day might benefits students, the authors examined about 200,000 kindergarten records in the Los Angeles Unified School District and found that full-day kindergarten does seem to help reduce the chances of being retained in early grades. But full-day students do not seem to have better second-grade test scores, nor do English learners improve their English fluency at higher rates. Certain subpopulations might benefit more than others; given current budgetary constraints, policymakers may find it more effective to target full-day classes to schools most likely to benefit, such as those with low API rankings. This report was supported with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
