Trends in English proficiency and high school graduation rates

Trends in English proficiency and high school graduation rates


Min Huang and colleagues at WestEd recently examined patterns among English language learner (ELL) subgroups to determine if the amount of time these students spent classified as English language learners or the grade in which they were deemed English-proficient correlated with their graduation rates.

Researchers studied the data, starting in the ninth grade, from students in Arizona who were due to graduate in 2014. More than 63,000 students were divided into five subgroups based on their English proficiency, and then grouped by prior academic achievement and demographics.

Results showed that academic achievement prior to high school was the key predictor of ELL students who graduated on time, regardless of demographic similarities. Most importantly, the earlier students achieved English-language proficiency, the higher their graduation rates. The ELL subgroups least likely to graduate on time were long-term English learners who had been identified as ELLs before sixth grade and were not yet English proficient by ninth grade, and new English learners who became ELLs in sixth grade or later and entered high school designated as English learners.

Researchers noted that during the study period ELL students were required to attend four hours of English classes a day, preventing them from being in mainstream classes, and therefore not necessarily acquiring the academic foundation for the subjects they need to graduate.    

Johns Hopkins University 

Research in Brief

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