march 22, 2013 situation report webinar larry sigel, partner margaret buckton, partner © iowa...
TRANSCRIPT
March 22, 2013Situation Report WebinarLarry Sigel, PartnerMargaret Buckton, Partner
© Iowa School Finance Information Services, 2013
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2013 Legislative Session and Budget Cycle
Info Related to ELL Policy Debate: Dissecting ELL history, growth and what’s different for today for Iowa’s non-English Speaking students.
SF 404 ELL supplemental weighting
•Currently 0.22 weighting for ELL student programming for 4 years.
•Reimbursement of actual cost exceeding the weighting and exceeding the time may be requested from SBRC (meaning MAG, not cash)
•SBRC action less predictable and not as timely as in years past
•SF 404 would extend the weighting to 7 years (long phase in, but gets there)
•Passed the Senate, in Education Committee with Reps. Hanusa, Jorgensen and Gaines assigned
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Limited English Proficient in Iowa…
•4.76% of students LEP•23,820 LEP students, PK – 12 •23 Iowa School Districts have more than
10% of their student enrollment LEP•LEP population in districts ranges from 0%
to 53%
Condition of Education Report 2012
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Learning English complicated by several factors•ELL masks a great deal of diversity in US•Spanish first language of 79% of ELLs•Asian languages a distant second•Remaining students speak in excess of
400 languages•Most research focused on English
acquisition, not mastery of content
•16,171 Iowa ELL speak Spanish, with remaining 5,879 are very diverse, including 1,554 in the “other” category.
•Doesn’t address literacy in the student’s language of origin.
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Parent Notification Regarding Title III Testing and Placement
Section 3302 of the NCLB Act of 2001 requires that districts notify students’ parents of: • the reason for placement in a program for ELL• the student’s level of language proficiency, how it was
assessed, and their level of academic achievement • the methods of instruction used in the child’s educational
program, use of English and the native language in that program, and other program options available within the district
• how the program will meet the needs and build on the academic strengths of the child
• how the program will go about teaching the child English and preparing him/her to meet academic standards for grade promotion and graduation
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Parent Notification Regarding Title III Testing and Placement • exit requirements for the program, expected transition rate
of students from the program to programs not designed specifically for ELLs, and the expected rate of graduation for students participating in the program
• for special education students, how the program will fulfill requirements of the student’s IEP, and
• information regarding parental rights, including rights to remove the student from the program, to information about other program options, and to assistance in selecting from various programs and teaching methods if more than one is available.
• All information is to be provided in a language that the parent understands, to the extent practicable (Sec. 3302[c]). To meet this requirement, the Iowa No Child Left Behind Parent Communication Center (formerly the Iowa Translation Library) is available as an on-line resource at http://www.transact.com to provide necessary documents in 23 languages.
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Research Review on ELL
http://www.shastacoe.org/uploaded/Dept/is/general/Teacher_Section/EnglishLanguageLearners.pdf
Edvantia; Research Review: What Research Says About Preparing English Language Learners for Academic Success, A review conducted for the Center for Public Education. October 2007
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Three kinds of proficiency
•English Language Proficiency•Academic English Language Proficiency•Content Proficiency
English Language Proficiency
• English language proficiency refers to the ability to speak,
read, write, and comprehend English language in general
• Arizona study of 89, K-3 non-English speakers found
English (conversational) proficiency was achieved by about
two thirds of the children after 4 years and by more than
90% after 5 years.
• Large-scale studies in California, however, indicate that it
might take some ELLs 6 to 10 years to be reclassified as
proficient, while some ELLs never achieve classification at
the highest levels.
Academic English Proficiency
• Academic English proficiency refers specifically to the ability to speak, read, write, and comprehend academic English, which is characterized by academic and content specific vocabulary, complex sentence structure, and the processes of academic discourse (e.g., interpretation and analysis of data or text).
• Studies conducted to date indicate that it takes 4 to 7 years for ELLs to become proficient in academic English
Content Mastery
•Content mastery refers to students’ ability to demonstrate mastery of subject-area knowledge on academic measures
•Not much research in this area regarding the amount of time it takes to master content
Recommendations from Research
•Proficiency in academic English—the kind of language used in textbooks and classrooms but not necessarily in social situations—is the key to content-area learning.
•Professional development in meeting the educational needs of ELLs is an ongoing need. Teachers need to understand why and how to increase ELLs’ opportunity to learn academic English.
Recommendations from Research Continued• At the program level, inclusion of some first-language
instruction, when possible, can have long-term benefits for
ELLs.
• Many of the attributes of effective schools can also support ELL
achievement.
• Experts recommend basing assessment policies and ELL
classification decisions on measures of students’ proficiency in
academic English. However, the National Literacy Panel on
Language-Minority Children and Youth concluded that valid and
reliable measures of academic language proficiency still need
to be developed.
Recommendations from Research Continued
The methods currently used to classify and place ELLs may result in some students’ being pulled out of English language support programs too soon. To help these students get back on track, schools should monitor the academic progress of ELLs who exit language support programs and provide extra help when needed.
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K Grade 1
Grade 2
Grade 3
Grade 4
Grade 5
Grade 6
Grade 7
Grade 8
Grade 9
Grade 10
Grade 11
Grade 12
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
2,500
3,000
3,500
Number of ELL Students in Iowa by Grade Level Fall 2012 BEDS
DE Resources to help
•Educating Iowa's English Language Learners: A Handbook for Administrators and Teachers - The handbook gives Iowa educators a picture of the unique needs of English Language Learners (ELL). It offers a guide for providing equal access to the quality education available in the state.
•Guidelines: Iowa Guidelines for K-12 ELL Participation in Districtwide Assessments
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DE Resources to help
•Guides▫ Our Kids English Language Learners in Your
Classroom▫ Our Kids English Language Learners in Your
Classroom Presentation•District Self-Study Guide:
District Self Study Guide
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Questions or Comments?Larry Sigel, ISFIS – PartnerCell: [email protected]
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Margaret Buckton , ISFIS – PartnerCell: [email protected]
Iowa School Finance Information Services
4685 Merle Hay Road, Suite 209Des Moines, IA 50322Office: 515-251-5970
www.isfis.net