Funding Needed to Boost English Language Learners Over State Exit Exam Hurdle

As Arizona awaits the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the English language learner (ELL) case, Flores v. State, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) published "Caught in the Middle: Arizona’s English Language Learners and the High School Exit Exam." The state has asked the federal appeals court to overturn the trial court's ruling last March, finding that changes made to Arizona's English Language Learner programs and funding don't satisfy a 1974 federal statute requiring equal educational opportunities for English-learning students. CEP president Jack Jennings says “the consequences are dire” with regards to students failing the exit exams and insists that “the problem is not going away.”

District officials report that a lack of funding impedes their ability to prepare ELL students to pass the exit exams. They cite overcrowding, a lack of teachers prepared to teach English as a second language and English immersion, a lack of paraprofessionals and translators, inadequate materials and too little time for individualized attention as reasons for the sub-par performance of ELL students. The report claims that the state should increase funding for ELL programs and acknowledge that it will take substantially more resources to give ELL students the opportunity to pass the state exit exam, the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS).

Arizona Relevant to Other States

The CEP report, published in November 2007, examines how AIMS is influencing the education of English language learners. Limited English proficiency was reported as the biggest obstacle to passing the exit exam by interviewees. ELL students “deserve a much better effort than they have seen so far,” says Jennings who also asserts that, “the Arizona experience is relevant for many other states and districts that have experienced rapid growth in enrollments of English language learners and are struggling to help them achieve at higher levels on exit exams.”

While Arizona’s average pass rates of exit exams are comparable to those of other states, its ELL students pass the tests in far fewer numbers. According to the report, only about 12 percent of ELLs pass the reading and writing exit exams on the first try, while 20 percent pass the math exam. These numbers are even more alarming considering that ELL students make up about 15 percent of Arizona’s public school enrollment, and this number is growing rapidly.

To help struggling students improve their school performance, Arizona has instituted supports and interventions designed to raise passing rates. Yet, according to the CEP report, the impact these interventions have on ELL test scores are largely unknown. Moreover, the report finds that Arizona has implemented few strategies designed to raise pass rates specifically for ELL students.

The authors of the report also conclude that many ELL students and their parents are uninformed about some of the fundamental aspects of the AIMS tests. Many parents did not know that the exams were graduation requirements or that students have multiple opportunities to pass them, according to the report.

Methodologies and Findings

The CEP report is based on case studies from five high schools in southern Arizona and on interviews with nearly 400 educators, students, parents, and state and local officials. The report concludes that in order for ELLs to improve their school performance their teachers need more training, their schools need to pay more attention to their progress, and their families need to be more involved.

Prepared by Marcela Briceno, November 26, 2007