English Learner (EL)

How It Works

Approximately 5 million students in U.S. public schools, about 10% of all students, are classified as English Learners. The fastest-growing demographic in American schools, EL students speak over 400 different home languages, though Spanish is by far the most common at about 75% of the EL population. English Learners face the dual challenge of mastering academic content while simultaneously acquiring English proficiency. Federal law requires schools to provide EL students with language instruction services, which may include bilingual education, English as a Second Language (ESL) pullout programs, sheltered English immersion, or dual-language programs. EL classification affects testing data in important ways. In most states, recently arrived EL students may be exempted from state assessments or given accommodations (extra time, bilingual glossaries, translated directions). This means that a school's proficiency rate may not fully reflect EL student performance, especially in schools with large numbers of newly arrived immigrants. On OpenSchoolData, EL enrollment is reported as demographic context. Schools with large EL populations that still achieve strong proficiency and growth scores are demonstrating effective instructional practices. Research consistently shows that well-implemented dual-language programs produce the strongest long-term outcomes for both EL students and native English speakers.

Related Terms

• Free and Reduced-Price Lunch (FRL), A federal program providing subsidized meals to students from low-income families, widely used as a proxy measure for school-level poverty rates.
• Special Education, Specially designed instruction provided at no cost to parents for students with disabilities, as mandated by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
• Achievement Gap, Persistent differences in academic performance between student groups defined by race, ethnicity, income, disability status, or English proficiency, one of the most studied problems in American education.
• Title I, A federal program providing supplemental funding to schools with high percentages of students from low-income families, serving approximately 25 million students in over 56,000 schools.