“...the
Department urges caution in drawing conclusions or inferences regarding
the comparability of subgroup populations among public schools—charter
schools, traditional public schools, or other public school options.”
Charter School Enrollment Data Annual Report, MA DESE. Feb. 2016
“A
charter school must develop a plan that includes deliberate, specific
strategies the school will use to attract, to enroll, and to retain a
student population that is demographically comparable to similar grades
in schools from which the charter school enrolls students...MGL c. 71, §
89; 603 CMR 1.05.”
Annual Report Guidelines for Charter Schools 2015-16, MA DESE. Revised April 2016
In Chapter 1 of the Case of the Disappearing ELLs, we began with the basic facts related to English Language Learners (ELLs) in Boston Public Schools (BPS) vs. Boston Commonwealth Charter Schools. To recap, on average, 30% of BPS students are ELLs students compared to only 13% in Boston Charters, despite legislative efforts in 2010 to align these demographics. In this post, we’ll tackle the differences in the classification of ELLs and what testing reveals about the differences in ELL complexity.
Before we dig in, it’s worth a quick review of how students are identified as ELLs in the first place. Under Federal and State law, Massachusetts school districts must take necessary and appropriate steps to identify ELL students and determine appropriate educational services for their learning needs. Districts are required to administer a Home Language Survey provided by DESE to all new students Pre-K through 12th grade. Students whose survey shows that a language other than English is spoken in the home are then given a language proficiency test. A licensed ESL teacher or administrator then makes a decision about whether a student is an ELL.1
The issue of under-representation of ELLs in BPS and Boston Charter Schools is not new. As we mentioned in our last post, in 2010 the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of Civil Rights (OCR) investigated BPS for ELL violations, including under-classification of ELLs. In the same year, the state Charter School law was amended requiring schools to develop and implement a Recruitment and Retention plan. In 2013-14, DESE added new expectations related to access and equity, and developed CHART, the Charter Analysis and Review Tool “which provides multi-school, multi-year demographic comparison data for each charter school and comparison schools.” 2
Before we dig in, it’s worth a quick review of how students are identified as ELLs in the first place. Under Federal and State law, Massachusetts school districts must take necessary and appropriate steps to identify ELL students and determine appropriate educational services for their learning needs. Districts are required to administer a Home Language Survey provided by DESE to all new students Pre-K through 12th grade. Students whose survey shows that a language other than English is spoken in the home are then given a language proficiency test. A licensed ESL teacher or administrator then makes a decision about whether a student is an ELL.1
The issue of under-representation of ELLs in BPS and Boston Charter Schools is not new. As we mentioned in our last post, in 2010 the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of Civil Rights (OCR) investigated BPS for ELL violations, including under-classification of ELLs. In the same year, the state Charter School law was amended requiring schools to develop and implement a Recruitment and Retention plan. In 2013-14, DESE added new expectations related to access and equity, and developed CHART, the Charter Analysis and Review Tool “which provides multi-school, multi-year demographic comparison data for each charter school and comparison schools.” 2
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| BPS enrollment data from DESE. View high resolution graph HERE. |
While the BPS settlement with the DOJ in September 2010 resulted in a 39% single year jump in the number of students classified as ELLs attending BPS, the new DESE expectations have had a minimal effect upon what were already comparatively small percentages of ELLs in Boston Charters.
Not that you would know this if you read DESE’s 2016 Charter School Enrollment Data Annual Report: “The percent of English language Learners (ELLs) enrolled at Boston charter schools and charter schools located in Gateway Cities has steadily increased and is approaching the enrollment found at Boston district schools and district schools." 3
Not that you would know this if you read DESE’s 2016 Charter School Enrollment Data Annual Report: “The percent of English language Learners (ELLs) enrolled at Boston charter schools and charter schools located in Gateway Cities has steadily increased and is approaching the enrollment found at Boston district schools and district schools." 3
With all due respect to the authors of the report, DESE’s own data just doesn’t support that conclusion when it comes to Boston. As we noted in our previous post, just three Boston Commonwealth Charter Schools account for almost all of the growth in ELLs in Boston Charters in recent years. Their efforts and progress in this area have been real and significant. Unfortunately, their statistics are often used, as in the DESE report statement above, to mask the reasons for the equally significant lack of progress vis-a-vis ELLs at other Boston Charters. Let’s dig in and take a look.
Lower Classification Rates
We’ll begin with a comparison of the percent of First Language Not English (FLNE) students who went on to be classified as ELLs in BPS vs. Boston Commonwealth Charters. 68% of FLNE students in BPS went on to be classified as ELL, while only 44% of Boston Commonwealth Charter students were classified as ELL.
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| Based on 2016 data from DESE. View collected data HERE. View high resolution figure HERE. |
Our findings are similar to those reached by MIT researcher Elizabeth Setren in her 2015 discussion paper Special Education and English Language Learner Students in Boston Charter Schools: Impact and Classification: “In all school levels, charters remove ELL status at the time of enrollment at a substantially higher rate than traditional public schools. Ninety percent of elementary ELL applicants who enroll in traditional public schools remain ELL by the following fall, but as shown in Table 8, 20.5 percentage points fewer elementary school ELL applicants maintain their ELL classification in charters." 5
Ms. Setren's conclusions, particularly those concerning Charters' high rates of removing ELL status at the time of enrollment, bring up some important questions to which we don't have good answers at this time. Let's consider the following example. A student, identified by BPS as an ELL student enrolls in a Charter school. When that student arrives at the Charter, for whatever reason, the school removes that students' ELL status. What then happens to the additional tuition dollars the Charter school received for the purpose of providing ELL services to that student?
Ms. Setren's conclusions, particularly those concerning Charters' high rates of removing ELL status at the time of enrollment, bring up some important questions to which we don't have good answers at this time. Let's consider the following example. A student, identified by BPS as an ELL student enrolls in a Charter school. When that student arrives at the Charter, for whatever reason, the school removes that students' ELL status. What then happens to the additional tuition dollars the Charter school received for the purpose of providing ELL services to that student?
Enrolling students with higher Levels of English Language Proficiency
Students who have been classified as ELLs, or even former ELLs, are administered the ACCESS exam in February of each year to rate their English language proficiency. Level 1 is the least proficient in English and Level 6 is the most proficient. 53% of the ELL students in BPS are in Levels 1 - 3, compared to 23.3% of ELLs students in charters. 47% of ELLs in BPS are in Levels 4 - 6, compared to 76.3% in Boston Commonwealth Charters. DESE’s data clearly shows that Charters are enrolling the less complex ELL student population.
Enrolling fewer ELLs who are in MA Schools for the 1st or 2nd year
A related and equally telling statistic is the number of ELL students in their first or second year in Massachusetts schools. In FY15, 12% of BPS students were ELLs in their first or second year in MA schools. Only three Boston Commonwealth Charters have higher percentages of 1st/2nd year ELLs than BPS in that year. The rest had significantly smaller numbers of these students.
Once again, DESE’s data demonstrates that the majority of Boston Commonwealth Charters are not only enrolling fewer ELL students, but the students they are enrolling have higher levels of language proficiency and are far less likely to be a recent arrival to MA and/or to the U.S. |
| Raw data from DESE CHART tool. Our collected data HERE. High resolution figure HERE. |
So, we ask these questions again: Where is the scrutiny towards the Boston charter sector, which continues to dramatically under-enroll English Language Learners despite legislative attempts that require them to recruit and retain a student demographic similar to the sending district? Who is in charge of enforcing the accountability measures of state laws related to charters and ELLs?
In the third and final chapter coming soon, we’ll take a look at how MA DESE and State Education leaders have addressed these issues and the prospect of Unified Enrollment in the context of significant ELL enrollment disparities.
1All of this information and more can be found at DESE’s Guidance from the Massachusetts Dept. of Education and Laws http://www.doe.mass.edu/ell/guidance_laws.html.
2 Charter School Enrollment Data Annual Report, MA DESE. Feb. 2016, p. 5.
4 For complete data sets related to ELLs that we used for this post, download CHART or go to the Selected Populations Reports on the DESE website.
5 Setren, Elizabeth. Special Education and English Language Learner Students in Boston Charter Schools: Impact and Classification. School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative Discussion Paper #2015.03. p. 12.
