New Fact Sheets Examine Immigrant & English Learner Student Demographics and Achievement in Key States and Overview of ESSA-Related Policies
WASHINGTON — As states shape and implement policies that hold K-12 schools and districts accountable for meeting federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) mandates regarding English Learners (ELs), it is essential for parents, educators, community advocates and others to have detailed information about these students and the policies governing their education.
The Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy today published a series of fact sheets examining foreign-born and EL students in 25 states with the largest such populations. Drawing from U.S. Census Bureau data, state data dashboards, and MPI analysis of state policies for EL education under ESSA, the fact sheets aim to offer an understanding of the state demographic and policy context, as well as how these students are performing.
“With the transition to ESSA’s policies and rules still ongoing, these fact sheets offer a detailed profile of immigrant and EL students in states, how they are performing, and key accountability policies states have designed to monitor their progress,” said Margie McHugh, director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. “With key provisions of ESSA ensuring that ELs will be more visible in school data and that their performance will matter in school ratings, understanding and monitoring data on these students provides policymakers, community leaders, parents and others new opportunities to identify system weaknesses and better target actions to address them.”
The fact sheets issued today cover the states that have the largest EL populations and that provide detailed data on them: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. (Indiana, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and South Carolina also have sizable populations but do not provide public data comparable to these states.)
This series examines the demographics of immigrant and EL students using data from state departments of education and the Census Bureau’s 2016 American Community Survey, covering everything from changes in population size to poverty levels, languages spoken at home, school districts with the largest number and share of ELs, and share by grade. The fact sheets also provide an overview of EL student outcomes as measured by standardized tests and conclude with an overview of state policies and accountability mechanisms that affect ELs under ESSA.
Read the state fact sheets here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/english-learners-demographics-outcomes-state-accountability-policies.
The fact sheets are the latest in a series of data-rich profiles and research related to ELs and implementation of ESSA. For more of MPI’s work, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/nciip-english-learners-and-every-student-succeeds-act-essa.
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The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, DC dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy is a crossroads for elected officials, researchers, state and local agency managers, grassroots leaders, local service providers and others who seek to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities today’s high rates of immigration create in local communities.