Early Warning Systems, Not Just Labels, for English Language Learners

Thinking about an early warning system may call to mind radar images of severe storms or hurricanes as they encroach upon coasts. The main goals of these weather warning systems focus on providing potentially affected residents with enough time to adequately prepare and seek safety. See, by the time you see the waves coming over the pier, it’s probably too late to escape. An early warning system (EWS) in education plays a similar role — providing educators with early signals that a student may need additional resources and/or supports to succeed.

EWSs are designed to identify, monitor, and provide interventions/resources for students who are at risk of not achieving full academic success. They have five key components: staff, indicators, data reports, interventions, and evaluation.

Unfortunately for many groups of students, especially English language learners (ELLs), their performance on early warning indicators often leads to simple — and sometimes inaccurate — labeling that can prompt inappropriate interventions.

How can schools and districts ensure that their EWSs go beyond just labels for their ELL students? The Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Southwest recently shared findings from a study of school districts currently implementing EWSs. Their lessons learned could help districts grappling with this question.

An effective EWS starts with a set of meaningful and informative indicators. According to the REL webinar, commonly-used indicators span student language knowledge/ability, behavior, and general education experience. However, these are more often used to simply identify ELL students who might be at-risk (a critical first step in an EWS, but not enough to be effective).

So what steps did districts in the study take to prevent this? Most involved data usage. The districts reported EWS data sharing in both meetings among school leaders and in cluster meetings with multiple schools. They also emphasized that these data should be reviewed in context of other school-level data and qualitative information from parents, teachers, and the students themselves. In other words, an EWS can signal that a student needs support, but it cannot reveal specifically why. Context is crucial.

Once the “why” is identified, schools can make decisions about what interventions would be best. While most of the districts reported implementing their EWS for only four to five years, they described several initial successes they hope to see persist or grow. These were mainly decreases in disciplinary action and the number of long-term ELLs (students are reaching English proficiency more effectively), and improvements in graduation and attendance rates.

That isn’t to say that EWS implementation was trouble-free. Most of their challenges involved data issues within the EWS. For example, districts faced issues viewing longitudinal data due to static, snapshot-style data reporting. They also struggled to integrate data from students transferring into the district. Finally, they reported that the sheer quantity of data could sometimes get overwhelming. Some districts also shared challenges with integrating data sources as state assessments changed.

Above all, the districts recommended treating the establishment, maintenance, and use of an EWS as an iterative process. Constant reflection and refinement can help improve the system’s accuracy and efficacy. In that vein, the districts have plans to improve data integration, longitudinal data viewing capabilities, and systems for including immigrant students and unaccompanied minors.

The DLL National Work Group’s Janie Tankard Carnock has written previously about the possible drawbacks of labeling students as “English learners.” In her post, Carnock cites research showing how labels may perpetuate inequities in educational opportunities rather than help students receive necessary supports. This is where EWSs could be most impactful for ELLs. As part of a thoughtfully designed system, these labels could be important tools for ensuring ELLs are both appropriately identified and and well-served — instead of simply being assigned labels.

--

This post comes from New America’s Dual Language Learners National Work Group. Click here for more information on this team’s work. To subscribe to the biweekly newsletter, click here, enter your contact information, and select “DLL National Work Group Newsletter.”