Accountability through Data

ELs have historically been excluded from state, district, and school accountability measures, and until NCLB there was minimal oversight for how ELs were performing academically.¹ NCLB raised the bar slightly by requiring that ELs take the same state academic tests as their non-EL counterparts, and requiring states receiving Title III funding to track whether ELs were making progress/attaining English language proficiency (ELP), among other changes.² However, as these measures were housed separately from the law’s accountability provisions, ELs’ academic and language progress were still not being considered in school quality evaluations. ESSA closed this loophole by requiring states to include not only their academic achievement, but also their progress towards attaining ELP in their systems used to rate and/or differentiate between schools.³ Though the move to include these requirements in Title I of ESSA may seem minor, doing so holds a lot of promise for increasing transparency around the quality of education ELs are provided.

In March 2017 Congress revoked the federal regulations intended to assist states with the implementation of ESSA’s accountability, school improvement, and reporting provisions.⁴ As a result, EL accountability policies adopted pursuant to ESSA have been inconsistent and have varied in terms of depth and rigor. A comprehensive review of state ESSA education plans found that although all states were held to the same federal policy framework, EL accountability differed greatly from state to state.⁵ This means that today, many ELs are not represented in accountability measures and are often held to different academic standards. The most underrepresented in accountability are ELs attending schools with low EL enrollment, former ELs, and other EL subcategories (e.g., students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), long-term ELs, ELs with disabilities, and newcomer ELs). Though changes to ESSA’s accountability requirements must go through Congress, ESEA reauthorization efforts have been significantly delayed in the past,⁶ often at the expense of generations of students.

Absent a comprehensive overhaul of the federal accountability framework, the federal government should, to the extent possible, work to address some of the EL accountability gaps by:

1) Issuing non-regulatory guidance to improve Title I state accountability systems and make reporting pursuant to ESSA more consistent and transparent across states. Matters to address include:

Ensuring state compliance with ESSA’s requirement that the EL subgroup be included in state systems of annual meaningful differentiation used to compare school performance. At present, eight states fully incorporate ELs’ academic performance in their accountability systems.⁷

Increasing accountability for EL students enrolled in schools/districts with small EL populations. Currently, the minimum number of students required to trigger ESSA’s school-level accountability provisions (e.g. n size) range from 10 to 30, and schools that do not enroll enough ELs are often not supported by local and state education agencies, which means ELs’ needs may go unmet. The guidance should call for an investigation of states’ ELs included/excluded rates from due to their n size.

2) Improving transparency and accountability for the heterogeneity of EL subgroup by:

Requiring states to disaggregate the EL group to account for students with intersectional identities, including those with disabilities, students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE), recently arrived ELs/newcomers, and long-term ELs.

Defining and incorporating a long-term EL subgroup into Title I reporting requirements, and requiring states to create early detection mechanisms to identify ELs at risk of becoming long-term ELs.

• For example, California defines a long-term EL as well as those at-risk of falling into that category.⁸ This means that the state now collects data for both of these EL subcategories which can be used to target services to those in need.⁹

3) Increase state, district, and school accountability for former ELs. This can be done by:

Expanding the number of years former ELs are monitored from the current four years through the duration of their K-12 education, shifting former EL reporting requirements from Title III to Title I, and requiring states to include a separate former EL subgroup in their accountability systems.

• States already collect key former EL metrics, including how many former ELs are enrolled in school and how these students are performing. As it currently stands, however, 25 states combine former and current EL performance data in the EL subgroup, which masks the performance of both groups of students.¹⁰ If these data are not visible, they cannot be used to evaluate how schools are serving ELs after they are reclassified.
• Currently, Illinois is the only state that includes former ELs as its own subgroup in its accountability system. The state could provide useful information about how to craft a national requirement to collect data on former ELs and the implications for accountability.¹¹