This article maintains that in spite of their seeming progress, Mexican-origin students in the US continue to face barriers that are typical of the complex challenges endured in public schools by minoritized and racialised peoples in the American context. It begins with a brief overview of the current-day demographics of the Mexican-origin…

Research suggests that educators' use of resources influence the ground-level effects of policy. However, we know very little about educators' utilization of policy resources. This study employs a mixed-methods research design to provide empirical evidence of the policy resources available to education policy implementers and the ways in which…

In this study, we employed a discrete-time survival analysis model to examine Indiana emergent bilingual time to reclassification as fluent English proficient. The data consisted of five years of statewide English language proficiency scores. Indiana has a large and rapidly growing Spanish-speaking emergent bilingual population, and these students…

Since No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was enacted into federal law in 2002, states have been required to test students in grades 3 through 8 and again in high school to assess math and reading achievement. The federal law also asks states to establish the performance level students must reach on the exams in order to be identified as…

This study uses 9 years of longitudinal, student-level data from the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide updated, empirically-based estimates of the time necessary for English learners (ELs) to become reclassified as proficient in English, as well as factors associated with variation in time to reclassification. To illustrate how…

English language proficiency assessments (ELPA) are used in the United States to measure annually the English language progress and proficiency of English-language learners (ELLs), a subgroup of language minority students who receive language acquisition support mandated and largely funded by Title III (NCLB, 2001). ELPA proficient and…

The purpose of this chapter is twofold: (1) to provide a detailed review of current language assessment policies and practices with English language learner (ELL) students under the federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; 2001) and relevant research in order to evaluate their technical quality and validity, and (2) to examine…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of English language proficiency and academic reading assessment scores to predict the future academic success of English learner (EL) students. Data from two cohorts of middle-school ELs were used to evaluate three prediction models. One cohort of students was used to develop the prediction…

A major problem facing educators in the United States is how to determine when the nation's five million English language learners (ELL) are ready to exit language-learning programs, i.e. to be "reclassified" as fluent English proficient (R-FEP) and placed in mainstream classrooms without additional language support. No Child Left Behind…

Commissioner's Rules Concerning the State Plan for Educating English Language Learners (ELLs) states that all school districts that are required to provide bilingual education and/or English as a second language (ESL) programs establish and operate a Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC). The LPACs are charged with reviewing all…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires that English Language Learners, who are reclassified as Fluent English Proficient, be monitored for two years. Short of requiring states to annually submit numerical data on these students, there are no specific instructions on how this monitoring is achieved in practice and little has been written…

A growing chorus of people are saying that some school districts are overzealous in categorizing students as English-language learners (ELLs) in the aim of complying with federal and state laws to ensure that children of immigrants get extra help with English. They contend that the information requested on the home-language survey that parents are…

This article discusses the issues and implications of high stakes tests on English language learners (ELLs). As ELLs are being included in all high stakes assessments tied to accountability efforts (e.g., No Child Left Behind), it is crucial that issues related to the tests be critically evaluated relative to their use. In this case, academic…

Research reports major concerns over classification and measurement for students with limited English proficiency (LEP). Poor operational definition of the English language proficiency construct and validity concerns on the existing language proficiency tests are among these issues. Decisions on including LEP students in large-scale assessments…

Research reports major concerns over classification and measurement for students with limited English proficiency (LEP). A poor operational definition of the English language proficiency construct and validity concerns about existing language proficiency tests are among these issues. Decisions on including LEP students in large-scale assessments…