The Controversy Surrounding Arizona’s ELL Programs

Earlier this summer, The Civil Rights Project at UCLA released a series of nine studies on how Arizona teaches and tests students who arrive in its schools without proficiency in English. The studies are critical of Arizona’s policies and highlight some of the many challenges to educating a growing population of students who are dual language learners*.

The reports were released just prior to the U.S. District Court in Tucson hearing a 17-year old court case that focuses on Arizona’s treatment of dual language learners. The case, Horne v. Flores, revolves around whether Arizona’s approach to teaching dual language learners is compliant with the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA).

In Arizona, students learning English spend four hours of their school day in English Language Learner blocks that are designed to help students learn English skills and catch up with their peers. However, the reports question whether these students receive quality instruction and are able to catch up to, and graduate on time with, other students. They also question the effects of separating students out from their English-fluent peers, the assessment measures used to classify students as needing English instruction, and whether students are able to graduate from high school if they spend half the day on a single-credit English course.

Eighty-five percent of the 880 teachers surveyed for the reports expressed concern about the consequences of Arizona’s instructional strategy. 

One report takes a critical look at the English proficiency assessment that is used to determine whether a student will be exited from the ELL program—and finds that children in elementary and middle school are being moved out of the program prematurely.

Since 2005, Arizona has used the Stanford English Language Proficiency (SELP) Test, as the sole measure for evaluating whether dual language learners will be reclassified as fully proficient in English. Academic performance is not taken into account for these students.

Several organizations have questioned whether a single test, as opposed to a combined assessment that takes into account testing and performance, is appropriate. The report, which was written by Eugene E. Garcia, Kerry Lawton, and Eduardo H. Diniz de Figuiredo, researchers at Arizona University, looked at the assessment process for children in grades 3, 5, and 8. Researchers found that, with the SELP test, children were more likely to be reclassified as proficient students than they were under tests used prior to 2004. Further, they compared students who were reclassified using multiple measures in the 2004 school year with students who were reclassified in 2005 with the SELP test. They found that more students were reclassified under SELP, and that these students did not perform as well as the group that had been reclassified using different assessments the previous year. The report concludes that moving students out of the ELL block program before they were ready was ultimately doing them a disservice in school.

It is no coincidence that the reports were released on the eve of evidentiary hearings for Horne v. Flores, when both sides of the case will present evidence and hear from witnesses. The case stems from a lawsuit brought by parents of students who were in the Arizona ELL program against the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Thomas Horne, and it is supposed to decide whether Arizona has been devoting enough resources to teaching dual language learners in the state. Two of the authors behind the reports, a University of Arizona assistant professor named Cecilia Rios-Aguilar and an Arizona State associate professor named M. Beatriz Arias, are also expert witnesses on the Flores side of the case.

There has been recent controversy over whether Mr. Horne’s lawyers can subpoena the raw data (including interviews with teachers and administrators) that the researchers used for their reports in order to determine whether their conclusions are accurate.

The researchers have held that it is not ethical for them to release information about participants in their reports. These concerns are magnified by the charged atmosphere in Arizona surrounding the state’s substantial immigrant population, and recent legislation targeting illegal immigrants. At the end of last week, Ed Week reported that the researchers must disclose the names of schools and districts used for the reports, but not the names of individuals.

Both the reports and Horne v. Flores raise valuable questions on how to educate dual language learners. The assessments that we discuss above, for example, are crucial in determining a child’s path through school— and yet current research in how to assess young dual language learners has a long way to go, and states are struggling to create policies that will best serve their students in the meantime.

These reports are critical of Arizona’s approach, but it is important to recognize that states across the country are only beginning to grapple with the soaring demand for targeted English instruction for children who speak another language at home. We’ve discussed recent policy changes in Illinois, for example, which will drastically change pre-k for DLL students (and place more stress on the state’s already tight budget). Ultimately, it is likely that we will see more struggles like the one in Arizona in the coming years.

We’ll keep you posted on the outcome of the hearings in the Horne v. Flores case, expected this fall.  Let us know if there are other cases or policy changes elsewhere we should be tracking too.

* At Early Ed Watch, we chose the term dual language learners, or DLLs, to refer to students who speak a primary language other than English. We use this term in order to recognize that these students may still be learning and developing strong language skills in their native language, in addition to learning how to speak, read and write in English.