Full Report - Center for Collaborative Education

SWD
Primary
Disability
English
Proficiency
Level
A student with a disability (SWD) is a student
participating in special education programs: full
inclusion, partial inclusion, and substantially
separate classrooms. We report only on SWDs
ages 6+, K-12.
The nature of the primary disability of a student
participating in a special education program.
The English proficiency level of LEP students as
measured by MEPA in 1 to 4 (SY2006-SY2008) or
1 to 5 (2009) categories.
The English proficiency level of LEPs is used both
as an individual descriptor and as an outcome
when discussing progress in English language
acquisition.
Program Level Variables
In ELL Program Student enrolled in a program for English language
learners (and not in a general education program).
A student in an ELL program may or may not also
be a student with a disability receiving special
education services or a student in an alternative
education program.
In SEI Student enrolled in a Sheltered English Immersion
program.
SEI programs in BPS are of two types: Multilingual
(students in these programs speak different
languages) or Language Specific (students all
speak the same language and support for students
and families is available in that language). BPS
offers SEI Language Specific programs in Cape
Verdean Creole, Chinese, Haitian Creole,
In Two-Way
Bilingual
Portuguese, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Student enrolled in a Two-Way bilingual program.
These are programs where fluent speakers of
English and English language learners to learn to
become bilingual and bi-literate in a second
language. In BPS, all Two-Way Bilingual
programs are English/Spanish.
In TBE Student enrolled in a transitional bilingual education
program.
Transitional Bilingual Education models promote a
gradual reduction of instruction in the primary
language as students learn English. This model’s
major goal is for students to build the capacity to
Islander) and all Hispanic students are labeled as a
6th race/ethnicity category in a single variable.
Constructed from SIMS DOE034 (SIMS DOE032 was
inadvertently not requested).
According to SIMS, this variable contains data for
students ages 6+.
SIMS DOE036
MEPA Database.
For SY2006-2008, a student’s highest score on MEPA
was identified for a given school year from the
respective October and April MEPA test
administrations and the corresponding performance
level was selected for that student. When analyzing
SY2009 MEPA data alone, the spring 2009
administration data (with the 5 proficiency levels) was
used.
In order to compare MEPA data over time, the spring
2009 MEPA data (1-5 proficiency levels) was
converted to the 1-4 proficiency levels according to
the concordance methodology in (MDESE, 2009b).
When comparing MEPA data across time, the highest
MEPA score for SY2009 was selected from the
October 2008 administration and the April 2009
administration, with the corresponding proficiency
level converted to the former levels when necessary.
For SY2009, the research team compiled
disaggregated program data from OELL
administrative data source to assign an ELL program
status to LEP students: Not in ELL program; SEI
Cape Verde; SEI Chinese; SEI Haitian; SEI
Portuguese; SEI Somali; SEI Spanish; SEI
Vietnamese; SEI Multilingual; Two-Way Bilingual
(Spanish); TBE (Chinese); HILT-SIFE Cape Verde;
HILT-SIFE Haitian; HILT-SIFE Somali; HILT-SIFE
Spanish; or SIFE Multilingual. 2
The disaggregated program data was entered into a
school database by hand for each school. Then,
SPSS syntax specific to each school with an ELL
program was developed for the student-level
database to recode the SIMS program and native
language variables into the expanded list of programs
for each student. In some cases, decisions were
made about the program in which a LEP participated
depending on the program present in the school.
When this occurred, the research team consulted with
OELL to decide the program placement for the
student. This method obscured exceptions –such as
a Portuguese speaker enrolled in a Spanish language
specific SEI program- but we report on this data
because those exceptions were not very numerous
and OELL’s need for a baseline of outcomes on its
programs outweighed the potential inaccuracies
110 Improving Educational Outcomes of English Language Learners in Schools and Programs in Boston Public Schools