Full Report - Center for Collaborative Education

ed among those LEP students scoring at Levels
1 and 2 of MEPA in SY2009 when compared to
the proportion among all MEPA test-takers.
• Among Level 3 students, the most salient characteristic
is the high proportion of students who
are classified as disabled (22.4%) compared to
17.0% among all test-takers in SY2009.
• Among students at Levels 4 and 5, the most salient
characteristics are their stability (only 3.8%
changed schools in SY2009 compared to 9.9%
among all test-takers) and the higher representation
of girls in their numbers (49.8% compared
to 46.8% among all test-takers.
The high mobility among students at the early proficiency
levels could be indicative of a recent settlement
by these immigrant students but the absence
of data on time in the U.S. does not allow for this
analysis. The difference in the gender composition
of the students at the opposite levels of proficiency
is also remarkable and could indicate a more rapid
progression through the MEPA performance levels
on the part of females. These are both elements
for future study.
Other findings include:
• Assessing the level of English proficiency required
to pass MCAS ELA (an indicator of the
attainment of academic English), we found that
among elementary and middle school students
only those at MEPA Level 5 obtained pass rates
in ELA comparable to those of English proficient
students. Among high school LEP students,
those scoring at both Levels 4 and 5 of MEPA
had pass rates comparable to those of their
English proficiency peers.
• There are significant differences in the distribution
of English proficiency levels among students
in different programs. The distribution among
students not in ELL programs is skewed toward
the highest levels of English proficiency: 58.6%
of LEP students scored at MEPA Levels 4 and 5
while only 11.0% scored at MEPA Levels 1 and
2. This is the case across all grade levels. Among
students in ELL programs, English proficiency
levels are evenly distributed. This too is the case
across all grade levels.
• Trajectories of language acquisition among third,
sixth and ninth grade cohorts formed in SY2006
from students testing at MEPA Level 1 shows
that the most successful trajectory took place
among elementary school students, with close
to 25% reaching MEPA Levels 4 or 5 in three
years. High school students were the second
most advantaged group with 18.5% having
been “FLEPed,” having attained a MEPA performance
level of 4 or 5, or having graduated. The
trajectories of the Boston cohorts are similar to
those reflected in the research and confirm that
language acquisition takes significantly more
than three years for most students.
1 SIMS collects very limited information on immigrants,
using a narrow definition, for the purposes
of determining students’ eligibility for the federal
Emergency Immigrant Education Program. Immigrants
are defined as: a student who was not born in
any U.S. state (including Puerto Rico as a state) and
who must not have completed three full academic
years of school in any state. Thus, because of this
narrow definition of immigrants, we have not disaggregated
LEP students by immigrant status nor are
we able to report on immigrant generation number,
Puerto Rican students, time in the U.S., etc. because
these elements are not collected for SIMS.
2 See evidence summarized in various chapters in Genesee,
Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian (2006).
3 See MDESE, Massachusetts English Proficiency
Assessment (http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/mepa/)
Accessed 5/21/2011. Appendix 2 presents the proportion
of LEP students in grades 3-12 who took the
MEPA test in SY2006 to SY2009 and shows that the
overall compliance with MEPA testing has improved
in these four years, increasing from 81.1% to 85.1%.
In SY2009, 86.9% of LEP students in programs for
ELLs and 82.1% of those not in ELL programs took
the MEPA test
4 MEPA performance levels in this and subsequent
sections are aggregated into MEPA levels 1&2, 3,
and 4&5 at the request of BPS’s Office of English
Language Learners.
5 A full description of MCAS testing for LEP students
appears in Chapter VIII.
6 The performance of LEP students on MCAS will be
discussed in greater detail in Chapter VII.
7 Data are only available for four school years in the
dataset used in this study. Therefore, we are unable
to account for students’ MEPA performance prior to
SY06 in our trajectory analysis.
8 Of the students who remained at level 1, 75% were
students designated as having a disability
9 Of these, 51.8% were students identified as students
with disabilities.
10 Of these students, 17.8% were determined to be
students with disabilities.
Improving Educational Outcomes of English Language Learners in Schools and Programs in Boston Public Schools 47