Full Report - Center for Collaborative Education

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In Sum In this section we explored the MCAS outcomes of LEP students and the relationships of various factors to those outcomes. Assessing the pass rates of all LEP students, between SY2006-SY2009, we found that there is evidence that there have been strong gains in academic achievement as measured by the MCAS across all areas. ELA, Math and Science Pass Rates have risen at every grade level without exception and gaps between LEP and EP students have declined. But in spite of this advance, the pass rates remain very low and the gaps remain wide. Taking language proficiency into account shows that, as expected, MCAS scores are very low among students scoring at MEPA performance levels 1 through 3. Once MEPA Level 5 is reached the outcomes of LEP students out-strip those of EP students across all subjects in Grade 4, in Math in Grade 8, and in ELA and Science in Grade 10 and in those subjects in which EP students outscore LEP students, the gaps remain below 6 percentage points. Significant differences in student achievement among LEP students of different demographic characteristics, in schools of different characteristics and in different types of programs were found. • With respect to the individual factors that proved to be significant, we found that English proficiency and disability were significant in MCAS ELA pass rates at all grade spans. Mobility was significant in the MCAS ELA pass rates of elementary and middle school students and in the Math pass rates of middle schoolers. Gender proved significant in the MCAS pass rates of LEP students at the elementary and high school levels. Significant differences in the attendance rates of LEP students who passed/did not pass MCAS tests in all areas were also found, where those who passed MCAS showing higher attendance rates than those who did not. • Although there were apparent differences between students in ELL and not in ELL programs, this difference proved significant only in the MCAS Math pass rates of elementary school students. • The proportion of LEPs in a school was significant with respect to LEP students’ outcomes in all subjects and grade levels except elementary MCAS ELA pass rates. AYP also proved significant in the outcomes of all subjects and grades except high school ELA pass rates. Poverty status, size and the proportion of teachers licensed in their teaching assignment were broadly significant. Regression analysis supported the findings that language proficiency and designation as a student with disabilities were important in explaining the variation in the ELA and Math MCAS scores of LEP in all grade spans. In its analysis of the relative importance of individual and school factors in the variation of pass rates of LEP students, we found that (1) across grade spans and subjects, individual student factors were more important in explaining the variation in LEP student academic achievement but that (2) program and school factors become more important in explaining this variation as grade level increases. 84 Improving Educational Outcomes of English Language Learners in Schools and Programs in Boston Public Schools
1 Massachusetts meets the requirements of Chapter 386 and no Child Left Behind for the assessment of the English proficiency of LEP students in Grades 2 through 12 with the Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment (MEPA), which was discussed in Chapter V of this report (Massachusetts Department of Education, 2008b). 2 De Jong, Gort, and Cobb (2005, p. 598) report that in SY2003, the year prior to the implementation of Question 2, the best performance for ELLs statewide was in 3rd grade reading, where 70% passes MCAS ELA and the worst performance was in eighth grade MCAS Math, where the pass rate was only 30%. 3 The table reports on those students who took both the MEPA test AnD the MCAS test in the specific content area. Appendix 2 presents the comparison of the n of students in grades at each grade level, the MCAS test-takers, the MEPA test-takers and the MCAS AnD MEPA test-takers in SY2009. 4 In order to show MCAS pass rates of various categories of LEP students (by ELL program type, English proficiency level, etc.) we report on middle school test-takers henceforth in this chapter. numbers of test-takers were too small to reliably present MCAS pass rates for eighth grade test-takers alone or to maintain student confidentiality. The exception to this is MCAS Science pass rates, as this subject is only tested in eighth grade at the middle school level. 5 High school here includes tenth graders only. 6 These findings are reflective of the findings of other researchers reviewed at the start of this chapter: language proficiency (Dawson & Williams, 2008; Hao & Bonstead-Bruns, 1998; Wang et al., 2007); designation as a student with disabilities (Wang et al., 2007). Along school-level variables, our findings agree with those researchers who have found significance in the school size (Lee & Bryk, 1989; Lee & Smith, 1999; Rumberger & Palardy, 2005; Wang et al., 2007; Werblow & Duesbery, 2009), school poverty level (Braun et al., 2006; Hao & Bonstead-Bruns, 1998; Lee & Smith, 1999; Werblow & Duesbery, 2009), LEP density (Werblow & Duesbery, 2009), proportion of mobile students (Rumberger & Palardy, 2005; Rumberger& Thomas, 2000); and the percentage of teachers who are highly qualified/percentage of teachers who are licensed in their subject (Braun et al. 2006; Munoz & Chang, 2008; Rumberger & Palardy, 2005; Rumberger& Thomas, 2000). 7 neither attendance rate nor gender demonstrates a statistically significant relationship with ELA achievement at either the elementary or middle school level. 8 The relationship between AYP and MCAS ELA scores is not statistically significant at the high school level. 9 The relationship between the proportion of lowincome students at a school and MCAS ELA is not statistically significant at either the elementary or high school level. Improving Educational Outcomes of English Language Learners in Schools and Programs in Boston Public Schools 85
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Center for Collaborative Education
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This report, Improving Educational
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VII. DROPPING OUT 48 A. What Are th
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CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION
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Language Learners (OELL) has attemp
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CHAPTER II. THE STUDY
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epresented by the blocks in differe
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Table 2. Variables, Definitions, an
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CHAPTER III. ENROLLMENT AND CHARACT
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Figure 1. Change in Enrollment of S
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Native speakers of Haitian Creole a
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In Sum Following a swift decline in
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One of the foci of this study is th
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School Poverty Rate. Income status
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ed a significantly smaller proporti
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In Sum In this chapter we focused o
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One of the deepest and most far-rea
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the transfer of large numbers of LE
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education. There are no studies of
Page 39 and 40: IN DEPTH: Enrollment of English Lan
Page 41 and 42: Table 14. Nature of Primary Disabil
Page 43 and 44: choices. From the data gathered, it
Page 45 and 46: Becoming fully literate in English,
Page 47 and 48: Populations focused upon in this an
Page 49 and 50: Table 19. English Proficiency Level
Page 51 and 52: who attained the level of English p
Page 53 and 54: ed among those LEP students scoring
Page 55 and 56: High dropout rates among Boston Pub
Page 57 and 58: B What Is the Annual High School Dr
Page 59 and 60: C What Are the Rates of Attendance,
Page 61 and 62: Table 26. Median Attendance Rates o
Page 63 and 64: Table 29. Attendance, Out-of-School
Page 65 and 66: Table 31. Annual High School Dropou
Page 67 and 68: In Sum This chapter has focused on
Page 69 and 70: The tests of the Massachusetts Comp
Page 71 and 72: student achievement (Rumberger, 199
Page 73 and 74: Table 34. MCAS Math Pass Rates of S
Page 75 and 76: Table 36. MCAS ELA, Math, and Scien
Page 77 and 78: Pass Rates in MCAS ELA, Math, and S
Page 79 and 80: IN DEPTH: Attendance Rates of MCAS
Page 81 and 82: portions of core academic courses t
Page 83 and 84: D What are the MCAS ELA and Math Pa
Page 85 and 86: LEP Students at MEPA Performance Le
Page 87 and 88: school that they attend; if student
Page 89: Results: English Language Arts In a
Page 93 and 94: A Overall Findings and General Reco
Page 95 and 96: Designation as student with a disab
Page 97 and 98: B Specific Findings and Recommendat
Page 99 and 100: Recommendation 7: Parents of LEP st
Page 101 and 102: Recommendation 14: Monitor indicato
Page 103 and 104: (2) We found instances in which stu
Page 105 and 106: Recommendation 30: The quality of i
Page 107 and 108: Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (201
Page 109 and 110: Nathan, J., & Thao, S. (2007). Smal
Page 111 and 112: Vaznis, J. (2011, Sept. 18). US fin
Page 113 and 114: Overview The report sought to answe
Page 115 and 116: Table 1. Variables, Definitions and
Page 117 and 118: In TBE learn solely in English. In
Page 119 and 120: Table 2: Variables, Definitions and
Page 121 and 122: ! ! ! 5. Limitations of the Data Wh
Page 123 and 124: Table 8: MCAS ELA Pass Rates of LEP
Page 125 and 126: Table 10. Variables Considered in H
Page 127 and 128: APPENDIX 2: Additional Tables and F
Page 129 and 130: ! Table 3.2. Characteristics of Eng
Page 131 and 132: ! ! Table 6.3. English Proficiency
Page 133 and 134: ! Table 7.3. Attendance, Out-of-Sch
Page 135 and 136: ! ! ! Figure 8.3. Science Pass Rate
Page 137 and 138: Table 8.2. MCAS Math Pass Rates for
Page 139 and 140: APPENDIX 3: Characteristics and Out
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! ! ! ! ! ! Table 4. MCAS ELA and M
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A discussion of our HLM analyses of
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ELA scores on average than LEP stud
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Improving Educational Outcomes of E
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