What Matters for Staying on Track and Graduating: A Focus on English Language Learners

• In Event: Research to Improve Education for English Language Learners Through University-District Collaboration

Abstract

Although English language learners have recently made important gains in test scores, they still lag far behind their non-ELL peers in graduation rates. Nationally, only 10% of English-speaking students drop out of high school compared to 31% of students who speak a language other than English at home (NCES, 2004). Early identification of and intervention with ELL students who may be at risk of dropping out of high school is essential for improving their low graduation rates. Many states and districts have begun to implement early warning systems that allow them to identify at-risk students at much earlier points in their high school career. These early warning systems are based on research showing the importance of ninth grade course performance for predicting graduation, and they flag at risk students based ninth-grade absences, grades, and other factors. But an understanding of whether course performance indicators can be used in the same way for ELL students who are at risk of dropping out is not well known.
This study looks at the ninth grade course performance of current and former ELL students who were first-time freshmen in a large, urban Midwestern district in 2004, and examines whether these indicators are as predictive of graduation for ELL students as for the general population. Our main focus is on Hispanic students because they represent 80% of the ELL population in this district. Our methods include descriptive statistics and hierarchical linear models.
Findings show that among Hispanic students, current ELLs have lower grades, fail more classes and have higher absences than long-term proficient students (proficient for at least four years), but the differences are not large. And current ELLs fail fewer classes and attend school more regularly than recently proficient Hispanic students (proficient within the last three years) and never-ELL Hispanic students, but again the differences are not large. Patterns in five-year graduation rates are quite different: current ELLs have substantially lower graduation rates than recently proficient, long-term proficient, and never-ELL students.
Despite different patterns in course taking and graduation rates, ninth-grade course performance indicators are similarly good predictors of graduation for current ELLs, former ELLs and students who were never ELL; across all ELL categories, freshman on-track students are 2-2½ times more likely to graduate than off-track students. Although there are higher chances of graduating for all on-track students, on-track current ELLs do graduate at lower rates – only 81% of current ELLs do so compared to 91% of long-term proficient and never-ELL students.
Although NCLB has placed a focus on subpopulations of students, many districts are first beginning to understand the performance patterns of their ELL student population. This research helps states and districts understand that they can implement their early warning systems in similar ways for their ELL students as for their overall ninth-grade population. Focusing on freshman absences, course-taking patterns, and course failures can lead to increased graduation rates for current ELL students in similar ways as it does for the more general population of high school freshmen.

Authors

• Julia A. Gwynne, University of Chicago

• Stacy B. Ehrlich, University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research

• Amber Stitziel Pareja, Consortium on Chicago School Research At The University of Chicago

• Elaine M. Allensworth, University of Chicago