Who Swims? A Longitudinal Analysis of Bilingual Programs in a Large Urban School District

• In Event: Understanding and Extending the Advantages of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education

Abstract

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) is the seventh largest district in the United States and an archetype for bilingual education. Based on longitudinal data compiled by the Houston Education Research Consortium, this study follows the HISD kindergarten cohort of 2007–08 through its fourth grade year in 2011–12 to evaluate achievement outcomes of Latino English Language Learner (ELL) students across four bilingual conditions: two-way bilingual immersion, one-way developmental, traditional, and English mainstream for students who opted out of bilingual education. This study will utilize survival analysis to examine the amount of time needed to reach English proficiency, and multilevel models to determine which bilingual condition is associated with the highest achievement on norm-referenced assessments in Spanish and English.

Author

• Sandra Alvear, Rice University