A Focus on Newcomer English Learners: Language Development and Credit Recovery Through San Francisco Unified School District EL Village

• In Event: The Promise and Challenges of a College-Ready Graduation Policy: Lessons From San Francisco

Abstract

Objective: One in every ten students enrolled in US public schools is an English Learner (EL). High school ELs have lower four-year graduation rates and college attendance rates than their English-proficient counterparts (Kanno & Cromley, 2013). Tailored curricula and services are needed to ensure that ELs succeed in high school and postsecondary pursuits. SFUSD’s EL Village is an academic program serving newcomer ELs. The program offers ELs recently arriving in the US summer opportunities to develop academic and language skills while earning credits toward graduation. This project measures the impact of EL Village. Our research questions were: How did EL Village affect newcomer ELs’ 1) course-taking, 2) four-year and five-year graduation rates, and 3) English proficiency, ELA standardized test scores, and attendance?

Framework: Previous research attributes ELs’ lower graduation rates to limited access to academic content. EL Village aims to expand access and encourage collaboration among teachers and ELs. If the program has been effective, we would expect participants to take more core courses, show higher motivation for learning, and have higher English proficiency and ELA achievement in the subsequent year. Ultimately, we expect participants to graduate within four or five years at higher rates compared to their peers.

Methods: Registration for EL Village was primarily done by counselors who targeted students needing extra support. This selection may bias results from a direct comparison of program participants to non-participants. To control for confounding factors, we leveraged a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) design. This design identifies pre-program and post-program trends in eligible students and ineligible students (long-term ELs or cohorts who graduated before program implementation), and then subtracts the pre-post difference of the comparison group from the EL Village group. The resulting triple difference is an unbiased estimate of program impact.

The DDD analysis was performed on a sample of 41,625 EL and non-EL students in graduating classes of 2009 through 2016. We controlled for students’ age, sex, and ethnicity. The outcomes examined include:
1. number of ELA, math, and science courses taken during grades 9 to 12;
2. graduating before August following 12th grade and 13th grade; and
3. CELDT scores, ELA score, and unexcused absences in the following year.

Findings: We found that EL Village increased the number of ELA classes taken by 0.6 but did not significantly change the number of math or science classes. The probability of graduating in four years did not change, but five-year graduation rates increased by a significant 5 percentage points compared to ineligible ELs. We also found suggestive evidence that EL Village raised CELDT speaking scores and ELA achievement and reduced 5 unexcused absences.

Significance: This is the first study to examine the impact of summer credit recovery on ELs. Our analyses demonstrate that programs similar to EL Village are likely to increase newcomer EL achievement and attainment. Results may be helpful in funding discussions as evidence of program impact and support a data-driven decision-making process.

Authors

• Angela Johnson, NWEA

• Jennifer Fong, San Francisco Unified School District