The Role of Course Concentration in English Learners’ Graduation and Postsecondary Outcomes

• In Event: Demystifying Systemic Barriers for Multilingual Adolescents: An Examination of State and Local Policies and Their Implications

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Framework
English learner (EL) course concentration, or the clustering of ELs into courses away from non-ELs, is an important but underexamined corollary of tracking. In comparison with the growing literature on EL access to content coursework (e.g., Author, 2016; Callahan, 2005, Johnson, 2019), we know much less about how classroom composition might shape ELs’ outcomes. Despite the strong theoretical and empirical arguments against segregation, schools often choose to concentrate ELs in courses due to legal requirements for specialized language services and assessments of ELs’ instructional needs (Gandara & Orfield, 2012). Recent work at the elementary level found negative or null relations between concentration, as measured by the percentage of ELs in a given student’s class, and a range of academic outcomes (Authors, 2024; Estrada et al., 2020). These findings challenge the common practice of concentrating ELs for instructional purposes in elementary school.

Our research questions speak to these matters at the secondary level: 1) Controlling for access to the general curriculum, to what extent does EL course concentration predict ELs’ high school graduation and college enrollment? and 2) Do these patterns differ by English proficiency and length of service before high school? This study was guided by an ecological perspective (e.g., Kramsch, 2002), which attends to context and interactions between context and individual learner.

Methods
We use multilevel logistic regression to differentiate between school- and individual-level components of course concentration, and to model both within-level and cross-level interactions. Our sample comprises three cohorts of ELs enrolled in NYC public schools as ninth graders in fall 2013, 2014, or 2015 (n = 23,903). Outcomes included 4- and 6-year graduation, immediate college enrollment after Grade 12, and enrollment within 5 semesters. We model associations between cumulative course concentration, as measured by the percentage of ELs in a given student’s content courses, controlling for content course access, as measured by the percent of content courses classified as mainstream or advanced (as opposed to ESL, remedial, or test preparatory). We include a range of other student- and school-level covariates.

Results
After accounting for content course access, we found negative, meaningfully large relationships between EL course concentration and all four outcomes. When ELs were highly concentrated in courses they had lower rates of 4- and 6-year graduation, as well as lower rates of immediate and delayed college enrollment. The degree of association differed by outcome and by subgroup, with larger negative associations for the two earlier outcomes (4-year graduation and immediate enrollment), for long-term ELs (LTELs), and for students with higher levels of proficiency (Tables 1 and 2). School-level associations of EL concentration were also consistently negative and larger in magnitude than the student-level coefficients.

Significance
This study was not designed to support causal interpretations; however, the consistency of negative associations across all outcomes challenges the instructional value of concentrating ELs at the secondary level, particularly for LTELs and ELs with higher proficiency. Course concentration appears to offer additional information about tracking not captured by course-taking data alone.

Authors

• Kristin Black, New York University

• Ben Le, New York University

• Ramy Abbady, New York University

• Coleen D. Carlson, University of Houston

• Jeremy Miciak, University of Houston

• Lindsay Romano, New York University

• David J. Francis, University of Houston

• Michael J. Kieffer, New York University