Poster #42 - Waived English Learners: The Understudied Intersection of English Learner Status and Special Education Status

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

The number of U.S. school-age English learners (ELs)—students in the process of English language development while learning grade-level content in English—is rapidly growing and currently exceeds 5 million (U.S. Department of Education, 2021). While the EL population is by no means new in the U.S., certain areas of the country known as new destination states (e.g., Tennessee, Virginia) have been experiencing an unprecedented growth of ELs (McFarland et al., 2019). When students are identified as ELs, their parents have the legal right to waive English language support services. This EL subgroup is also known as Waived ELs. Especially in Tennessee, the significant growth of not only ELs in general but also Waived ELs (i.e., 146% increase from 2010 to 2021) warrants research focused on ELs’ educational outcomes by their waiver status.

In addition, emerging research at the intersection of EL and special education (SPED) services suggest that the two programs are often perceived to be competing needs, where SPED services tend to be prioritized over English language support services for ELs with disabilities (Schissel & Kangas, 2018). Waived ELs’ SPED representation has rarely been studied in the field. To our knowledge, this is the first study to longitudinally explore the likelihood and timing of SPED placement by ELs' waiver status. With ELs’ increasing representation across the U.S., the findings from this study will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of ELs in SPED services and how ELs’ waiver status relates to SPED representation.

We examined Waived ELs at the understudied intersection of EL and SPED status. Using longitudinal Tennessee data from 2010 to 2021, we used discrete-time hazard modeling to explore ELs’ representation in SPED services by their waiver status (i.e., ever-waived EL vs. never-waived EL). We report two key findings. First, ELs’ likelihood of SPED placement—and for language-related disability categories such as specific learning disability (SLD) and speech-language impairment (SLI)—varied by their waiver status. Compared to never-waived EL peers, ever-waived ELs were overrepresented in overall SPED and specifically for SLD and SLI. Although not much is known about ever-Waived ELs’ representation in SPED in the field, their overrepresentation in SPED relative to their similarly situated never-Waived ELs (suggested by covariate-adjusted outcomes) suggests that the parental decision to waive English language support services may be related to parents’ prioritization of SPED services over English language services, especially in SLD (64% more likely than never-Waived ELs) followed by SLI (33% more likely than never-Waived ELs). Second, both waiver groups reached peak likelihood of SPED and SLD placement at the start of upper elementary years (i.e., third grade, immediately after primary years (K-2)) and the likelihoods declined overtime, toward middle grades. In contrast, the likelihood of SLI identification steadily declines over time starting in kindergarten, indicating that regardless of waiver status, ELs generally start kindergarten already having been identified with SLI or are identified with SLI soon after starting school. We conclude by discussing implications for practice and policy.

Authors

• Min Hyun Oh, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author

• Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, Vanderbilt University