Informing Public Scholarship on Multilingual and English Language Learners: Understanding Federal Education Policies and Data

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium explores the recursive, iterative interaction between education policy and data for English language learners (ELLs) in the three segments. In the first segment, one speaker discusses the civil rights and landmark legal decisions, while the other focuses on federal policies, programs, and accountability to ensure equity in education for ELLs. The first discussant highlights the importance of understanding federal policies by education researchers. Following three speakers presenting a wide range of ELL data collected by the federal agencies, the second discussant comments on the federal data available to second language researchers. In the final segment, the chair facilitates a discussion to explore how federal data informs policy and how legal decisions and federal policies can affect education research.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Second Language Research

Chair

• Peggy G. Carr, National Center for Education Statistics/IES, U.S. Department of Education

Papers

• Legal Decisions on the Education of English Language Learners and the Office for Civil Rights - James Ferg-Cadima, U.S. Department of Education

• Office of English Language Acquisition: Mission, Programs, and Policies - Carlos Martinez, U.S. Department of Education

• Civil Rights Data Collection and National Center for Education Statistics Administrative Data on English Language Learners - Joel McFarland, National Center for Education Statistics

• NAEP: English Language Learner Student Achievement and Online Tools - Grady Wilburn, U.S. Department of Educaiton

• The Condition of Education and National Center for Education Statistics Survey Data on English Language Learners - Amy D Yamashiro, National Center for Education Statistics; Linda Hamilton, U.S. Department of Education

Discussants

• Kenji Hakuta, Stanford University

• Diane L. August, American Institutes for Research