"Monolingualizing" Community College Reforms and the Elimination of English Learner Supports in Georgia Higher Education

• In Event: English Learners and Community Colleges: Preparation, Engagement, Outcomes, and Policy in an Era of Reform

Abstract

English learners (ELs) graduate from high school and enroll in college at rates far lower than average. Yet research on EL college-going is sparse. We know that ELs enroll disproportionately in two year colleges with relatively poor records of retention and transfer to four year institutions. Accordingly, these colleges have recently been the target of reform efforts aiming to improve student retention and achievement. We currently have little information on how these reforms are affecting ELs. Since higher education systems vary widely by state, as do the shape of reforms states enact, more state case studies are needed to understand the impact of two-year college reforms on EL student admissions, learning support, and retention.

Georgia is a state that has enacted many reforms. It is also a state with an especially poor EL education record. For example, the EL high school graduation rate (56%) is starkly lower than state (79%) and national (83%) averages. In this context, developing college admission policies and support systems that lower impediments for ELs is particularly vital. Yet, we argue that recent much-vaunted Georgia college reforms may be doing the opposite, drastically curtailing or eliminating special admission policies and learning supports that formerly helped ELs in community colleges. We focus here on the effects of two major state reform initiatives: mergers of two year colleges into four year institutions, and Complete College initiatives.

We take a language education policy research approach which helps us to understand how national policy discourses are taken up in the context of specific state higher education institutions and ideologies regarding language and education. The study, which adopts a qualitative interpretive policy analysis methodological framework, began in January 2017 with reports of significant drops in EL enrollment in ESL programs across multiple colleges. Our entering research question was: How are changes in state two-year college policy changes affecting ESL programs and services for EL students in the University System of Georgia?

This longitudinal study is on-going. Current data includes interviews with 15 educators at four different institutions regarding their experiences with and perspectives on university policy changes and archived university system, college, and Complete College Georgia policy guideline documents collected over time from Fall 2016 through the present. Inductive analysis was initiated concurrently with data collection and continues through the present. Findings suggest that these two major interacting university reorganization and reform initiatives, in concert with prevalent state English-only and anti-immigrant ideologies, have worked together to create “monolingualist” policies, virtually eliminating specialized support for ELs in admissions, composition courses, tutoring, and advising.

Overall, we conclude that Georgia higher education reforms are acting as an uncontrolled experiment on its EL applicants and students in the state. While Georgia represents one case study, we point out that reforms enacted in one state milieu are often adopted elsewhere. We consider implications for future research and urge researchers, funders, and policymakers to carefully consider how proposed reform initiatives might be taken up by states in ways that create unintended consequences for EL student equity.

Authors

• Linda Harklau, University of Georgia

• Kate Batson, University of Georgia - Athens