Improving Understanding of English Learner Education Through an Expanded Analytic Framework

Abstract

Existing analytic frameworks used to analyze and report on English learner (EL) students have important limitations that complicate the efforts of policymakers, practitioners, and researchers to fully understand this group’s experiences and outcomes and respond accordingly. To address this issue, we argue that education agencies should report and analyze outcomes for four categories of students: current ELs, former ELs, ever ELs (the combined group of current and former ELs), and never ELs. We present empirical data from six applications of our proposed four-category framework, illustrating the insights it provides.