In this investigation, Kristin J. Davin analyzes current and former emergent bilingual learners' decisions to take or not take a language proficiency assessment in a home language to pursue a Seal of Biliteracy (SoBL). The SoBL is a policy adopted in forty states to counteract English-only ideologies by recognizing students who graduate high…

Speakers of languages other than English are positioned as problems within education systems and 'low' academic English proficiency is viewed as something to be fixed. Alternative education programs are typically viewed as punitive, substandard, exclusionary academic settings. Therefore, speakers of languages other than English (ELs) enrolled in…

Nationwide, one-third of children ages 5 and under have at least one parent who speaks a language other than English. These Dual Language Learners (DLLs) are an incredibly diverse and growing group of young children, and with the right support these preschoolers have the potential to develop as multilingual and multiliterate individuals. Yet…

The population of Spanish-speaking preschoolers in the United States continues to increase and there is a significant need to develop psychometrically sound early language and literacy screening measures to accurately capture children's ability in Spanish. In this paper, we describe the innovative design and calibration process of the new…

This fact sheet provides demographic information for the young Dual Language Learner (DLL) population in Minnesota, based on Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis of U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) data pooled over the 2011-15 period. DLLs, defined as children ages 8 and under with at least one parent who speaks a language…

Today, English language learners (ELLs)--students whose primary language is other than English--are the fastest-growing major school population in the United States. Between 2000-01 and 2010-11, the number of these students, whose level of English proficiency is not sufficient to support learning in a regular English language classroom, rose 18…

This report presents stories of six teachers who believe in the power and promise of immigrant students and English language learners. Their stories begin to help readers understand the assets these groups of students bring to classrooms, the challenges they--both students and teachers--face, and the role that teachers and schools play in their…

The early 1980s saw an influx of Southeast Asian refugees from various demographic groups and backgrounds to Minnesota. As teachers, the author and her colleagues regularly added children from these groups to their classrooms, receiving little explanation of a student's history or language proficiency. To counteract increasing teacher resentment…

This report on model learner outcomes for world languages education is divided into five sections. The first describes the values, philosophy, mission, and goals of the Minnesota State Board of Education. The second section provides an introduction to and information on the goals of world languages education. Section three presents a range of…

Reports on the Minnesota Articulation Project, providing an overview of the projects' three principal working groups: political action, curriculum, and assessment. The article then outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the proficiency-based assessment instruments developed in French, German, and Spanish and describes in detail the content and…

English language learners (ELLs) were once expected to learn English before they learned critical content needed to succeed in school, but this is longer true, because now federal education laws require that ELLs be held to the same academic standards as other students. There are, however, requirements to assess and document progress on tests of…

Minnesota is one of many states that began development of an English proficiency test before federal requirements were in place to do so. It had decided to put into place a test that would provide the state with a better and more uniform gauge of how its population of English language learners (ELLs) was doing in their acquisition of academic…

This report provides an analysis of the participation and performance of students with limited English proficiency (LEP) in the 1996, 1997, and 1998 Basic Standards of Reading and Math tests given to all 8th grade students in Minnesota annually. There is very limited availability of data on the performance of LEP students on these tests because…

In the assessment literature, a general recommendation has been to disaggregate scores and other data for students with limited English proficiency (LEP). This has rarely been done for most non-English language background (NELB) students in the United States, with the partial exception of Spanish speakers. Nationwide Spanish speakers make up the…