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Top Takeaways
- Newsom proposed to only consider students “at risk of becoming a long-term English learner” if they’ve been enrolled for six years.
- Educators, advocates say that’s too late to catch kids whose English proficiency is lagging.
- The Assembly Subcommittee on Education Finance voted to reject the proposal.
Educators, advocates and the state’s largest teachers’ union warn that a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom could delay help for students struggling to learn English.
Newsom is seeking to change how the state defines students who are “at risk of becoming long-term English Learners” and “long-term English learners.” He included the change in legislation attached to his January budget proposal, commonly known as a “trailer bill.”
Students who take longer to become proficient in English often face barriers to enrolling in college-preparatory courses and electives in middle and high school. Long-term English learners are currently defined in two different ways in the state’s accountability “dashboard” and its enrollment information database, Dataquest, which can be confusing for school districts. Newsom’s proposal would have all systems use just one definition: students who have not achieved English proficiency within seven years.
What has sparked more controversy is that the proposal would also change the definition of students “at risk of becoming long-term English learners” to include only students who have not reached English proficiency within six years. Currently, students are considered “at risk” of becoming long-term English learners if they have been enrolled in school for four or five years, score at the intermediate level or below on the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC) and below grade-level standards on the state English language arts achievement test.
The change to the “at risk” definition sparked immediate protest. Advocates and leaders from multiple English learner advocacy organizations, school districts and county offices of education and the California Teachers Association signed a letter opposing the change, arguing that the shift could delay the support needed to prevent students from becoming long-term English learners.
“What we don’t want to happen is that folks aren’t aware of the urgency with a fourth grader or a fifth grader that’s not on track to reclassify. We need to intervene, we need to act, we need to get to the bottom of the why,” said Veronika Lopez-Mendez, executive director of the Multilingual Education Department at the San Diego Unified School District. “It’s too late for us to start waving the flag and saying something’s wrong if we wait until sixth grade.”
In their letter, the advocates and educators proposed redefining students “at risk of becoming long-term English learners” to include those who have been in school for four years and scored at Level 2 or below on the ELPAC, or who have been in school for five to six years and scored at Level 3 or below on the ELPAC. They said this approach aligns with California’s English Learner Progress Indicator, which suggests English learners should advance at least one level per year.
Not flagging children in fourth or fifth grade misses a critical window for intervention while they are still in elementary school, said Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, strategic adviser for Californians Together, a nonprofit that advocates for English learners.
“We know that in fourth and fifth grade, if we know who the students are, and they’re all with the same teacher all year long, that teacher is going to be able to target their needs and help them accelerate,” Spiegel-Coleman said.
The Assembly Subcommittee on Education Finance voted Tuesday to reject the proposal and refer it to the Education Committee as a separate bill, not attached to the budget, so it can be considered more carefully. The Senate is still considering the proposal.
“Certainly this is something that raised eyebrows, that it was through the budget process rather than through a policy committee,” said Assemblymember Darshana Patel, D-San Diego, during the hearing.
Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, leads the subcommittee that rejected the proposal.
“Expediting state-level data dashboard publications is not the core value for how we define our Long Term English Language Learners,” he said in a statement. “The trailer bill proposal has no budget nexus and is a very sensitive, complex policy proposal impacting hundreds of thousands of students learning English as a second language.”
Sade Neri, finance budget analyst for the California Department of Finance, also at the hearing, said that the intent behind the proposal was to align with research showing that students take between five and seven years to learn English proficiently, “and to give students closer to the end of that time period to learn English.”
However, she added that the administration is aware of the concerns and plans to take them into consideration for the governor’s May revision to his budget proposal, expected to be announced this week.
