0.7 Gallegos, c., & Wise, d. (september 2011). leadership for  (Page 10/18)

Research design

This correlational population study examined the achievement levels of public school students attending elementary schools over time. The archived data from two criterion-referenced tests were used in this study: the CELDT and the California Standards Test (CST). Each is administered annually. The CELDT measures language proficiency in English and is given annually in the fall, whereas the CSTs measure academic achievement relative to standards and are given in the spring. All English learners and students who may be classified as English learners take the CELDT, but only elementary students in grades 2-6 take the CSTs. Only the overall English language arts scores from the CSTs and the overall scores from the CELDT were utilized for the current study. The data were publicly available for download from the California Department of Education’s website, Dataquest.

Data from the CELDT were downloaded only for 2006-07 and beyond because a common scale for the scores was not established until that time. As a result the scores from previous years may have had limited comparability.

During the time period on which this study focused, there were a total of 372 elementary schools in the three target California counties. The counties were chosen for their location and the population unique to that area which is a region of high English leraner populations. To be identified as part of the sample set of elementary schools, the school not only had to serve Kindergarten through 6th grade, it also had to have an English learner population greater than 100 students in each of the five testing years. In addition, school achievement data, as well as language acquisition and reclassification data, needed to be available for all the target years. In the initial collection of data, totals for students who were initially tested to determine if they would be classified as English learners were not included if their results indicated they were ultimately classified as Initially Fluent English Proficient (IFEP) and, therefore, were not English learners.

Population

In County A, 61 schools in seven separate districts met the criteria for inclusion. Of those 61 schools, only 19 schools did not have a 100% free and reduced lunch percentage. Only two of those 19 fell below a 67% rate of free and reduced lunches.

In County B, only nine schools, all within the same district, met the criteria for inclusion. The percentage of students reported as participating in the free and reduced lunch program varied across the school from as low as 53% to as much as 95% of the school population.

In County C, 20 schools in four different districts met the criteria for inclusion. Of those 20 schools, 10 reported 100% participation in the free and reduced lunch program. The percentage of students reported as participating in the free and reduced lunch program in the remaining 10 schools varied from as low as 65% to as high as 97%.

Statistical analyses and results

In this study, the group achievement of English Learners was compared to the group language proficiency level, to the achievement of the overall school population, and to the percentage of English learners enrolled at a school site. Additionally, reclassification rates were examined in relation to both group achievement and the percentage of EL enrollment.