Project Activities
The project team from WestEd and the Ohio state education agency (SEA) will conduct four overarching activities using state data from school year 2011–12 through 2024–25:
- Generate descriptive statistics and data visualizations to produce policy- and interest- holder-relevant findings on how EL students' ELP profiles change as they progress through school, including information on patterns in students' progression or plateaus in their reading, writing, listening, and speaking domain performance over time.
- Conduct descriptive quantitative analyses as well as qualitative interview and survey analyses to develop an expansive understanding of how LEAs differentiate resources, services and educational environments for English learners.
- Examine the impact of being classified as an EL student with emerging ELP (the lowest ELP level) in contrast with progressing ELP (the middle ELP level) on access to services, resources, and educational environments as well as students' math, English language arts, and ELP performance the following year and their probability of chronic absenteeism.
- Conduct heterogeneity analyses to analyze the extent to which the impacts on students' academic, ELP, and absenteeism outcomes vary by the ways in which schools and districts differentiate resources, services, and educational environments for EL students.
Structured Abstract
Setting
The study will take place in Ohio.
Sample
The study will include all multilingual learners (current EL students, former EL students, and students who were initially classified as fluent English proficient) in Ohio public kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) schools from school years 2011-12 through 2024-25 with a focus on students who are currently EL-classified as well as EL student groups of newcomer students, EL students with disabilities, and EL students with varying home languages.
As Ohio's LEAs see growth in the diverse EL student population they enroll, educators and administrators need supports and guidance to ensure that EL students are supported to access high-quality opportunities, progress in their ELP, and achieve academically. The Ohio SEA learned that LEAs allocate resources to EL students in response to their ELP levels. However, the Ohio SEA does not have sufficient information to support LEAs to make these decisions. Post-pandemic, EL students' ELP performance is lagging behind EL students' pre-pandemic performance, and their academic declines are more pronounced than for non-EL students. Given this trend, Ohio SEA aims to gather key information on EL students' experiences and outcomes to support their role in providing evidence-based guidance to support LEAs.
Research design and methods
The research team will use descriptive statistics and data visualizations to describe EL students' ELP profiles with a focus on how students' ELP domain performance (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) changes over time. The research team will use mixed methods to document the extent to which LEAs differentiate resources, services, and educational environments in response to multilingual learners' characteristics. They will also use a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to estimate the impact of being classified as an EL student with emerging ELP (the lowest ELP level) in contrast with progressing ELP (the middle ELP level) on access to services, resources, and educational environments and math, English language arts (ELA), ELP, and absenteeism outcomes the following year. They will estimate variation using heterogeneity and moderator analyses.
The researchers will use descriptive analyses to compare ELP domain performance longitudinally within EL students and to compare EL students' access to resources, services, and educational environments to other EL learners who are not EL classified. They will use causal analyses to compare EL students who are classified as having emerging ELP in comparison with EL students who are classified as having progressing ELP across multiple dimensions including access to resources, services, educational environments, and academic, ELP, and absenteeism outcomes.
Key measures
For select descriptive analyses, the outcome of interest is students' progression through reading, writing, speaking, and listening ELP domain performance levels over time. Resources, services, and educational environments examined include students' language instruction educational program model, time spent in English as a second language class, peer composition (including ELP level and academic performance), educators' EL-specific credentials, educator experience, student/teacher ratio, gifted and talented identification, and enrollment in core content and classes taught in a language other than English. For impact analyses, outcomes include students' ELA performance on the Ohio state assessment, students' spring summative ELP assessment performance, and the probability of chronic absenteeism.
Data analytic strategy
The research team will analyze descriptive statistics and data visualizations to describe how patterns in EL students' ELP domain performance suggest typical plateaus. The research team will analyze survey and interview data alongside descriptive quantitative SLDS (state longitudinal data system) analyses to build an understanding of how LEAs differentiate resources, services, and educational environments in response to EL students' characteristics. The research team will use results from a regression discontinuity design (RDD) study to conclude the extent to which students' ELP labels impact access to services, resources, and educational environments as well as academic, linguistic, and engagement outcomes. Heterogeneity analyses will reveal ways in which LEAs' differentiation of specific services, resources, or environments in response to ELP labels appears to foster differential impacts of ELP labels on student outcomes.
State decision making
The Ohio SEA wants to build their capacity to provide evidence-based support for LEAs to address obstacles to learning and close outcome gaps for EL students. The SEA is especially interested in understanding how to provide differentiated EL supports to strengthen EL students' access to high-quality instruction and subsequent ELP growth and their academic and engagement outcomes. The Ohio SEA's long-term goal is to provide the best possible supports to LEAs so that districts, schools, and educators can, in turn, better serve EL students.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Partner institutions
Ohio Department of Education
Products and publications
Products include reports and presentations for the Ohio SEA, guidance for Ohio EL program administrators and educators, a tool for LEAs to plot students' progression through ELP performance levels; infographics, peer-reviewed publications, and conference presentations.
Related projects
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
