Defining an Adequate Education for English Learners

Inform Solutions to California’s Education Problems, ” which designed to provide California’s policy-makers and other education stakeholders with the comprehensive information they need to raise student achievement and reposition California as an education leader. The project was directed by Susanna Loeb of Stanford University with funding provided by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and The Stuart Foundation. We would like to acknowledge the guidance and support of Susanna Loeb through the duration of this study and Kenji Hakuta for providing helpful comments on an earlier draft of this report. 1 In order to meet the same challenging standards and to have the opportunity to achieve the same educational outcomes, some students need more support and resources than others. Students who come from households where a language other than English is spoken are one of those categories of students. Although some arrive at school already proficient in English, most linguistic minority (LM) students are not yet proficient in English when they start school. These students, referred to as English learners (EL)1, require additional resources and support in orde