ESOL Educational Programs for Secondary SLIFE: Planning for Educational Equity

Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE) are a sub-group of English Learners (ELs). Policies related to the language education programming for secondary SLIFE in United States public brick and mortar schools were examined through applied policy research using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for document analysis. Documents for this analysis included the 1990 Florida Consent Decree, District English Language Learner (ELL) Plans, as well as district English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Programs, and a sampling of school based ESOL program information shared on public facing websites. The study focused on current practices in one state related to secondary SLIFE. Although demographic information is collected during student registration, it is not disaggregated at the school district or the state department of education. This results in evaluation of ESOL programming for positive impact conducted on an individual student basis. Information about ESOL Instructional Programs that are listed in the District ELL Plans is not available on either the district website or those of individual secondary schools which is not supportive of informed parental choice for their child’s education. Recommendations are made concerning the collection of information about students to inform programming for them as well as ways to increase the sharing of information between parents and their children’s schools