English language

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) released a Fact Sheet on Ensuring Meaningful Participation in Advanced Coursework and Specialized Programs for Students Who Are English Learners (“Fact Sheet”), which is available here. The Fact Sheet provides data showing OCR found that students who are English Learners (“ELs”) have lower participation rates in specialized or advanced programs offered at elementary and secondary schools. OCR noted that schools must ensure eligibility for such programs, such as evaluation and testing procedures, do not screen out ELs because of their limited English proficiency, unless a program requires English proficiency for participation.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education (the “Department”) released guidance regarding services and resources for English learners (“ELs”) to be provided under the Every Student Succeeds Act (“ESSA”). ELs are among the fastest-growing populations in public schools in the United States, making up nearly 10 percent of the student population nationwide. A growing concern for the Department is the graduation rate of ELs; in the 2013-2014 school year, the high school graduation rate for ELs was 62.6 percent, which was almost twenty percentage points lower than the graduation rates of all students at 82.3 percent.