The Need
English learners are the fastest growing segment of the public school population in the United States. The National Education Association (NEA) predicts that by 2025 one in four students in the U.S. will be from homes where a language other than English is spoken. California has already reached this threshold. Moreover, California public schools educate over one-third of the nation’s English Learners ( Source: California Legislative Analyst’s Office report, 2007-08.)
Critical Need in California
Of California’s 6.3 million public school students in 2008-2009, 1.5 million (24%) were considered English learners (EL) and an additional 19 percent were former English Learners, meaning that 43 percent of the state’s school children come from non-English speaking backgrounds. Although the vast majority of ELs in the state are Spanish-speaking (85%), more than 50 languages are represented in the state’s EL population. (Source: California Department of Education Dataquest)
In a 2005 survey of over 5,000 California teachers, Patricia Gandara (former faculty in the School, now at UCLA) and Julie Maxwell-Jolly, (former director of the School’s Center for Applied Policy in Education), found that most of the teachers they surveyed felt ill-prepared to meet the needs of English learners in their classrooms.
