Schools
District's ESL Students Improve but Miss State Targets
Test scores found that English as a Second Language students, who make up about half of district population, fell just short of goals, but signs of improvement are expected in other performance evaluations.
Students in English as a Second Language (ESL) courses are showing improvements but did not reach state proficiency standards, said Assistant Superintendent Shelley Burgess at Thursday's school board meeting.
According to Burgess, 47 percent of the district's 7,700 students are enrolled in ESL courses.
Goals are set for schools that receive Title III No Child Left Behind federal funding, intended to help students with limited English proficiency, through three Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAO).
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The AMAO 1 measures the number of students considered capable to move from one ESL level to the next.
AMAO 2 measures the number of students moving into proficient or advanced levels of understanding English. These figure are split between students in the district less than five years and those in the district for five years or more.
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Student proficiency is determined at the beginning of the school year by California English Language Development Tests (CELDT), which are administered to all newly enrolled students whose native language is not English.
In the 2010-11 school year, 57 percent of students met AMAO 1 standards, exceeding a 54.6 percent goal.
For students in the district less than five years, 18.3 percent fulfilled AMAO 2 standards, just below a 18.7 percent AMAO objective.
For students in the district more than five years, 39.1 percent reached AMAO 2 standards, below a 43.2 percent goal.
In the 2009-10 school year, approximately 59 percent of SBUSD students met the AMAO 1 criteria and nearly 50 percent of students were considered “early advanced” or “advanced” in CELDT testing, the highest percentage ever attained by district students.
Though falling short in AMAO objectives this year, Assistant Superintendent Burgess presented a classroom survey taken earlier this year that suggests an overall growth in English language proficiency, she said, with many students meeting or exceeding expectations.
- Second Grade: 47 percent
- Third Grade: 57 percent
- Fourth Grade: 39 percent
- Fifth Grade: 48 percent
- Sixth Grade: 49 percent
Burgess also expects to see a rise in the number of students considered “proficient” or “advanced” in California Standardized Tests, from 38 percent in 2010 to 48 percent in 2011.
This 10 percent jump, Burgess argues, is indicative of significant growth among ESL enrolled students in the SBUSD.
