This report from MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy provides a demographic profile of students in grades 6-12 who are English Language Learners (ELLs). Authors Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, and Julie Murray also focus on how adolescent ELL students are faring on standardized tests at the national level and in four states: California, Colorado, Illinois, and North Carolina. The report concentrates on 8th grade, a critical year in determining whether students will eventually drop out of school. The authors find wide achievement gaps between ELL and other students at both national and state levels -- a finding with worrying implications for schools trying to meet requirements set out in the No Child Left Behind Act that all students be proficient in reading and math by 2014.

For more information, visit MPI's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy

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