English learners (Els), defined as students who are identified as needing support learning English in school, are a rapidly growing and underperforming segment of the public school population. Schools in new immigrant destinations, that is, areas in the United States that traditionally have not had a large immigrant population, are having to create new structures and policies to support and instruct Els. This study focuses on the schooling experiences of English learners in North Carolina, one new immigrant destination. Specifically, this study documents two classroom characteristics: the extent to which Els are segregated from native English speakers and whether Els have access to teachers who have an English as a Second Language teaching credential or experience teaching Els. Additionally, it estimates the relationship between these two classroom characteristics and achievement using OLS regression and regression with school and student fixed effects. Results include that: 1) Els are largely integrated with native English speakers; that is, they are typically enrolled in classes where the majority of their peers are native English speakers; 2) Less that 5% of Els are taught by an ESL credentialed teacher but over 50% of Els are taught by an El experienced teacher 3) There is little evidence that being assigned to a segregated class or an ESL credentialed teacher impacts math or reading achievement; and 4) There is evidence that being assigned an El experienced teacher has a positive impact on math and reading achievement. Implications from this study include that policy makers in new immigrant destinations should focus on strengthening the English as a Second Language credentialing process, providing more hand-on training for teachers of Els, helping Els reclassify as English proficient before they reach middle school, and supporting schools where Els comprise a small proportion of the population.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07092015-110345 |
| Date | 29 July 2015 |
| Creators | Torre, Daniela |
| Contributors | Stella Flores, Joseph Murphy, Gary Henry, Katharine Donato |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07092015-110345/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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