Nation's Report Card: How ELLs Fared in 2011

From http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2011/11/nations_report_card_how_ells_f.html

Nation's Report Card: How ELLs Fared in 2011
By Lesli Maxwell
November 2, 2011

The 2011 NAEP results are out and the news is somewhat promising in math and disappointing in reading.

Let's take a look at how English-language learners fared on this year's exam. In 4th-grade reading, 70 percent of ELLs scored below basic and 7 percent were at or above proficient, an ever so slight uptick from 2009 when those percentages were 71 and 6, respectively. In 8th grade reading, 71 percent of ELLs were below basic and just 3 percent scored at or above proficient. In 2009, 75 percent of 8th grade ELLs were below basic, with 3 percent scoring at or above proficient.

In 4th grade math, 42 percent of ELLs were below basic (compared to 43 percent in 2009) while 14 percent were at or above proficient (compared to 12 percent in 2009). In 8th grade, 72 percent scored below basic and 5 percent were at or above proficient, which represents no change from 2009.

But just how reflective of the overall ELL population were NAEP test takers in 2011?

Read on at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2011/11/nations_report_card_how_ells_f.html