¡Ya Basta!: Challenging Restrictions on English Language Learners

During the last decade, the population of children entering U.S. schools unable to speak English grew by 40 percent. One in ten pre-K-12 students, a total of 5.3 million, are categorized as English Language Learners (ELLs). This large number of students is directly a result of the large wave of immigration over the last fifteen years. Those new immigrants gave birth to "new-Americans," children born in the United States with full citizenship rights but born into non-English-speaking families. Therefore, the number of ELLs is not expected to diminish and is projected to increase by some 20 percent in the next decade. The achievement gap between them and their English-speaking peers has not contracted, with ELL students underperforming by 30 percent to 50 percent compared to their English-speaking white peers at almost every grade on national and state assessments. In almost all instances, this is the case even if you control for median family income and other indicators of social class. The education of ELL students in the United States need not remain a story of underachievement. Research points to effective methods for turning around their educational trajectory. Unfortunately, however, ELL policy remains mired in political ideology that restricts its potential and blocks its supposed intentions.