ELL students in U46 exceed state standards

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

ELGIN — English Language Learners in School District U46 have exceeded all standards set for them by the state, according to the 2010 Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives report card recently released by the Illinois State Board of Education.

More than twice as many ELL students in U46 gained English language proficiency and tested out of ELL services last year (15.8) than the state standard (6 percent), according to that report card. And 99 percent of students considered Limited English Proficient in the Elgin school district made progress in learning the English language — eight points higher than the state target.

“This report card shows how hard our students and our staff are working. Their success is something to celebrate and build on,” U46 Superintendent José Torres said.

“One of our goals is to improve student performance and eliminate achievement gaps, and this is certainly a step in the right direction.”

Those numbers also are a jump over the Elgin school district’s scores last year, when 10 percent of its ELL students gained proficiency and 58 percent made progress, according to the 2009 Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives report card online.

Their proficiency and progress are determined by a statewide English proficiency examination, as well as students’ performance on regular assessments such as the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) and the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAT), U46 said.

Limited English Proficiency students also made adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act on the 2010 State Report Card, the school district noted. That means 77.5 percent of those students met state standards in both reading and math on standardized tests in 2010.

Those U46 students had not made AYP last year, according to the 2009 State Report Card, also online.

This year’s success comes as U46 prepares to move to a dual-language model for its ELL programming in the coming school year, U46 spokesman Tony Sanders noted. And the district’s ELL coordinator, Wilma Valero, credited it to professional development, parent involvement, before- and after-school programming for ELL students, and practices focused and aligned with data from testing.

Meeting state standards is required. School districts such as U46 that receive federal Title III funds for language instruction for Limited English Proficient students must meet those standards each year, according to U46.

And Sanders said it is “important, especially for a district like U46 where we have approximately 6,000 students who are learning English for the first time.”

Most of the students in U46’s English as a Second Language programming speak Spanish as their first language, he said, although more than 100 languages are spoken throughout the district.

School districts are required to offer ELL programs at schools where 20 or more students speak the same language, other than English, as their first language. Additional ESL programming is available at one of the local elementary schools, he added.

The 2010 Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives report card is not yet available online at iirc.niu.edu.