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TAHOE CITY, Calif. — Local administrators, teachers and parents aren't the only folks looking at the gap between non-native English speakers and their native counterparts in the public schools.
Aided by a grant from the S.H. Cowell Foundation, a research team from the University of California, Davis, is looking at the data for the Tahoe Truckee School District's English language learners this year.
The achievement distance between the two groups is closing, but as recently as last year was as wide as any in the state of California.
The school board Thursday received a report from the Davis group — composed of Ph. D. Professor Julie Maxwell-Jolly and Ph. D. student Renatta DeFever — analyzing data over the past three school years.
“We're at a loss for some high level data analysis,” said Dave Curry, the TTUSD's curriculum director. “The people from Davis are very skilled researchers, they're trained in this sort of analysis at a deeper level than we are.”
DeFever on Thursday offered an evaluation based on TTUSD's state standardized tests for its EL population over the past three school years, finding EL students in elementary out-perform those in middle and high school, and students who are continuously enrolled over a period of three years tend to excel more than those who are transient.
“The students who stay with you largely do better,” Maxwell-Jolly said.
The Davis team will conduct interviews over the school year with students, parents, teachers and administrators, and it will periodically report its findings to the board, Curry said. A complete summary report on their findings from this year should be read sometime early next fall.
To contact the Davis team with comments, questions or suggestions, e-mail Maxwell-Jolly at jmaxwelljolly@ucdavis.edu.
The Cowell foundation has granted about $700,000 in funds to TTUSD for the past two years, as well as this year, and agreed to fund the independent study of the district's English learners.
Aided by a grant from the S.H. Cowell Foundation, a research team from the University of California, Davis, is looking at the data for the Tahoe Truckee School District's English language learners this year.
The achievement distance between the two groups is closing, but as recently as last year was as wide as any in the state of California.
The school board Thursday received a report from the Davis group — composed of Ph. D. Professor Julie Maxwell-Jolly and Ph. D. student Renatta DeFever — analyzing data over the past three school years.
“We're at a loss for some high level data analysis,” said Dave Curry, the TTUSD's curriculum director. “The people from Davis are very skilled researchers, they're trained in this sort of analysis at a deeper level than we are.”
DeFever on Thursday offered an evaluation based on TTUSD's state standardized tests for its EL population over the past three school years, finding EL students in elementary out-perform those in middle and high school, and students who are continuously enrolled over a period of three years tend to excel more than those who are transient.
“The students who stay with you largely do better,” Maxwell-Jolly said.
The Davis team will conduct interviews over the school year with students, parents, teachers and administrators, and it will periodically report its findings to the board, Curry said. A complete summary report on their findings from this year should be read sometime early next fall.
To contact the Davis team with comments, questions or suggestions, e-mail Maxwell-Jolly at jmaxwelljolly@ucdavis.edu.
The Cowell foundation has granted about $700,000 in funds to TTUSD for the past two years, as well as this year, and agreed to fund the independent study of the district's English learners.
The data
Here are a few of the data points found in the Davis study.• ELs account for about 22 percent of TTUSD's about-4,000 student population.
• The EL population drops at nearly every grade level, peaking in kindergarten and bottoming out by the final two years of high school.
• Students who remain with the district for three consecutive years score higher in English language arts and math than those who either entered or left the school district in that time.
• EL students score higher in math than in English language arts.
