IMMIGRANT STUDENTS AND THEIR ACADEMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS: 2015-2016 Author: Aleksandr Shneyderman, Ed.D. September 2016 Research Services Office of Assessment, Research, and Data Analysis 1450 NE 2 nd Avenue, Suite 208, Miami, Florida 33132 (305) 995-2943 Fax (305) 995-1960
INTRODUCTION This is an annual report describing immigrant students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools and their demographic and academic characteristics. It provides information on academic achievement of immigrant students and their progress in English language acquisition. According to a federal definition, an immigrant student is a student who is aged three through twenty-one; is enrolled in any public or private elementary or secondary school in kindergarten through grade twelve; was not born in the United States (or any U.S. Territory); and has not been attending any one or more schools in the United States for more than three full school years (Title III, Section 3114 (d)). This report is divided into several sections. The first section describes the demographic characteristics of immigrant students in the District. The second section depicts the academic achievement of immigrant students on various 2016 statewide assessments. Finally, the third section reports the outcomes of immigrant students in English language acquisition. 1
SECTION I 2015-2016 STUDENT DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS In Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) there were 30,015 immigrant students as of February 2016, which constituted approximately 9% of the total K-12 enrollment. Most of the immigrant students were English Language Learners (ELLs): 83% participated in the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program, while 5% were former ESOL students. Immigrant students came from over 100 different countries in the world and from a variety of language backgrounds. The list of ten countries of birth with the largest percentages of immigrant students in M-DCPS includes 1. Cuba 11,176 students (37% of all immigrant students) 2. Venezuela 4,094 (14%) 3. Honduras 2,114 (7%) 4. Haiti 1,745 (6%) 5. Colombia 1,407 (5%) 6. Spain 1,042 (3%) 7. Dominican Republic 902 (3%) 8. Nicaragua 732 (2%) 9. Brazil 626 (2%) 10. Mexico 558 (2%) The list of native languages with at least 1% representation among the immigrant students included the following languages. 1. Spanish 24,384 students (81% of all immigrant students) 2. Haitian Creole 1,601 (5%) 3. English 1,559 (5%) 4. Portuguese 556 (2%) 5. French 387 (1%) 6. Russian 358 (1%) 7. Italian 177 (1%) The remaining 4% of immigrants have come from a variety of native languages. Approximately 76% of all immigrant students were eligible to receive a free or reduced price lunch. About 1% of immigrant students were classified as gifted, and less than 2% of all immigrant students had any other primary exceptionality identified. In terms of race/ethnicity, approximately 83% of all immigrant students were classified as Hispanics, about 8% as Blacks, and about 7% as Whites. 2
SECTION II 2015-2016 ASSESSMENT RESULTS OF IMMIGRANT STUDENTS This section compares and contrasts the academic achievement of immigrant and non-immigrant students by their ELL status on those statewide exams that had been administered in the 2015-2016 academic year. The non-ell group includes fully English proficient students who never participated in the ESOL program as well as former ELL students who acquired English proficiency. This section is separated into several subsections dealing with different academic disciplines. 2015-2016 Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) Results FSA English Language Arts Table 1 Number and Percentage of Students Scoring at or above Achievement Level 3 on the ELA component of the 2016 FSA Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 Grade 10 Non- # in 3-5 % in 3-5 # in 3-5 % in 3-5 ELL 250 16 934 21 Non-ELL 272 81 13628 64 ELL 312 18 1062 24 Non-ELL 152 78 12738 62 ELL 270 15 551 19 Non-ELL 186 74 12662 63 ELL 170 10 164 11 Non-ELL 182 67 12330 57 ELL 191 10 141 10 Non-ELL 174 69 11887 54 ELL 305 16 192 14 Non-ELL 201 67 13932 62 ELL 204 10 96 8 Non-ELL 251 65 13256 58 ELL 227 7 116 6 Non-ELL 338 55 13101 45 3
The results exhibited in Table 1 reveal that the percentages of students in grades 3-6 scoring at achievement level 3 or higher on the ELA component of the 2016 FSA were lower for the immigrant ELL students than those for the non-immigrant students ELLs. That trend was reversed in grades 8-10. On the other hand, the percentages of immigrant students who were fully English language proficient and who scored within achievement levels 3-5 were higher than those of nonimmigrant students in all grade levels. FSA Mathematics Table 2 Number and Percentage of Students Scoring at or above Achievement Level 3 on the Mathematics component of the 2016 FSA Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Non- # in 3-5 % in 3-5 # in 3-5 % in 3-5 ELL 612 39 1805 40 Non-ELL 287 85 15248 72 ELL 652 37 1643 37 Non-ELL 164 84 14096 68 ELL 636 34 920 31 Non-ELL 198 79 13099 64 ELL 377 22 241 16 Non-ELL 176 65 11441 54 ELL 454 25 254 17 Non-ELL 148 68 9909 51 ELL 627 35 266 20 Non-ELL 93 53 5798 44 The outcomes in Table 2 show that immigrant students, as a group, outperformed non-immigrant students in almost all grade by ELL status comparisons based on 2016 FSA mathematics outcomes. The only exception to that occurred in Grade 3 for ELL students. 4
FSA End of Course Exams Table 3 Number and Percentage of Students Scoring at or above Achievement Level 3 on the 2016 FSA End-Of-Course Exams Subject Algebra 1 ELL Group Non- # in 3-5 % in 3-5 # in 3-5 % in 3-5 ELL 720 25 249 15 Non-ELL 303 66 12173 51 ELL 506 27 151 13 Geometry Non-ELL 349 73 10792 49 ELL 197 29 77 14 Algebra 2 Non-ELL 221 61 6930 36 Note: The outcomes shown in this table are based on the results of grades 7-10 students for Algebra 1, grades 8-10 for Geometry, and grades 9-11 students for Algebra 2 EOCs. The outcomes in Table 3 demonstrate that immigrant students, as a group, outperformed nonimmigrant students in all EOC subject by ELL status comparisons. 2015-2016 FCAT 2.0 Science Results The results exhibited in Table 4 reveal that immigrant students, as a group, outperformed nonimmigrant students in almost all grade by ELL status comparisons based on the 2016 FCAT 2.0 Science results. The only exception to that occurred in Grade 5 for ELL students where the percentage of immigrant students scoring at or above achievement level 3 on the FCAT Science was lower than that for their non-immigrant counterparts. Table 4 Number and Percentage of Students Scoring at or above Achievement Level 3 on the 2016 FCAT 2.0 Science Non- Grade 5 Grade 8 # in 3-5 % in 3-5 # in 3-5 % in 3-5 ELL 283 15 548 18 Non-ELL 181 72 11,628 57 ELL 261 14 129 9 Non-ELL 158 55 9,062 47 5
2015-2016 Next Generation Sunshine State Standards (NGSSS) End-of-Course (EOC) Assessment Results Table 5 Number and Percentage of Students Scoring at or above Achievement Level 3 on the 2016 EOC Assessments Biology US History Non- # in 3-5 % in 3-5 # in 3-5 % in 3-5 ELL 420 22 207 18 Non-ELL 359 81 15,509 66 ELL 278 20 137 14 Non-ELL 311 77 13,038 65 ELL 449 24 414 26 Civics Non-ELL 213 84 15,507 69 Note: The outcomes shown in this table are based on the results of grades 8-10 students for Biology, grades 10-11 for Biology, and grade 7 students for Civics EOCs. The results exhibited in Table 5 reveal that immigrant students, as a group, outperformed nonimmigrant students in almost all subject by ELL status comparisons on the NGSSS EOC assessments. The only exception to that occurred on the Civics EOC assessment for ELL students where the percentage of immigrant students scoring at or above achievement level 3 on the FCAT Science was lower than that for their non-immigrant counterparts. The academic achievement results and comparisons discussed in this section should be interpreted in light of the fact that the non-ell immigrant and non-immigrant student groups were different in terms of their socioeconomic status as measured by the percentage of students eligible for the federal free or reduced price lunch program. Specifically, these percentages were 55% for non- ELL immigrant students and 73% for non-ell non-immigrant students. For the ELL students, these percentages were 80% and 87% for the immigrant and non-immigrant students respectively. 6
SECTION III PROGRESS OF IMMIGRANT STUDENTS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION This section illustrates the progress in acquiring English proficiency made by students enrolled in the ESOL program, as measured by the ACCESS for ELLs, the State s English Language Proficiency test. The ACCESS for ELLs outcomes are reported in four areas: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. In each of these four areas both the scale scores and proficiency levels are reported. ACCESS for ELLs uses six proficiency levels with level six indicating that a student is fully proficient in a particular modality. Table 6 shows the 2016 numbers and percentages of immigrant ELL students who scored within Proficiency levels 5 or 6 in each of the four modalities. The results are disaggregated by grade level. It can be seen that the percentages of immigrant students scoring at or above proficiency level 5 are lower than those for non-immigrant students in all grade levels and language modalities. This is likely explained by the fact that it generally takes more than three years for students to acquire English proficiency, and by that time, students are no longer classified as immigrants. In other words, as immigrant students acquire English language proficiency, they get reclassified as non-immigrants, so that the immigrant group contains students at lower levels of English language acquisition as compared to the non-immigrant group, and that might explain the pattern of results seen in Table 6. 7
Table 6 Numbers and Percentages of ELL Students Scoring in Proficiency 5 or 6 on the 2016 ACCESS for ELLs Listening Speaking Immigrant Non-Immigrant Immigrant Non-Immigrant Grade # in % in # in % in # in % in # in % in K 818 36 4196 61 448 20 2615 38 1 1052 41 4699 60 1189 47 4811 61 2 975 44 5375 76 1154 52 5548 78 3 422 27 3248 72 564 36 3089 69 4 545 31 3505 79 586 34 3057 69 5 450 24 2219 74 634 34 2233 75 6 349 20 925 63 676 39 1137 77 7 360 19 908 60 698 37 1222 81 8 392 20 773 57 767 40 1070 80 9 399 18 530 44 916 40 924 76 10 438 21 514 42 906 45 896 74 11 317 21 411 40 767 50 788 76 12 172 23 193 24 475 63 587 73 K-12 6689 27 27496 65 9780 40 27977 66 Reading Writing K 425 19 1969 28 41 2 213 3 1 914 36 4163 53 0 0 0 0 2 856 39 4305 61 0 0 0 0 3 390 25 3072 68 51 3 318 7 4 503 29 3027 68 179 10 602 14 5 396 21 1990 66 81 4 163 5 6 320 18 486 33 6 0 8 1 7 364 19 429 28 1 0 0 0 8 429 22 441 33 0 0 0 0 9 496 22 575 47 360 16 385 31 10 521 26 593 48 224 11 172 14 11 472 31 546 52 119 8 86 8 12 299 40 367 45 21 3 24 3 K-12 6385 26 21963 52 1083 4 1971 5 8