Examining Current and Proposed Home Language Surveys in California in Relation to Initial English Language Proficiency Assessment Results: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the extent to which a proposed home language survey in California could better identify possible English learner and multilingual students than the current home language survey. The responses to a proposed and current survey were examined for students registering for kindergarten through grade six for 2015/16 in 15 California schools. The responses on the two surveys were then compared to the students' scores on the initial California English language proficiency assessment. Results indicate that on both the current and proposed surveys, nearly all students identified as potential English learners scored below the standard for English proficiency on the initial English language proficiency assessment. Scoring below the standard for English proficiency would designate these students as English learners who would receive specialized language support services. The proposed survey also identified up to 14 percent more students as potential English learners than the current survey. Further, the proposed survey identified nearly 40 percent of the potential English learner students as potential multilingual learners compared to 6 percent of the potential English learner students by the current survey. Results show that the proposed survey provided a more extensive and detailed description of students who are exposed to non-English languages. Additional research may be able to determine whether the additional description provided by the proposed survey could lead to more precise determinations of which students should be designated as English learners and which should be designated as students who are fluent in English as well as one or more other languages. The following are appended: (1) Analytic samples and methodology; (2) Additional findings; and (3) Spanish-language version of the proposed home language survey questions.