California's English Learners and Their Long-Term Learning Outcomes. Brief

California's K-12 funding and instructional policies for English learners (ELs) have changed significantly over the past 2 decades, including new requirements for instructional materials specific to ELs statewide and a new school funding system that funds ELs at a higher rate. These major policy shifts held the potential to change student learning outcome patterns for ELs. This brief summarizes those policy changes and, as a first step in identifying their impact, describes changes over time in the development of academic skills and English proficiency among ELs in California. We find that English learners' academic achievement by 3rd grade has improved over time, shrinking the achievement gaps between K-cohort ELs and other students in English language arts (ELA) and math. We also find that more-recent cohorts of kindergarten ELs are reaching English proficiency on the California English Language Development Test (CELDT) in earlier grades than previous cohorts did. For the less recent cohorts who had reached Grade 5 by 2018-19, we find almost no change in the overall share who were proficient in English by the end of elementary school. We also find only half of kindergarten ELs were reclassified as English proficient by the end of elementary school in 2018-19.