As states work to establish and implement systems for measuring the progress of students who are English learners (ELs), as required under Title III of the *Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)*, they need to define criteria for student progress in learning English, establish a performance standard for English language proficiency (ELP), and set annually increasing performance targets for the number and percentage of ELs that are expected to meet these criteria.  This report is intended to serve as a resource for states by describing and illustrating several empirical methods and theoretical rationales for establishing academic and ELP performance standards and targets for ELs.  The approaches are also intended to stimulate discussion and further exploration of analytic methods among state data analysts, technical assistance providers and researchers.  

# Research Questions 

1. What analytical methods can be used to determine a meaningful and empirically based ELP performance standard?

2. What analytical methods can be used to establish a realistic, empirically anchored time frame for attaining a given ELP performance standard? 

3. How can an English learner’s ELP level be taken into account when setting academic progress and proficiency expectations?

# Study Design 

This report describes analytical methods that can be applied to longitudinal student-level achievement data in order to identify empirically based ELP and academic achievement goals for EL students. The report also uses data from several states to illustrate each of the methods.

Taken together, these approaches can provide multiple sources of evidence to investigate and corroborate the point at which ELP performance standards, time frames, and targets might be set.  The report recommends that multiple approaches be used, when feasible, in order to provide policymakers with more complete, “triangulated” empirical evidence for delimiting a range of performance and defining options to establish an ELP performance standard for ELs.

# Methods for Determining Empirically Based ELP Performance Standards

1. **Decision consistency analysis** analyzes linguistic and academic proficiency-level categorizations and seeks to optimize consistent categorization of ELP students at the state’s pre-established academic proficient cut score.

2. **Logistic regression analysis** estimates the probability of being proficient on academic-content assessments for each ELP score.  This approach could identify ELP scores for which students have a probability of equal to or greater than 50/50 (0.5) of being proficient on the content assessment.

3. **Descriptive box plot analysis** identifies the ELP level at which at least half of the EL students are scoring above the academic-content proficient cut score.  At this point, students are equally distributed above and below the state’s proficient performance standard in academic content.  This may suggest that, above this point, more than just language proficiency is contributing to observed scores.

# Methods for Establishing Target Time Frames for Attaining ELP Performance Standards

1. **Descriptive analysis** follows over time EL students who start at a pre-specified date at varying English proficiency levels.  The proportions of EL students who annually attain the ELP criterion are then shown in a bar chart.  The goal of this approach is to get a sense of percentages attaining language proficiency, by time, initial ELP level, and grade span.

2. **Event history analysis** is also known as survival analysis and is used extensively in the fields of engineering and medicine to estimate the time required for an event of interest to occur.  For analyses in this report, the event is an EL student’s attaining the given ELP performance standard.  The goal of this approach is to calculate a time frame that incorporates students for whom the event of interest does not occur.

# Methods for Taking ELP Level Into Account When Setting Academic Progress and Proficiency Targets 

1. **Progressive benchmarking** is a family of methods that adjusts either (a) EL students’ content achievement scale scores or (b) EL students’ weight (their individual “count”), based on each student’s ELP level relative to his or her initial ELP level and time in the state school system.  

In this method, there is an expectation that 1) students will increase in English language proficiency annually from their level of initial English proficiency and 2) students will increase in content achievement annually. Scale score or calculative weight adjustments lessen as students increase in ELP level, as expected, or, if they do not, as they continue in “EL” status over time.  If students do not attain English language proficiency within the expected time frame, the students’ content achievement scores or calculative weights are no longer adjusted.  

In essence, expected performance benchmarks progressively increase (and corresponding adjustments progressively decrease) over time and/or as ELP level increases until no adjustments are made at all.

2. **Indexed progress method** uses an EL’s ELP growth as a proxy for academic content performance on a weighted, time-sensitive basis for more newly arrived ELs who enter the state’s school system at lower initial ELP levels.  

These weights and time frames are empirically derived for each subject matter and grade tested because “the impact of limited English proficiency on academic performance varies by subject matter and grade [e.g., ELs with lower levels of language proficiency have more difficulty demonstrating content knowledge in English language arts compared with mathematics, and this difficulty increases at higher grade levels].” 

3. **Status and growth accountability matrix (SGAM)** acknowledges student attainment of academic proficiency (i.e., the AYP performance standard) and/or a predetermined, acceptable level of student growth toward academic proficiency (e.g., a level of academic progress to be considered “on track” to proficiency in a reasonable time frame), without considering an EL’s ELP level.

# Study Limitations

The methods discussed in this report are exploratory and are meant to foster discussion and further development.  The outcomes generated by these methods may vary depending on the grade level and the assessments used. 

� Working Group on ELL Policy (2010), Improving educational outcomes for English language learners: Recommendations for ESEA reauthorization, p. 5.