On its website, CNN (9/20, Holland) reports the National Center for Education Statistics says "9% of students in the US are considered to have limited proficiency in English," and about 11% of them attend school in rural settings. Elena Silva of Education Sector, a think tank in Washington, DC, said that "rural schools in particular have difficulty with English language learners," not having "have the resources, training, funding and infrastructure to support English language learners." The article illustrates the issue using Columbus Junction, Iowa, as an example.
Study: California English Proficiency Test Labels Most Student English Learners. According to the Huffington Post (9/20), a study by the University of California, Berekely's Center for Latino Policy Research found that "taking the California English Language Development Test 'almost guarantees' a student will be classified as an English learner." Only 12% of the four- and five-year-olds who took the English proficiency exam before kindergarten "in the 2009-2010 school year were considered English language proficient, misidentifying the many others as English learners, according to the study." Lead researcher Lisa García Bedolla, an associate professor at Berkeley's Graduate School of Education, "notes that schools have incentives to consider students English learners -- like receiving $5 from the state for each test administered, recognition for improving students' English abilities and receiving extra federal funding."
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