Publications & Resources

Relationships Among and Between ELL Status, Demographic Characteristics, Enrollment History, and School Persistence

Dec 2011

Jinok Kim

This report examines enrollment history, achievement gaps, and persistence in school for ELL students and reclassified ELL students as compared to non-ELL students. The study uses statewide individual-level data sets merged from students’ entry to exit in a state public school system for graduate cohorts of 2006, 2007, and 2008. Analytic methods include multilevel logistic regression in which students are nested within districts to study correlates of dropouts. The results reconfirmed other literature showing large achievement and socio economic gaps between ELL and non-ELL students. Results also show that after accounting for academic achievement, behavioral issues, background, and district contexts, the longer a student is designated as an ELL, the more likely he or she is to drop out of school.

Kim, J. (2011). Relationships among and between ELL status, demographic characteristics, enrollment history, and school persistence (CRESST Report 810). Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST).