Enrollment of language minority students continues to outpace overall enrollment growth. In the ten-year period from 1991-92 to 2001-02, California’s public schools added more than one million students, an increase of 20 percent. In the same period, the number of English learners (ELs) increased by 44 percent and the number of Fluent English Proficient (FEP) students increased by 41 percent. Altogether, language minority students represented more than 70 percent of the increase in student enrollment over this period.

How effective is closing the gates of the Delta Cross Channel in preventing young salmon from entering the interior of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where water diversions occur and salmon mortalities are high?What other factors influence a migrating salmon’s chances of making it to sea? This project examined these questions by tagging and tracking more than a thousand juvenile Chinook salmon released into the Sacramento River. The data were used to estimate salmon survival rates along different migration routes and their relation to the operation of the cross channel, flow rates and tides, among other things. A subsequent model has been developed for predicting the effects of future water management actions on salmon.

California’s school-age population is becoming more linguistically, racially, and ethnically diverse. Between 1986-87 and 2003-04, the enrollment of linguistic minority students—students from households where a language other than English is regularly spoken— increased 120 percent in California’s public schools, or six times as fast as the 19 percent increase in enrollment of English-only students. The population of English learners—linguistic minorities who are not yet proficient in English—increased eight times as quickly. This growth was fueled by the 128 percent increase in Latino public school enrollment. During this same period, Asian enrollment increased 68 percent, Black enrollment increased 28 percent, and White enrollment declined by 6 percent.

Data from the last two U.S. decennial censuses provide an estimate of the bilingual population. In the 1990 and 2000 censuses, respondents (or parents of children) were asked whether they speak a language other than English at home and, if they do, how well they speak English. Although the data do not reveal how well respondents read and write English, which may be more important for performance in school or at work, they do provide valuable information on the language background of the U.S. and California populations.

One of the most important indicators of educational performance is the high school dropout rate. Reducing dropout rates and improving high school graduation rates are important goals for both educators and policymakers. Yet there is a great deal of controversy about how best to measure dropout and graduation rates. This issue of EL Facts provides estimates of dropout rates for language minority students, racial and ethnic groups, and socioeconomic groups.

There are several reasons why California needs to pay careful attention to the schooling of language minority students in their public schools. First, language minority students now constitute more than one-third of all students in California’s schools—a proportion that will grow even higher in the future. Second, English learners require a specialized curriculum and properly trained teachers to support their development of English literacy and to learn the rest of the required academic curriculum if they are to keep pace with their English-speaking peers. Third, the schooling of English learners is highly politicized—particularly concerning the use of native language instruction (or bilingual education) in developing native language literacy and initial academic content while learning English. Although the research evidence on developing English literacy in non-English speaking students is very sparse, prompting the federal government to initial a number of long-term research studies on the topic, there is a growing political movement in many states to promote English-only instruction, such as Proposition 227 that was passed by California voters in June 1998.

Two main instructional approaches have been used to educate English learners in California—English language development (ELD) together with academic instruction in the primary language (bilingual education), and ELD with or without Specially Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE). Since the passage of Proposition 227 in June 1998, native language instruction in California’s classrooms has continued to decline.