Montgomery County students newto English have improved test scores at nearly every level since 2002, but in the high school years, their gains compared with their peers begin to diminish and disciplinary problems go up, according to a new report from the County Council.
As those learning English react to the challenge of entering some of the country’s highest-performing high schools, their suspension rate has risen. In 2000, 231 students, or 5.5 percent, faced suspension at some point during the year. That number jumped to 372, or 8.4 percent, in 2007.
Students speaking English as a second language are a growing population in Montgomery County, according to school officials. They account for nearly 11,000 students at the elementary level and almost 4,500 in the middle and high schools. The district has a total population of about 138,000.
Jody Leleck, the county’s chief academic officer, said the majority of non-native English speakers at the high school level are from war-torn parts of Africa.
Test scores show significant progress for students learning English. At the kindergarten level, where Montgomery County has seen the largest influx, 87.9 percent of English learners, or 2,187 students, met the reading standard. That’s up from 28 percent in 2002, and only 5 percentage points behind the rate for all kindergartners.
At the high school level, 24.9 percent of English learners, or about 1,100 of them, passed the standardized English exam, up from 22 percent in 2005. Despite the gains, that’s substantially behind the 81 percent passing rate of students in the regular education program.
Leleck attributes the discrepancy to the different levels of knowledge required by the tests, adding that many of the high schools’ English-language students have been in the country for less than a year.
“It’s not a challenge, but an opportunity to provide them what they came here for — a free education that will give them unlimited opportunities,” Leleck said.
