Variation in English Learners’ Programmatic Experiences and Postsecondary Trajectories

The transient nature of K–12 English Learner (EL) status and services makes it difficult for researchers to follow their educational pipeline. ELs’ backgrounds and experiences vary considerably, with differences in grade of entry into U.S. schooling, duration in EL status, and, for some, waiving out of English language development services. We use longitudinal administrative data with repeated measures of EL status to examine K–12 EL-programmatic experiences and postsecondary trajectories of Spanish-speaking ever-EL students in Texas. We control for differences in students’ demographic and academic characteristics and examine the association between their EL programmatic experiences and postsecondary outcomes.