Implementing College-and Career-Readiness Standards for English Learners (ELs) - Challenges, Insights, and Innovations

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jake

A briefing examines how district administrators, principals, and teachers understand, experience, and implement college- and career-readiness standards for English learners (ELs) in English language arts (ELA) and math. Using interview and survey data from California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas, it highlights teacher preparation differences, shared views of standards with noted concerns, and disparities in instructional differentiation between ELA and math, alongside persistent resource limitations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Insights

Teachers in longer-support states receive more professional development

Standards are broadly viewed as appropriate, with exceptions

ELA teachers differentiate more than math teachers

Challenges

Lack of resources for differentiating instruction for ELs

JUNE 2020 Implementing College-and Career-Readiness Standards for English Learners (ELs): Challenges, Insights, and Innovations To date, standards-based reform has not typically focused much on the needs of students classified as English learners (ELs). While all states have their own definitions, English learners (ELs) are defined by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) as“individuals who have sufficient difficulty speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language to be unable to learn successfully in classrooms or to participate fully in the larger U.S. society.” Given their unique experience in U.S. classrooms, how might ELs be better represented in the design of college-and career-readiness standards? This brief presents findings from C-SAIL’s Implementation Study, which uses interview and survey data to explore how district administrators, principals, and teachers are understanding, experiencing, and implementing learning standards in English language arts (ELA) and math with English learners (ELs). Drawing on data from five states—California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas—we explore the insights, challenges and innovations shared by leaders and teachers working with ELs. INSIGHTS \#1: Teachers in states with a longer history of supporting ELs receive more professional development in meeting those students’ needs and feel better prepared to teach them. Teachers in California and Texas, two states with long histories of supporting ELs reported receiving more professional development and feeling better prepared to teach ELs than teachers in Kentucky and Ohio. While California and Texas rely on their own systems to develop this infrastructure of support, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Ohio have become increasingly reliant on the support of two national consortia—ELPA21 in Ohio and WIDA in Kentucky and Massachusetts—for support in developing more robust infrastructures to ensure teachers feel better prepared to support ELs. More research can help determine if these partnerships are able to further develop the professional development infrastructures of these states and help their teachers feel better prepared to teach ELs. The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning [c-sail.org](c-sail.org) 1 \#2: Standards are largely viewed as appropriate for ELs and necessary in ensuring high expectations, with some exceptions. According to survey data, district leaders and teachers generally agreed that their state standards were appropriate for ELs. In interviews, district leaders and teachers often discussed this in terms of the importance of having high expectations for ELs and the desire to maintain a high level of rigor in the classroom for these students. Texas state leaders have institutionalized these high expectations by integrating the needs of EL students into their thinking around standards-based instruction. As a result, Texas teachers reported similar time spent on standards-emphasized instruction across grades and subjects for ELs compared to native English speakers. In a similar vein, California has combined the ELA and ELD standards designed for ELs into one set of standards, which district leaders reported pushes teachers to take on shared responsibility for these students. One area of concern was the cultural relevance of the standards, as some educators in California suggested that the content was far removed from the lived experience of their ELs. Another concern was that newcomers are often expected to meet the same standards as their native English-speaking counterparts with little guidance on how to make this a reality. District leaders and teachers in all states expressed a desire for more specific guidance from the state in this regard. \#3: ELA teachers reported differentiating their instruction for ELs at higher rates than math teachers. ELA teachers reported differentiating their instruction for ELs at higher rates than ma

FAQs

What does the briefing investigate about implementing standards for English learners?

It explores how district administrators, principals, and teachers understand, experience, and implement college- and career-readiness standards for ELs in ELA and math.

How do professional development experiences differ across states?

Teachers in states with longer histories of supporting ELs report more professional development and feel better prepared to teach ELs, such as California and Texas compared with Kentucky and Ohio.

What key challenge affects instruction for ELs across districts?

Districts still desire more resources for differentiating instruction, including training support and materials, while staffing constraints such as limited access to bilingual teachers add further difficulty.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jake