“These failures disproportionately impact Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, and Arabic-speaking communities, with Spanish-speaking students representing 67 percent of all ELLs,” said the Comptroller’s office. New York City Public Schools disputes the findings.
A scene from the first day of school in New York City last week. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander found “profound failures” in English Language Learners’ ability to access services and programs designed for them at the city’s public schools.
An audit released Monday found that a “a significant percentage” of the school system’s English Language Learners (ELLs) hadn’t received the services they’re legally entitled to, such as required courses or a minimum number of instructional minutes.
They have also been denied other legally mandated services, the audit found, such as being identified as ELLs through the Home Language Identification Survey, being tested and placed through the New York State Identification Test for English Language Learners, and receiving a bilingual education or access to an English as a New Language program.
“These failures disproportionately impact Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Bengali, and Arabic-speaking communities, with Spanish-speaking students representing 67 percent of all ELLs,” the Comptroller’s office said in a press release.
Since Spring of 2022, over 237,000 migrants have come to New York City, many from Latin America, and their kids have been filling the classrooms of the city’s public schools, which saw 25,081 new ELL students, a 16.8 percent jump. ELL students represent 19 percent of total student enrollment, according to the Comptroller’s office.
Many migrant students are also living, or have lived, in the city’s shelter system, which was home to 8,496 migrant families with children as of July (though not all those families have school-aged kids).
After a student is first enrolled or re-enrolled, schools should identify English Language Learners and test their English skills. If students score below “commanding” on the state’s English Language Learners (NYSITELL) test, they are considered ELLs and are entitled to receive services under these regulations.
A New York State Education Department Commissioner’s Regulation, CR Part 154, was created to ensure ELLs are not left behind and achieve the same educational goals and standards as non-ELLs. It means parents or guardians should be informed about their child’s English language skills and the program options available to them.
Additionally, CR Part 154 mandates that every school district provide ELLs with either a Bilingual Education or English as a New Language (ENL) Program. A bilingual program teaches students in two languages—their native language and English—to achieve proficiency in both, while ENL programs prioritize English language acquisition, with support in the student’s first language.
The audit found that NYCPS did not provide the required courses, the minimum number of minutes of ENL instruction, or the minimum number of minutes of bilingual instruction to almost half (48 percent) of the students in the audit surveyed (145 out of 301).
When asked, New York City Public Schools (NYCPS, formerly the Department of Education) refuted the findings, stating that the report included students who were enrolled for less than 10 days, meaning they couldn’t be identified as ELLs or take the exam to assess their skills.
The Comptroller’s Office emphasized, in response to NYCPS objections, that the audit results were shared with the department on several occasions and that education officials did not criticize the figures and methodology or ask for revisions during that process.
Education advocates declined to comment on whether the data is accurate or not, or whether the comptroller’s office did a good job reviewing it.
“All I can speak about is our experience on the ground,” said Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, director of the Immigrant Students’ Rights Project at the nonprofit Advocates for Children. “We see families that we serve who are not provided services on time, students who are not identified on time, parents who have never been invited to the mandated parent meeting that they’re supposed to have.”
A scene from the first day of school in September 2022. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
NYCPS said it has many ways to ensure that ELLs are identified and placed on time: training by each borough’s ELL policy support staff; daily and monthly updates on eligible students sent to superintendents and district staff; and extra help and visits to schools that don’t follow the rules.
The department said it is already complying with one of the report’s recommendations, which is to keep important records on ELL students, and is looking into new ways to collect digital records in a new student information system that’s being developed. Those records include the Home Language Identification Survey, which determines whether a language other than English is spoken at home, as well as parent surveys and program agreement forms.
Advocates were surprised to learn that 40 percent of students sampled by the comptroller’s audit were taught by teachers who do not have the full qualifications to teach ELL.
“I was most shocked that teachers were not qualified because that’s just something that we, as advocates, and on the side, parent advocacy, we don’t have access to that information,” said Rodriguez-Engberg.
When asked, NYCPS disagreed, saying that English as a New Language courses are often taught by an ENL teacher and a teacher of the subject being studied. In the last school year, 93 percent of ELLs received either bilingual education or ENL instruction from a teacher who was certified, the department said.
School districts must meet certain requirements in offering bilingual education programs, but can also request a waiver if they’re unable to do so. According to the audit, during the last school year, NYCPS requested 150 Bilingual Education Program Waivers.
“It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that schools fill out a waiver to not create a bilingual program, because that requires organization, it requires a budget, it requires hiring a bilingual teacher to be able to teach the class. And I’m just not sure that there are enough teachers in New York City to be able to cover the need,” Rodriguez-Engberg said.
Between the 2022 and 2024 school years, the city opened 103 new bilingual education programs and with an additional 27 new programs anticipated for the current school year, officials said.
NYCPS didn’t specify, but said it’s also developing new programs to help teachers who work with students who speak “low-incidence languages,” which are languages spoken by fewer than 5 percent of the statewide English Language Learner (ELL) population (excluding Spanish and Chinese).
NYCPS said they’re offering over 566 programs in various languages, including Arabic, Bengali, Albanian, and other low-incidence languages, and assured that every child, regardless of language background, will receive their required instruction and support to succeed in the classroom.
“Well before the release of the auditor’s report, we had already implemented strategic, systemwide initiatives to strengthen language instruction, compliance indicators, and ensure equity in access to higher quality education,” a NYCPS spokesperson said in a statement.
“By expanding hiring for English as a New Language and Bilingual Education teachers and continuing growth of our bilingual education programs, we have taken action to meet the linguistic and academic needs of every student,” the spokesperson added.
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