The Demographic Imperative

Recently, D.C.-area schools voted to abandon the check-one-box system for identifying student race and ethnicity ("Multiracial Pupils to Be Counted in A New Way"). Although the policy change allows for a more accurate portrait of classrooms transformed by immigration and interracial marriage, changing labels will make it harder to monitor progress of groups that have trailed in school, including black and Hispanic students, according to the Washington Post.

The concern is that a flood of demographic data will complicate schools' ability to make policy and program decisions to serve groups facing education challenges. "This will make our whole education system look different, and nobody will know whether we are going forward or backward," said Gary Orfield, codirector of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California in Los Angeles (to the Post).

"The Demographic Imperative," in the April issue of Educational Leadership on English language learners, clarifies the varied means for determining who ELL students are and how their individual paths to U.S. classrooms might influence their achievement, and it offers some brief reflections on research, policy, and practice that support ELL students. 

How might ELL students be helped or hindered by more nuanced student demographic data?