EL Policy and Immigrant Politics: State and Federal Policy and Ever-EL Students’ Postsecondary Pathways

Although current and former English Learner (EL) or “ever-EL” students comprise one of the fastest-growing K-12 populations, we still know relatively little about the factors that influence their college-going. Using Perna’s seminal college-going model as a launching point, we propose a policy-driven empirical approach to explore how state and federal policy uniquely inform ever-EL students’ academic trajectories. This model considers how EL education policy is largely defined at the federal level but interpreted and implemented by state and local actors (i.e., the Lau and Castañeda cases). In addition, largely of immigrant origin, ever-EL students are directly affected by federal immigration policy as well as state immigrant policies. We suggest that the unique status of EL education in K-12 schools and the framing of immigrant-origin communities in federal and state policies make it necessary to consider both federal and state policy contexts in ever-EL college-going research.