The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:
Recommendations for Addressing the Needs of English Language Learners
from the Working Group on ELL Policy
March 20, 2009
The primary purpose of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is to stimulate economic recovery. But ARRA also provides an extraordinary opportunity to improve educational outcomes for children most in need. English language learners (ELLs) are a very large, rapidly growing, and currently under-served population who stand to benefit greatly from the attention and resources provided by ARRA.
The challenges ELL students face are many. They are most likely to attend schools with the sparest of resources, staffed by ill-prepared teachers who are overwhelmed by high concentrations of low-achieving students. Even in schools with access to Title I resources, the attention paid to ELL students may not be appropriately tailored to their unique needs in learning the English language and in gaining academic skills and subject matter knowledge.
The infusion of ARRA funds into states and school districts across the nation can help to improve this situation – if those funds are used wisely. This document offers a set of recommendations that target specific opportunities for improving ELL outcomes through ARRA allocations to Title I, IDEA and special education, education technology, statewide data systems, improving teacher quality grants, early childhood education, the National Science Foundation, and state stabilization grants.
The group of researchers making these recommendations has extensive experience in the education of ELL students and a substantial understanding of the research base on effective strategies for this population. The intended audience is the vast national network of administrators and professionals at the federal, state and local levels who will determine how the ARRA funds will be used. The purpose of these recommendations is to generate discussion and guide decision-making when the question is: “How can we use ARRA funds to better serve the English language learners in our program?”