Kristen Campbell, a research analyst with the Utah State Board of Education, told the Standards and Assessment Committee that English learners in Utah are underperforming and making smaller gains than their peers on state assessments.

Campbell said that as of Oct. 1, 2023, more than 70,000 Utah students were designated as English learners, about 11,000 of whom are classified as fluent and about 60,000 still eligible for services. She said that group now represents more than 10% of Utah students, up from roughly 2% a decade ago.

The data presented compared English learners and other students on the RISE test and other measures. "Student proficiency on RISE is pretty dismal for multi‑language learners," Campbell said, citing a math and language‑arts proficiency gap (she gave an example of 44% versus 14% in language arts). She said student growth rates for English learners were lower than for other students and that middle‑school cohorts showed substantial drops: roughly one‑quarter of students who were proficient in fifth grade were no longer proficient in eighth grade, with even larger declines in math for English learners.

Campbell and Holly Bell, USBE student and family rights specialist, said the analysis also shows students who are English learners are more likely to be taught by teachers without a professional license. "There's a 20% higher chance of getting a teacher who does not have a professional license," Campbell said, noting about 10% of teachers statewide lack a professional license in any given year.

The presenters highlighted two findings they said point to promising approaches. First, teachers holding an ESL endorsement were associated with better student outcomes across all students, not only English learners. "If that teacher had the EL endorsement, all of their students did better," Campbell said. Second, full‑day kindergarten showed larger year‑to‑year gains for economically disadvantaged students and for multilingual learners: the presenters gave an example of roughly a 30–35 percentage‑point increase to at‑/above‑benchmark on an early reading measure for students in full‑day kindergarten versus about 11–15 percentage points for half‑day kindergarten.

Board members asked for further disaggregation of the data—linking WIDA placement scores to RISE outcomes, comparing newly arrived students to established bilingual students, and examining class size and teacher experience. Campbell said the team plans additional analyses over the coming year and that the current presentation was intended to surface questions for deeper study.

The presenters said these items are part of the state’s resource‑allocation and continuous‑school‑improvement work and align with the Utah State Board’s ESSA agreement with the U.S. Department of Education. Committee members requested continued updates and suggested staff identify districts showing gains and examine the practices that could be replicated statewide.

The presentation was informational; committee members did not take formal action but asked staff to return with follow‑up analyses and one‑page summaries identifying promising practices for multilingual students.