Fewer English learner students made achievement gains in language development this past academic year compared to last, according to an Oregon Department of Education report released Thursday.

The report tracks the development of Oregon’s 56,800 English learner population against federally approved state objectives that increase every year. The report is mandated by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, despite a waiver Oregon received exempting it from some of the act’s other provisions.

In the 2012-2013 school year, 45 percent of EL students moved up one level of language proficiency, while 50 percent moved up the previous year. The goal was set at 61 percent.

Meanwhile, only 14 percent of students reached English proficiency and left the program, down from 16 percent the year before. The goal for this measure was 19 percent. Of students who have been identified as EL for five or more years, only 28 percent reached proficiency and exited the program, down from 32 percent the previous year. In this category, Oregon just missed its goal of 29 percent.

“Our education system is in a time of change, but unfortunately, that change isn’t happening fast enough for our English Learners,” Oregon Deputy Superintendent Rob Saxton said in a statement. “While I don’t believe that these federal targets are an ideal measure of language acquisition and student learning, the results are clear.

“We need to move forward aggressively with our reform efforts to ensure we are providing our English Learners with the instruction, supports and opportunities they need to master academic English and graduate ready for college and career. Declines like we saw this year just reaffirm the need for significant changes to how we support, teach and assess our state’s English Learners.”

Only 10 districts met all the requirements, and they had an average EL population of 14.

The small sizes of these districts exempt them from certain goals, including one that looks at the EL population’s performance on the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the state’s main standardized test. Only two districts rated on their EL population’s OAKS scores met the state’s achievement goal.

Bend-La Pine Schools did meet the goal of having more than 29 percent of students who have been in the program for five years or more achieve proficiency, though they failed to meet all other standards.

“I think this is only one piece of data, one we need to pay attention to, but it can’t tell us everything,” said Dana Arntson, Bend-La Pine’s director of federal programs. “Other things we look at can be more qualitative and focus on using formative assessments so teachers can make adjustments based on each student’s performance.”

Arntson described formative assessments as akin to the lessons a coach gives her players during a practice so they can improve before a game. As an example, she described a short assignment that would test a student’s ability to determine when to use the word “on” instead of “in.” On the following day, a teacher would be able to tailor his approach to student performance on the short assignment.

“The biggest piece for us is continuing to do very strong professional development, not only with our 21 English Language Learner teachers, but with content teachers,” Arntson said. “The English Language Learner teacher is the linguistic expert, but the content teacher also has to be able to find ways for students to share what they know and access content. Teachers need to think intensely about what will stumble an English Language Learner. You have to teach what photosynthesis means to everyone, but you may also need to point out what ‘structure’ or ‘risen’ means to language learners, as those words may have multiple meanings.”

One issue Arntson pointed out with the assessment concerns the different levels of proficiency students are rated on.

“These are the goals the state has set, but do we know the gap from one level to the next is really as difficult as the gap between two other levels?” she said. “Language acquisition is not that simple.”

Districts that do not meet the goals two years in a row must submit plans of improvement to the Department of Education.

“Developing such a plan is something we’d be doing anyway, and we take it seriously that we have a subgroup not performing where we want them to be,” Arntson said.

The Redmond School District, like Bend-La Pine Schools, met one goal tied to the performance of students who have been identified for five or more years but failed to meet all others.

“It’s not just the targets that are difficult but the fact that the targets change every year,” said Martha Hinman, Redmond’s director of student services. “If you look historically, we may hit a target one year, but the next year it becomes elusive as the target rises. For me, I think it’s especially difficult that we test these students on OAKS at the same time they are learning English.”

Hinman said that the district is focused on tracking students who have been out of the program for years to ensure that they continue to succeed.

“Just because they no longer qualify under the state’s definition of English Learner doesn’t mean they don’t need support and to be monitored,” Hinman said. “Students who left in the last two years have their OAKS scores considered, but I don’t think that’s an adequate measure of their performance.”

As with Bend-La Pine, Redmond will focus on professional development as a means to better serve its EL population.

“We have developed a two-year plan with four initiatives for our English Language Learner teachers,” Hinman said. “But we also will have training from the administration level down through the ranks. Everyone will have the chance to look at all the data and ask the hard questions about how we can improve.”

EL student performance is measured by the state’s English Language Proficiency Assessment. However, Oregon is leading an 11-state consortium to develop a new assessment for EL students using a $6.3 million federal grant. Additionally, Oregon is part of a group that is developing curriculum standards for EL students that are aligned with the Common Core State Standards, a set of educational goals that Oregon and most other states will implement in the 2014-2015 school year.

“I believe that these new standards, the changes to instruction that they will prompt, and the better information provided by the new assessment, will start to turn things around for our English Language Development programs,” Saxton said.