ABSTRACT
Students who enter school with limited English proficiency are among the most likely of all students to be at risk for school failure (August & Hakuta, 1997). These students score substantially worse than other Ianguage minority students in schools of equal levels of poverty in both reading and mathematics at third grade (Moss & Puma, 1995). They are retained far more often, and have many other difficulties. Ultimately, limited English proficient (LEP) students are substantially more likely than other students to drop out of school; dropout rates average 42% for these students, compared to 10.5% for students who were never limited in English proficiency (McArthur, 1993). The educational difficulties of limited English proficient students are not entirely due to difficulties with English. These students are typically children of recent immigrants who suffer from the effects of poverty, mobility, limited capacity of parents to support their children's success in school, and underfunded, overcrowded schools (August & Hakuta, 1997). Even after limited English proficient students become fully proficient in English, their school performance remains substantially lower than that of other students (McArthur, 1993).
