For several years, WestEd’s Measure to Learn and Improve (MLI) project team has kept state policy leaders informed about statewide implementation of the California Academic Standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics, by summarizing and disseminating survey results from the RAND Corporation’s annual American Educator Panel (AEP) surveys of teachers and principals.

In addition to asking questions on a variety of education topics, the May 2018 AEP surveys asked California teachers and principals to report the proportion of English learner (EL) students in their classrooms or in their schools, respectively.

While the MLI project team acknowledge that EL students as a group are not monolithic, with individual students varying both in background and needs, this brief uses this teacher- and principal-level EL variable to draw some contrasts between the perceptions of California educators for whom EL students make up 25 percent or less of their student population with those for whom this student group accounts for more than 25 percent.