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Last year, the Detroit school district hired dozens of multilingual academic interventionists to work with a growing population of students who aren’t fluent in English.
Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said the $2.5 million effort, coupled with curriculum changes and virtual tutoring, has shown results.
More English language learners in the district met growth targets on a national exam that tests how well they are picking up the language, according to recent state data.
More than 65% of English learners met or exceeded average growth in language acquisition on the ACCESS test – 8 percentage points higher compared to 2018-19, the year before the pandemic.
Statewide, that percentage remained nearly the same in that time period, at 70.9%.
“We understand that as more students with varying levels of English proficiency join our district, that proficiency performance on state assessments may not immediately reflect consistent growth,” Vitti told Chalkbeat in an email. “However, we anticipate increased academic outcomes each year in response to our strategic focus on targeted instruction and intervention for Multilingual learners.”
Though the exam results suggest a positive trend, some educators say there are still not enough certified teachers to educate the district’s growing population of English learners.
The district enrolled more than 7,400 English learners last school year, an increase of nearly 660 compared to the previous year. English learners now make up more than 15% of all students. That growth has come at a time when the district is looking to boost its enrollment after two decades of declines.
Teachers and community members have also urged the district in recent months to better support newcomers. As Detroit students and their family members have been detained and deported by federal immigration officials, community members asked the district to provide additional counseling services, know-your-rights training, and more transportation options for students.
The ACCESS test, created by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s language development resource group WIDA, measures English proficiency in reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The tests, given to K-12 students who are identified as potential English learners, do not measure performance in core academic subject areas.
In Michigan, the tests are administered annually to monitor students’ progress learning English. Results only include students who have taken two or more consecutive assessments.
Average growth on the tests is based on the percentiles students fall into compared to their peers on previous tests.
The results also indicate how much English students know when they first enroll in a school district in the U.S.
Many newcomer students are enrolling in schools across the country with greater language needs than before the pandemic, test results show. That’s true in DPSCD, too.
In 2018-19, more than 11% of DPSCD English learners were proficient. Last year, less than 5% were.
There are many factors potentially influencing the trend, said Julie Sugarman, associate director for K-12 education research at the Migration Policy Institute.
“Anecdotally, we’ve heard that over the last 10 years or so more newcomers are coming to the U.S. with less formal education and more interrupted education in their home countries,” she said.
Research also indicates the pandemic disproportionately affected English learners.
Literacy lawsuit funds used to support newcomer programs
Parents, students, and advocates have long called on the Detroit district to provide better instruction for English learners.
Advocates have also pushed for the state to increase funding for educating English learners for years. Michigan historically ranks among the worst in the nation compared to the percentage of funding other states allocate to such initiatives.
The 2016 federal “right to read” civil rights lawsuit against Michigan alleged many English learners were left behind in the Detroit schools due to funding inequity.
Among the allegations, the complaint said there were no certified English as a second language teachers at Medicine and Community Health Academy at Cody, even though there were multiple students who did not speak or write English fluently.
Teachers at the school relied on other students who spoke Arabic to assist the English learners in their classrooms, according to court documents.
The lawsuit was settled for $94.4 million in 2020. Three years later, the money was allocated to DPSCD in the state education budget.
The district began using the funds to improve reading instruction and add support for struggling students last school year.
More than $1 million was used to hire additional staff for an existing newcomer program at Western International High School and to establish one at Harms Elementary School last year, according to the district.
The programs are meant to streamline services and provide more English language development coursework for students who have been in the U.S. less than three years and are not fluent in the language.
Last year, the district adopted a new English language development curriculum, which is designed to “promote growth in listening, reading, speaking, and writing while also preparing students to demonstrate their English skills on the WIDA assessment,” Vitti said.
“Simultaneously, the curriculum introduces students to school culture in the United States by frontloading needed vocabulary to engage in daily activities,” Vitti added.
Multilingual students were also offered high-impact virtual English as a second language tutoring last year, said Vitti.
More than 1,243 students in the district qualified for the newcomer program in 2024-25, according to officials. Of those students, 216 attended Harms or Western International.
Around $2.5 million paid to staff 58 multilingual academic interventionists at 15 schools. The interventionists supported classroom teachers by adapting lessons for English learners and gave targeted instruction to small groups of students with language barriers.
Last year, the district employed about one interventionist for every 110 English learners, according to DPCSD. The goal is to have one interventionist for every 42 English learners.
The interventionists are required to have a bachelor’s degree, a minimum of three years of experience working with students, and evidence of coursework in math, English language arts, science or bilingual education.
The qualifications are different from those of certified teachers endorsed to teach English learners.
Kristen Schoettle, a teacher at Western International, said the interventionists’ work may be beneficial, but their time with students is not a substitute for the minutes they should have with an educator certified to teach English.
“They might be in a classroom helping translate something, but their focus isn’t on students learning English,” she said.
Michigan’s new requirements for teaching English learners
This year, Michigan schools will have to follow specific requirements for teaching English learners in order to receive certain state funding.
The law includes a framework for how many minutes of language acquisition instruction students must get from teachers endorsed in English as a second language or bilingual education based on their proficiency.
Many districts, including DPSCD, will likely have to hire or train more staff to meet the mandated minimums. School systems without enough endorsed teachers to meet the requirements must have a plan to acquire the staff in four years or less, according to the Michigan Department of Education.
DPSCD used some of its settlement money to offer tuition assistance for teachers to get English as a second language endorsements.
“ESL certified District staff has significantly increased due to our established partnerships, who provide alternative pathways for ESL/Bilingual endorsements,” said Vitti.
In the spring, the district spent $50,000 for certification courses for 10 teachers. Four of the teachers are now certified. A total of 48 teachers are working on the endorsement this school year, according to DPSCD.
The district also offered a $5,000 retention bonus to keep endorsed staff at schools whose student bodies are made up of 50% or more English learners. For new teachers with endorsements, a recruitment bonus of $2,500 was offered.
“These incentives and initiatives continue to bolster staffing ratios towards the new MDE guidelines,” said Vitti.
Hannah Dellinger covers Detroit schools for Chalkbeat Detroit. You can reach her at hdellinger@chalkbeat.org.
