"Are California's EL [English Learners] students learning English and academic skills?" Joanne Jacobs asks. "Are they learning the skills but getting stuck in an 'EL track' that leads nowhere?"

In a new paper put out by the Lexington Institute, Jacobs explores these questions, along with the distressing statistics that surround them: "Only 9.6 percent of English Learners (ELs) in California public schools were redesignated to Fluent English Proficient status during the 2005-06 school year. According to one state education department study, only one-third of those who start in kindergarten are reclassified by fifth grade." Those aren't good numbers--and in her paper, Jacobs explores everything from how California offers financial incentives to keep kids classified as ELs to how individual schools handle the complexities of teaching English to kids who speak a variety of first languages.