Testing, time limits, and English learners: Does age of school entry affect how quickly students can learn English?

Using data on young English learners (EL) who enroll in the New York City public school system, I examine how long it takes students to become minimally proficient in English and how the time to proficiency differs for students by their age of school entry. Specifically, I follow four recent entry cohorts of ELs ages 5–10 and use discrete-time survival analysis to model the rate at which different age groups acquire proficiency. I find that approximately half of the students become proficient within three years after school entry and that younger students learn more quickly than older students. Age of entry differences are robust to controls for observed differences between age of entry groups in their economic and demographic characteristics, their disabilities, and the schools they attend. The results lend support to the theory that older students face developmental barriers to learning new languages quickly.