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Assessment Biases
The Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA passed in 2015 replaced No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), also requires all ELLs attending public schools from grades K-12 to be assessed in multiple language domains, such as listening, reading, writing, and speaking. Current research in this area has found that assessments given to ELLs are culturally and linguistically inappropriate for reliable testing. Assessments do not take into account the students' linguistic repertoire and what they know in their first language; therefore, content-based assessment outcomes might be confounded by language barriers, since they are not only being exposed to new material, but they are learning this new material in a language that they may still be gaining proficiency in.

Teacher Biases and Training
Attitudes of educators play a major role in the ESL classroom. Estimates suggest that approximately 45% of teachers in America have ELL students in their classrooms; however, it is not uncommon for teachers have negative perceptions of ELL students in their classrooms. These negative perceptions are informed by a bias that ELL students are not adequately trying or that they are personally at fault for their language barrier. Research shows that the negative attitudes of teachers may stem from lack of time to address unique ELL student classroom needs, added teacher workload when working with ELL students in mainstream classrooms, and personal feelings of professional insufficiency to work with ELL students. Research indicates that only 12% of K-12 teachers in United States have training in working with ELL students.

These attitudes can also lead to biases in the way students are assessed and evaluated. ELL students tend underrate or under-evaluate academic skills of ELL students than English dominant peers, this can affect academic growth, ELL reclassification to English proficient, and even referral to special education services. Some researchers state that more multicultural education or trainings for teachers can help change these biases, along with more teachers of color that are representative of their students can help with less biases and lead to better evaluations of ELLs. Teachers can also become more aware of the issues faced by ELLs along with how language is developed and the issues with language development.

ELLs with Disabilities
Of the 5 million ELL students in the 2019-2020 school year, 15.3% of these or 766,600 were identified with disabilities and qualified for special education services. ELLs with disabilities follow the same path to receiving services for special education:  academic struggle is observed by those working with the student, the student is referred to a team of professionals for intervention and/or assessment, if a disability is found they are then placed in special education programming for support.

Researchers have found that there is a disproportion in ELL students identified into special education. There can be an overrepresentation where ELL students can be qualified into special education services but do not truly have a disability, or there can be an underrepresentation where a disability exists but the ELL student is not qualified into special education because it is deemed a language development related issue.

Most ELL students qualify under the Specific learning disability or Emotional Disturbance categories. According to WIDA, states with the highest identification of ELLs with disabilities, the specific learning disability category is the highest category for special education qualification. See the WIDA Focus On: ELLs with Specific Learning Disabilities fact sheet for a detailed map breakdown by state on percentages of ELLs identified into this category.