Becoming Something Different

In this article, a Latina girl named Esme Martinez is followed and examined for six years of school. She is observed from sixth to eleventh grade. Over the years Esme's perspectives of academics, family and friends shift as she grows and changes. This article's main purpose is to show how ESL/ELL students are overlooked in the school system and how most ESL/ELL students are not being motivated to excel. Our ESL/ELL youth are disadvantaged and deprived from their right to push themselves to learn and it is a shame. Due to this issue, ELL's are not being proficient in school.
There's a part in the article where Esme is struggling with reading while in the seventh grade so her school schedule gets changed and she is put in a special reading class. Esme likes the class and it puts her right on track. When Esme starts eighth grade, she becomes agitated because she is once again put in a low-level reading class. It is said in the article that ELL students are disproportionately placed in special education programs. Esme felt as though her reading class was too easy for her since she always finished her work first. But Esme used her knowledge to help other students in the class and that made her satisfied. I do think her teacher should have noticed Esme doing so well and should have placed her in a class where she could have been challenged.
When Esme gets to high school she is put in three honors classes. She has trouble in algebra and fails it so she is put in a lower level math class. Esme also struggles in her biology class with a 70 average and talks to a counselor about it. Esme tells the counselor she believes she can do better if she works harder but the counselor decides to take her out of her honors classes and give her regular classes. "The school’s actions perpetuated her positioning as struggling in an “all or nothing” way that failed to recognize her academic strengths, a process further compounded by her enrollment in a remedial reading class that even her teacher believed was inappropriate." Esme's first year in high school put her in a place where she lost the drive to do her best.
The little support and persistence shown to ELL students is one of the reasons why ELL students score low on standardized tests.
I searched on google ELL statistics and found this photo I posted below. I thought it very much relates to ESL and ELL students and how far they go with their education.