Enrollment of students who are English learners increased by more than 200 percent in Colorado schools between 1995 and 2005, according to a national study released Wednesday.

The dramatic growth has created many academic challenges for the state's school districts - from providing enough English teachers and program money, to addressing the large disparities in academic achievement between English learners and students whose first language is English.

The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires that all children, including English learners, reach high standards in reading and math.

But the study paints a fairly dismal portrait of academic success for the 5.1 million English learners in Colorado and nationwide, showing wide gaps in their academic achievement compared with that of other students who take standardized state and federal tests.

The report, called "Portrait of a Population: How English Language Learners are Putting States to the Test," is part of Education Week's Quality Counts 2009 study, conducted by the Maryland-based Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.

The study found that most English-learning students in the U.S. are from low-income families, come from "highly disadvantaged" backgrounds and are in school districts that are racially segregated.

About two-thirds of the students were born in the U.S. or its territories. Thirty-five percent are immigrants, with 54 percent of those coming from Mexico. Whether the immigrant students are here legally was undetermined.

Since the study's statistics were gathered, Colorado's English-learning student population has increased even more - to 98,444 in 2007-2008, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

Most of those students - both in Colorado and nationally - speak Spanish as their first language.

Colorado projects it will need to increase its staff of 5,000 teachers who teach English as a second language by 49 percent in the next five years.

Nationally, about 56,000 such teachers will be needed, not counting California and five other states that did not report information.

Such programs do not come cheap. The federal government gave Colorado $10.3 million for the 2007-08 school year for language programs.

Another $8.5 million was provided by the state of Colorado to school districts under the state English language Proficiency Act to help students during their first two years of language learning.

Locally, districts are scrambling to keep up. There were 5,682 English-learning students in El Paso County schools in 2007-2008, according to the state Education Department.

"Our numbers are growing in a huge way," said Christina Clayton, facilitator of the Multilingual Department at Colorado Springs School District 11.

In the past five years, the number of English-learning students in District 11 has almost doubled, making it the district with the largest such population in El Paso County.

Although 52 languages are represented, 85 percent of English-learning students speak Spanish. "It's very difficult to know where to get resources for some of them," Clayton said.

As school districts nationwide work to boost the English skills of these students, they're also trying to improve their academic achievement. English-learning students still fall behind peers on academic testing.

"While Colorado continues to improve practice, assessment and accountability in academic achievement of English-language learners, we clearly have a long way to go to ensure that these students are grasping the content they need to be successful," said Dwight D. Jones, Colorado commissioner of education.

The problem, said Clayton, is that students have trouble understanding content that's being taught in English if they don't yet have a firm grasp of the language.

"For example, if a class is studying biosphere, and they see that word, they have no idea what a biosphere is," she said.

QUALITY COUNTS STUDY DETAILS

The Quality Counts study shows that Colorado's English-learning students do better on Colorado achievement tests than they do on national tests. Study researchers also pointed out that Colorado does a better job in getting these students transferred from English-learning status to the general population - 17.1 percent compared with the national average of 12.9 percent. Here are some more findings:

• In Colorado, 8.4 percent of English-learning students attained proficiency on English tests in 2006-2007, and another 42.8 percent were making progress. This compares with 16.9 percent and 34.4 percent nationally.

• Only 6 percent of Colorado's English-learning students were proficient in math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2007 (fourth and eighth grades combined) compared with 9.6 percent nationally. Reading proficiency was 5 percent, compared with 5.6 percent nationally.

• In math, there was a learning gap of 33.3 percent between Colorado's English-learning students and regular students on the National Assessment of Education Progress. Nationally, that figure was 25.2 percent. In reading scores, Colorado's English-learning students had a 30.4 percent gap compared with their peers. Nationally, the gap was 25.2 percent,

• Colorado's English-learning students fared better on the state's achievement tests. They were 68.9 percent proficient in math and 65.7 percent proficient in reading. The national average for such students taking their state's tests was 43.8 percent in math and 38.2 percent in reading.

• Statewide, only 44 districts met all their English instructional goals, according to Colorado Department of Education, including three districts in El Paso County: Academy School District 20, Cheyenne Mountain School District 12,and Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8.

ENGLISH LEARNING IN EL PASO COUNTY

Here are some approaches being taken in three area districts that have many students learning English:

• District 11: Colorado Springs' largest school district has 44 teachers for English learners and 16 aides teaching 2,547 students. Students receive special tutoring in small groups, for up to about an hour and a half, but still attend regular classes.

Much of the tutoring revolves around not only acquiring English skills but also understanding the content and vocabulary of other classes.

Because students do better when parents are involved in their education, experts say, D-11 provides English classes for parents and a family literacy program in which parents learn English to support their students in reading and writing.

• Harrison School District 2, with 1,572 English-learning students, has adult and family programs similar to D-11's, but it takes another approach in the classroom.

It is one of the few districts in which English-learning students spend the day in separate classrooms learning the same curriculum as their English-speaking peers. These classes spend more time on the subjects' vocabulary, building background knowledge, and developing oral language. There is also tutorial support for children who have more but still limited proficiency.

The district has 37 teachers for English learners and 20 paraprofessional aides.

• Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8: The number of English-learning students increased from 95 in 2003 to 234 in 2007. The district's 10 teachers in this field work closely with the students' classroom teachers, and group sessions are limited to eight students. The district also pre-teaches vocabulary that is essential for topics that will be addressed in the regular classrooms. "We have made ELL a priority," says Debbie Pierre, D-8's assistant superintendant of curriculum and instruction. It's a continual challenge."