Linguistics and Education 63 (2021) 100927 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Linguistics and Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/linged Holding them back or pushing them out?: Reclassification policies for English learners with disabilities Sara E.N. Kangas a,* , Jamie L. Schissel b a Department of Education and Human Services, College of Education, Lehigh University, Iacocca Hall, Office A307, 111 Research Drive, Bethlehem, PA 18015, United States b Teacher Education and Higher Education Department, School of Education, University of North Carolina Greensboro, Office 464, 1300 Spring Garden Street, Greensboro, NC 27412, United States a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 24 April 2020 Revised 23 March 2021 Accepted 23 March 2021 Available online 2 April 2021 Keywords: Reclassification policies English learners with disabilities a b s t r a c t In the context of U.S. K-12 schools, recent scholarship has demonstrated that English learners (ELs) often become overrepresented in special education in secondary grades, as they are unable to meet reclassi- fication criteria established by state policies. Research, however, has yet to examine the implementation of reclassification policies specific to ELs with disabilities. This ethnographic study at two middle schools investigated the local implementation of one state’s policy that aimed to promote ELs with disabilities’ reclassification. The findings indicate that although the policy increased reclassification rates for ELs with disabilities, both the policy itself and its implementation introduced new inequities. As a consequence, educators held two competing views of the policy and its implementation, with some lauding its promo- tion of equity, while others arguing that it functioned as mechanism for discrimination. These findings have implications for implementing reclassification policies that are both responsive to ELs with disabili- ties and data-based. © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In the United States, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) mandated that each state implements uniform reclas- sification policies in K-12 schools for English learners (ELs), stu- dents acquiring English as an additional language. The reclassi- fication, or exiting, of ELs occurs when their institutional status changes from EL to former EL because they are deemed proficient in the English language and thus are no longer in need of English language development (ELD) services. 1 By requiring statewide re- classification policies and procedures, local districts can no longer institute their own practices for determining who is and who is not proficient in English. In striving to make reclassification a more standardized endeavor, the law also foregrounds the aca- demic achievement of specific subgroups of ELs, including those with identified disabilities, by requiring schools and districts to disaggregate these students’ performance data from the larger EL population (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: sara.kangas@lehigh.edu (S.E.N. Kangas), jlschiss@uncg.edu (J.L. Schissel). 1 ELD is the term used to describe a range of language programs used to support ELs’ emerging English proficiency. These two foci of the law—reclassification and academic achievement of ELs with disabilities—are interconnected. As some ELs with disabilities are unable to attain the required English lan- guage proficiency (ELP) test scores to be reclassified, scholars have questioned the role of reclassification and testing in contributing to the overrepresentation of ELs in special education by failing to account for their disabilities (Park, Magee, Martinez, Willner, & Paul, 2016; Sahakyan & Ryan, 2018; Schissel & Kangas, 2018; Thurlow, Shyyan, Lazarus, & Christensen, 2016). Although overrep- resentation exists in elementary grades (Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, & Higareda, 2005; Samson & Lesaux, 2009), reclassification assess- ment procedures as well as reclassification criteria can contribute to ELs with disabilities’ inequitable special education overrepre- sentation especially in secondary grades (Schissel & Kangas, 2018; Umansky, Thompson, & Díaz, 2017)—a phenomenon referred to as the reclassification bottleneck (Umansky et al., 2017). In the reclas- sification bottleneck, ELs with disabilities are less likely than ELs without disabilities to exit ELD services and thus over time become overrepresented at the secondary level in special education. To ad- dress the equity issues of delayed reclassification and overrepre- sentation, states have been encouraged by leading education orga- nizations, such as the Council of Chief State School Officers (2019), to institute reclassification procedures specific to ELs with disabil- ities. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2021.100927 0898-5898/© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.