Working two jobs to support his family, 17-year-old Eden didn’t have time for the “distractions” of high school. The teen moved from Mexico to Georgia with his family in 2021, struggled with communicating in English and felt lost and frustrated in school.
“They put me in Spanish class,” Eden says with a laugh, reflecting on the irony of being required to invest precious time in studying a language he already spoke fluently. Meanwhile, his English as a Second Language classes were “confusing.”
Eden left high school during his freshman year, at risk of joining a troubling trend: just 71% of English learners complete high school, lagging behind the national graduation rate of 85%.
The graduation disparity is a result of factors such as limited access to resources and socioeconomic challenges, compounded by K12 schools’ capacity to serve the diverse needs of multilingual students. In many districts, students are pulled from general classroom instruction to receive ESL services, an approach that stigmatizes English learners and disrupts students’ learning.
In other cases, an outdated ESL curriculum can feel irrelevant or infantilizing to learners. Large class sizes limit instructors’ ability to offer personalized, high-impact English instruction.
English learners are projected to make up at least 20% of the American workforce by 2025. And by 2027, a staggering 70% of jobs will require education beyond a high school diploma. In an economy with 8.5 million jobs for 6.5 million unemployed workers, the U.S. can’t afford for people like Eden to sit on the sidelines of the workforce.
In effectively boxing Eden out of the opportunity to learn English and graduate high school, the U.S. workforce misses out on another critical skill: his bilingual abilities. In the U.S. job market, bilingual skills, especially Spanish and English, are in high demand. Multilingual individuals can command salaries up to 35% higher than their monolingual peers, and for good reason; being able to speak more than one language is consistently linked with creativity, innovation, and strong problem-solving skills—critical assets in any workplace.
We can fundamentally reshape our approach to integrating English instruction with high school education in three key steps:
- De-silo our approach to ESL. Instead of separating English learners in ESL courses, it’s possible to integrate English instruction with high school requirements. Personalized English instruction is designed to help them advance through standard high school classes like biology, math and American history and complete their studies with a valuable credential: a high school diploma.
- Offer on-demand access. Where traditional high school programs require in-person attendance for around seven-plus hours a day, online learning offers valuable flexibility for the 40% of students who, like Eden, are juggling school and work. Online programs are inherently scalable, with no waitlists to attend overbooked programs in traditional brick-and-mortar classrooms—positioning them to help address another access issue: the U.S. currently serves the needs of just 4% of English learners.
- Champion digital skills. Mobile-first instruction equips learners with digital literacy skills, which have become a requirement for 92% of jobs in the U.S. A survey of 2,500 EnGen learners found that 85% improved their digital skills in addition to their English skills as a result of using technology-mediated instruction. And a Penn Foster Group survey found that 80% of learners who participated in online learning reported that it opened doors that otherwise would have been inaccessible.
Today, Eden is on track to become the first person in his family to finish high school. Eden’s plans don’t stop with earning his high school diploma. He’s thrived with online learning and plans to get additional online certificates that will position him for long-term career mobility.
By addressing the specific needs of English learners like Eden by providing strategically tailored and flexible online learning opportunities, we can unlock untapped potential and create a more inclusive, dynamic and competitive workforce. This approach will uplift individuals and drive broader economic growth, benefiting communities and businesses across the country.
