Bilingual education enrollment for multilingual English learner-classified students with disabilities: Evidence from Oregon

Families, educators, and researchers have reported that multilingual learners with disabilities have reduced access to bilingual education programs. However, large-scale data about bilingual program enrollment for multilingual learners with disabilities is limited, and when available, is typically not disaggregated by disability category. Drawing on 11 years of student-level longitudinal data from Oregon, we provide the first statewide analysis of bilingual program enrollment by disability category. Using logistic regression models that control for a variety of structural, organizational, and demographic factors, we find that multilingual EL-classified students with disabilities are significantly less likely than other EL-classified students to be enrolled in a bilingual program. In addition, we find substantial and significant variation by disability category. For example, analysis suggests that students with autism and students with emotional disturbance are about half as likely to be enrolled in bilingual programs compared to those with speech or language impairments. We discuss implications of these findings for policy and practice.