Home Language Surveys (HLS) are widely used by states as an initial screening tool to determine whether students should receive English as a Second Language (ESL) services. Parents/guardians are asked to complete the surveys when enrolling a student into a school. We collected surveys from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. We completed them as if we were the parent/guardian of six use-case students. Research questions were (1) How do HLS vary from state to state, if at all? What kinds of questions do they ask? (2) How do HLS across the 50 states and the District of Columbia identify, or not, six fictitious students for further ESL screening? We found that states and U.S. Department of Education–approved HLS questions identified students differently due to unclear questions, such as asking bilingual families to name one dominant language. We recommend additional validation measures be taken with survey questions.

各州广泛使用家庭语言调查（HLS）作为初步筛选工具，以确定学生是否应接受英语作为第二语言（ESL）服务。当学生入学时，要求父母/监护人完成调查。我们收集了来自50个州和哥伦比亚特区的调查。我们完成了它们，就好像我们是六个用例学生的父母/监护人一样。研究的问题是（1）各个州之间的HLS有何不同（如果有的话）？他们问什么类型的问题？（2）横跨50个州和哥伦比亚特区的HLS如何识别或不识别六个虚拟学生以进行进一步的ESL筛选？我们发现，各州和美国教育部批准的HLS问题因不清楚的问题（例如要求双语家庭命名一种主要语言）而对学生的识别方式有所不同。