PORTLAND — Oregon schools are making progress at teaching English to nonnative speakers, but schools still have a long way to go to get more of their students out of language-learning courses and back into mainstream classrooms.

In data released Wednesday by the Oregon Department of Education, almost every school district with non-English speaking students said at least 35 percent of their students had progressed at least one level in their efforts to learn English — from beginning to early intermediate, for example.

That target, mandated under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, will grow in years to come; by 2013, 95 percent of all English language learners will be expected to have jumped at least one level.

School districts did worse when it comes to moving advanced students out of the program. Forty-two districts failed to move more than 50 percent of nonnative speakers out of advanced English language learning classes within five years. Eventually, they will be expected to get more than 90 percent of such students to hit the target.

Districts that don’t hit the federally mandated targets for two consecutive years must submit a plan to the state outlining how they’ll improve, and are closely monitored.

Results from the 2006-07 school year can’t be properly compared to those from previous years, said Gene Evans, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Education, because in previous years, districts have been allowed to choose their own tests to give to students.

This year, all English as a second language students took the same online tests.

About 62,000 students were in English as a second language programs in Oregon schools last year. The state and federal government spends an extra $2,800 on each such student.