Comprehensive School Reform in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Contexts: Implementation and Outcomes from a Four-Year Study

TLDR

The study examined how state and district actions, reform adaptability, and student achievement outcomes—especially for language minority students—affect the implementation of comprehensive school reform in culturally and linguistically diverse elementary schools. Across 13 schools, reforms generally supported multicultural education and produced student achievement comparable to matched schools, with some LEP students and their peers outperforming comparison peers, though implementation varied and teacher beliefs sometimes constrained reform.

Abstract

This article presents findings from a 4-year study of 13 culturally and linguistically diverse elementary schools implementing comprehensive school reform (CSR) models. The study focused on: (a) the actions at the state and district levels that facilitated or inhibited reform implementation; (b) the adaptability of the various reforms in multicultural, multilingual contexts; and (c) the student achievement outcomes associated with reform, for schools as a whole and for language minority students in particular. Some schools implemented reforms and bilingual education programs in mutually supportive ways; others had difficulty adapting reforms to suit the needs of Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. Reforms generally helped educators meet goals for multicultural education, but in some cases, educators’ beliefs about student ability, race, and language served as constraints to reform. Students from CSR schools had achievement outcomes that were generally equivalent to those for students from matched comparison schools. Under some circumstances, though, LEP students and their English-speaking peers from CSR schools outperformed their comparison school counterparts.