Integrating Educational Systems for Successful Reform in Diverse Contexts

Book excerpt: Linguistic, ethnic, and economic diversity is a major factor influencing how school reform ought to be accomplished at local, state, and government levels. This book examines the issue of successful school reform in diverse communities. It is the first to synthesize research on educational research on educational reform pertaining to racially and linguistically diverse students. It examines what is needed at the teacher, school, district, state, and federal levels for educational reform to be successful in multicultural, multilingual settings. Conclusions are based on a careful review of hundreds of recent quantitative and qualitative studies relating to educational reform in diverse communities. The authors conceptualize education as an interconnected and interdependent policy system and discuss the key policy, relational, political, and resource linkages that assist in achieving sustainable improvement in schools serving at-risk students.