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From http://www.edcentral.org/research-making-policy-reforms-work-dual-language-learners/

Research on Making Policy Reforms Work for Dual Language Learners
by Conor Williams
August 26, 2014

If there’s any unifying thread in the story of the last several years of education debates, it’s that policy changes are education reform’s first, not final, steps. Given American education’s unwieldy, chaotic governing institutions, legal and regulatory changes are almost always susceptible to being watered down—or even reversed. For instance, while it seemed like a settled victory when the Common Core State Standards were adopted by 46 states, recent implementation (and political) challenges have sapped that effort of much of its substance. Policy design and policy implementation require different skill sets (as does political mobilization). But they all matter, and the education policy community needs to think much harder about what its proposals will look like in the classroom.

Efforts to reform how U.S. schools educate dual language learners (DLLs) often run into this challenge. Many advocates concerned with DLLs’ linguistic and academic development have focused their attention on getting lawmakers to enshrine the importance of native language instruction for these students.
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