A system-level examination of dual-language education
This study treats dual-language education as a coordinated district system rather than as a single classroom intervention. It examines how district guidance, school-level decisions, leadership practices, organizational conditions, and accountability structures influence the educational opportunities multilingual learners experience.
Defining the Program Being Evaluated
The program at the center of this evaluation is the Chicago Public Schools dual-language education system as it is designed, supported, implemented, and monitored in partnership with schools.
The study examines the policies, guidance, staffing expectations, language-allocation models, curriculum and assessment supports, professional learning, implementation practices, monitoring routines, and accountability structures that collectively shape dual-language education.
Dual-language education is not defined here as an isolated program located within one classroom or one school. It is understood as a multilevel system intended to promote high academic achievement, bilingualism and biliteracy, sociocultural competence, and equitable educational opportunity for multilingual learners.
Three Interconnected Levels
The evaluation examines how the dual-language system is experienced at the intersection of district expectations, school implementation, and students’ daily opportunities to learn.
District and OMME Supports
Policies, implementation guidance, professional learning, curriculum supports, staffing expectations, tools, monitoring routines, and accountability structures provided to schools.
School Structures and Practices
Leadership decisions involving language allocation, staffing, scheduling, curriculum, student placement, services, governance, family engagement, and access to opportunities.
Student Experience
The rigor, continuity, linguistic development, cultural affirmation, inclusion, and academic opportunities multilingual learners actually experience within dual-language programs.
The integrity of the system is ultimately reflected in whether multilingual learners receive the sustained, rigorous, equitable, and culturally affirming opportunities the program was designed to provide.
Why the Evaluation Is Needed
Strong multilingual commitments do not automatically produce consistent implementation across schools, grade levels, or student groups.
School leaders must protect essential program features while responding to immediate operational realities. These pressures can produce necessary adaptations, but they can also contribute to fragmentation, unequal access, or gradual program drift when clear decision rules and safeguards are absent.
Staffing and scheduling
Vacancies, turnover, certification requirements, service delivery, and master-schedule constraints can reduce protected partner-language instruction.
Budget and governance
Resource decisions and local governance priorities can influence staffing patterns, program continuity, enrollment, and access.
Accountability demands
Testing, performance measures, compliance expectations, and competing initiatives can displace long-term bilingual goals.
Access and inclusion
Placement, intervention, special education, and enrollment decisions can either protect or restrict multilingual learners’ participation.
Guidance and tools
Broad expectations may not provide sufficient direction for resolving recurring trade-offs in real school conditions.
Monitoring and response
Without practical indicators and escalation pathways, small implementation changes may become persistent program drift.
Central Purpose of the Study
To examine how CPS dual-language schools protect program integrity and equity for multilingual learners amid competing internal and external pressures, and to assess the extent to which district structures support or hinder that work.
The evaluation focuses on both the protections already operating within schools and the system-level gaps that make it difficult for leaders to sustain strong dual-language models. It seeks to understand not only what leaders do, but also the organizational conditions, policies, relationships, tools, and authority structures that shape what they are able to do.
Three Evaluation Objectives
The evaluation moves from understanding current implementation conditions to identifying the leadership and district supports needed for sustained improvement.
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Document conditions and pressures
Analyze the internal and external forces that influence dual-language program integrity and equity across CPS schools.
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Identify protective leadership practices
Examine the beliefs, decisions, routines, and school-level strategies principals and their teams use to safeguard model integrity and equitable access to learning opportunities.
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Assess district alignment and support
Determine how policies, tools, guidance, professional learning, monitoring, and accountability mechanisms align with—or fall short of—what schools need to sustain high-quality, equity-centered programming.
A Utilization-Focused, Improvement-Oriented Approach
The evaluation is designed to generate knowledge that can be used in real leadership, policy, and program-improvement decisions.
Rather than evaluating individual employees or ranking schools, the study examines professional practice and organizational systems. Its intended users include school leaders, network leaders, OMME staff, and other district decision-makers responsible for supporting dual-language implementation.
The value of the evaluation lies in its ability to produce actionable findings that clarify where the system is operating as intended, where implementation is vulnerable, and what changes can strengthen support for multilingual learners.
Goals of the Study
The goals are both descriptive and improvement-oriented. Together, they connect the current state of implementation to the development of practical system safeguards.
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1
Describe the current As-Is state
Examine program integrity and equity through the four arenas of change: contexts, culture, conditions, and competencies.
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2
Identify recurring pressures and dilemmas
Document the competing demands leaders encounter in staffing, budgeting, enrollment, accountability, special education, scheduling, and local governance.
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3
Document protective leadership practices
Identify decisions, routines, relationships, and organizational conditions that preserve language allocation, program continuity, instructional quality, and equitable access.
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4
Analyze district and central-office roles
Examine the clarity, coherence, usefulness, and limitations of district guidance, tools, accountability systems, and capacity-building supports.
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5
Develop the integrity framework
Translate findings into essential components, non-negotiables, allowable adaptations, decision rules, indicators, and safeguards.
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6
Inform policy and practice
Use the findings to strengthen district and school decisions so multilingual learners receive robust, research-based instruction and equitable academic opportunities.
Connection to Student Learning
Program integrity matters because implementation decisions directly shape the academic, linguistic, sociocultural, and long-term opportunities available to students.
Academic Achievement
Students need sustained access to rigorous grade-level content and instruction across both program languages.
Bilingualism and Biliteracy
Protected instructional time and coherent pathways support advanced language and literacy development over multiple years.
Sociocultural Competence
Students’ languages, cultures, identities, and communities should be affirmed as central educational assets.
Equitable Opportunity
Multilingual learners must have sustained access to program participation, services, enrichment, advanced coursework, and long-term pathways.
When language allocation is reduced, qualified staffing is unavailable, services are fragmented, or multilingual learners are excluded from program pathways, students lose opportunities the dual-language model was specifically designed to provide.
Intended Framework and Use
The study is intended to guide the creation of a Dual Language Program Integrity Framework that converts research findings into practical supports for school and district decision-making.
The intended result is not a rigid compliance checklist. It is a system-facing decision framework that helps leaders respond to real constraints without losing sight of the program’s educational purpose or its commitments to multilingual learner equity.
From Evaluation to Improvement
This study is designed to support continuous improvement by making visible the conditions that protect dual-language program integrity, the pressures that place it at risk, and the supports leaders need to respond effectively.
The evaluation is not intended to judge individual schools or leaders. It is intended to strengthen the larger system so that district commitments, school practices, and student experiences remain aligned over time.