A Moment to Celebrate—And to Reckon

“This is not just a moment of recognition. It is a moment of decision.”

April is National Bilingual/Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month. It is meant to be a celebration. But this year, it should also be a reckoning.

We are elevating multilingual learners, but is it rhetoric?  With the closure of OELA and more than 200 literacy-related policies and laws across over 40 states with minimal attention to multilingual learners, the contradiction is no longer subtle.

I’ve sat in district rooms where leaders debated literacy strategy for hours—phonics scope, assessment calendars, intervention tiers—and never once asked how the plan would work for a student still developing English. 

Not because people don’t care.

Because the system doesn’t force the question.

That’s the issue—and the opportunity.

If our systems don’t make multilingual learners visible, they will remain optional in decision-making. And optional never scales.

What Plyler v. Doe Really Meant

“Access without design is not opportunity.”

We often reference Plyler v. Doe as a legal guarantee of access. But in practice, we’ve reduced it to enrollment.

The ruling was about consequence. Denying education harms not just individuals, but the long-term health of the nation.¹

We delivered access. But we did not fully design for success.

I’ve worked with districts where multilingual learners are technically “served”—yet their experience is fragmented. A pull-out block here. A scaffold there. A teacher improvising daily.

That’s not an opportunity.

Access without design produces inconsistency. And inconsistency, at scale, produces barriers to full opportunities.

The question is no longer whether students are in the system.

It is whether the system is built for them.

The Illusion of Progress

“Contradiction at scale produces predictable gaps.” 

We have made real progress—stronger literacy frameworks, clearer standards, more data.

We build those systems. And watched them fall short.

Because they were designed for a monolingual learner—and then adjusted for everyone else.  

Research is clear that language and literacy develop simultaneously—not sequentially, not separately, but as an integrated process of meaning-making across contexts.²⁴

We say we value bilingualism—but assess almost exclusively in English.

We say language matters—but isolate it from core instruction, treating it as vocabulary to acquire rather than a system for making meaning across disciplines—a shift multilingual literacy scholars have explicitly called for.

We collect data—but don’t translate it into daily teaching moves.

This is not alignment. It is a contradiction.

And systems built on contradiction produce predictable gaps.

Multilingual learners are not failing the system.

The system is performing exactly as it was designed to.

The Core Problem: System Design

“We do not lack effort. We lack coherence.”

Too often, we blame implementation.

But in the field, the pattern is different.

Teachers are being asked to solve problems the system has not solved.

Multiple data sources. Separate language goals. Real-time adaptation.

That’s not a capacity issue. That’s a design issue.

Over time, teachers shift toward what is sustainable.

Less student talk. More controlled tasks. Reduced opportunities for language development.

Not because they don’t know better.

Because the system makes better practice harder.

Systems produce what they are designed to produce.

Right now, too many systems are designed for variability—and that’s exactly what they deliver.

The Moonshot We Refuse to Take

“Complexity is not the barrier. Lack of coherence is.”

We reference the moon landing as inspiration. But it’s more than that—it’s a model.

The Apollo missions worked because systems were aligned, cohesive and interdependent.  After decades of paused missions, the return through Artemis II reflects not just ambition—but sustained system redesign and recommitment.

No competing frameworks. No disconnected initiatives.

A single, coherent design.

When things broke, they fixed the system—not the people.

In education, we do the opposite.

We layer initiatives, run parallel efforts, and expect coherence to emerge.

It doesn’t.

Coherence has to be designed.

And when it is, everything changes—clarity increases, instruction sharpens, outcomes improve.

Missed Opportunities 

“What we know is not the problem. What we do with it is.”

We continue to treat language as a support—rather than the foundation of learning.

We design for an “average” student and retrofit for everyone else.

We collect data, but too often fail to translate it into instructional action.

We celebrate biliteracy, yet rarely build systems designed to produce it at scale.

None of this is new.

That’s what makes it difficult to justify.

We know that language and content develop together. Research has made that clear for decades. Yet our systems continue to separate them—despite strong evidence that integrated approaches improve outcomes for multilingual learners without reducing rigor.⁵

This is not a knowledge gap. It is a design problem.

What Coherence Actually Requires

Coherence is often described as alignment—but alignment alone is not enough.

Alignment can exist on paper. Coherence shows up in practice—when systems and behaviors change.

In effective systems, three things happen consistently:

• Data translates into instructional action—immediately, not eventually
• Assessment, grouping, and teaching operate as one connected flow
• Effective practice is easier to implement than improvisation

When these conditions are in place, teachers are no longer responsible for bridging gaps between disconnected systems.

The system does that work for them.

And when it does, coherence is no longer an aspiration.

It becomes the default.

What we are seeing nationally is not just a gap in implementation—but a misframing of the problem itself. Multilingual literacy is still too often positioned as a subset of reading rather than as the full integration of language, knowledge, foundational skills, and meaning-making across content areas. Until that framing shifts, systems will continue to treat multilingual learners as deviations from the norm rather than as central to how literacy is actually developed.

Until that framing shifts, systems will continue to treat multilingual learners as deviations from the norm—rather than as central to how literacy is developed.

What Actually Works

“Coherence is what accelerates outcomes.”

When systems begin to work for multilingual learners, the shift is immediate.

Language is embedded in every lesson.

Teachers know what to do with data—right away.

Assessment connects directly to instruction.

Leaders protect coherence by saying no to misaligned work.

It’s not flashy.

It’s disciplined.

And it works.

You see it in classrooms—more student talk, stronger thinking, clearer teaching.

The difference isn’t effort.

It’s coherence.

Strategic Implications for Leaders

“Programs don’t scale. Systems do.”

This is where leadership becomes real.

The Harvard PELP Coherence Framework emphasizes that systems improve when strategy, structure, culture, and resources are aligned around the instructional core.³

Coherence requires trade-offs.

You cannot do everything.

You must align curriculum, assessment, and language development—not as parallel efforts, but as a unified approach to multilingual literacy that treats language as the foundation of learning, not a support to it. 

You must design professional learning around the instructional core.

You must allocate resources that reinforce—not compete with—the strategy.

And most importantly, you must design with multilingual learners in mind from the start.

If they are not visible in the core, the system is incomplete.

And incomplete systems do not produce equitable outcomes.

What Leaders Must Explore Now

Across districts, there must be a shift toward systems designed for coherence from the start.

Leaders focusing on approaches that:

• Connect multilingual learner data directly to daily instruction
• Eliminate fragmentation between assessment, teaching, and reporting
• Provide both instructional clarity and confidence in compliance decisions

Not as separate initiatives—but as a unified design.

Carpe Diem

“Not with recognition—but with redesign.”

Policy is moving.  Research is clear.  The need is undeniable.

But moments like this don’t last forever.

What we build now will shape outcomes for years.

So the question is not whether multilingual learners matter.

It is whether we are willing to design systems that prove it.

In the end, after the initiatives and conversations—

What will matter is simple:

• What did we make easier, more efficient and effective  for teachers to do?
• What did we make possible for students to experience?
• What did we build that lasts?

Not with statements.   With systems.  CARPE DIEM

References

1. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).

2. Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The Science of Reading Progresses.

3. Harvard Public Education Leadership Project (PELP). Coherence Framework.

4. Cummins, J. (2000). Language, Power, and Pedagogy.

5. Goldenberg, C. (2013). Unlocking the Research on English Learners.

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Additional Readings

System Coherence & Leadership (Harvard / PELP)

• PELP Coherence Framework (Harvard) 
• Childress, S., Elmore, R. F., & Grossman, A. (2004). Note on the PELP Coherence Framework. Harvard Business School. 
• Public Education Leadership Project (PELP). Harvard Graduate School of Education. 
  
  • The framework emphasizes that districts are interdependent systems where strategy, structure, culture, and resources must align around the instructional core. 

Legal & Equity Foundation

• Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982). 
• Children’s Equity Project. (2026). The Right to Education for All: The Value of Plyler v. Doe. 

Multilingual Learners & Literacy Research

• Cummins, J. (2000). Language, Power, and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the Crossfire. 
• Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading. 
• Goldenberg, C. (2013). Unlocking the Research on English Learners: What We Know—and Don’t Yet Know—About Effective Instruction. 
• Bialystok, E. (2011). Reshaping the Mind: The Benefits of Bilingualism. 

Policy & Advocacy Context

• Californians Together. (2023). National Bilingual/Multilingual Learner Advocacy Month. 
• WIDA. (2023). Celebrating Bimultilingualism Among Our Learners. 
• Seal of Biliteracy. (2023). National Biliteracy Month. 

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