Research

My research has been in two main areas: bilingual teacher education and bilingual special education. I have just completed a five-year longitudinal study on bilingual teacher training for the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) at the University of California at Santa Cruz. This study included a large national survey and 10 in-depth case studies in states with large numbers of English language learners. A book manuscript for this project is under preparation.

Over the past several years I have done research on bilingual special education in terms of program models and best practices. Most of this work has gone into a text, The Bilingual Special Education Interface, which is now in the fourth edition.

I am currently the co-principal investigator for a research grant from the U.S. Department of Education to study the Spanish version of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) test. This is a two-year study of six classrooms, which will yield information that will inform policy on the use of this test with bilingual students in Colorado.