Implementation and Impact of Oregon’s Access to Linguistic Inclusion Law

This 3-year project, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation will evaluate the implementation and impact of an innovative new law in Oregon, Access to Linguistic Inclusion (ALI). ALI changes several rules in schools to build pathways to graduation for multilingual and immigrant students. For example, ALI changed state law from requiring four years of English language arts coursework in high school for graduation, to requiring four year of language arts coursework, independent of language. ALI implementation is not mandatory, however, so this project will use qualitative methods to analyze which elements have been implemented in which Oregon districts, and when. It will then use a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the impact of ALI implementation on multilingual student outcomes. University of Oregon is partnering on this project with the Oregon Department of Education and Oregon State University.