Improving Performance of Low-Achieving and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

Chicago, Denver, Seoul, Shanghai, and the EdVisions charter network are very different from each other in many ways—size, diversity, poverty levels, institutional structures and political processes. Yet they share a common focus on trying to reduce achievement gaps so that all students, no matter what their background, can have a successful school experience. In every system around the world, it is still the case that students who grow up in the wrong circumstances, or do not speak the dominant language, or have different skin color from the majority are more likely to have poor educational outcomes. There is still much work to be done to produce truly equitable school systems.