Successful Bilingual Education Programs: Development and the Dissemination of Criteria to Identify Promising and Exemplary Practices in Bilingual Education at the National Level

In 1999, the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) was funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs (OBEMLA) to identify 10 promising and/or exemplary bilingual education programs in schools across the nation as determined by participating limited English proficient (LEP) students' academic achievement. Using these programs, IDRA identified 25 common characteristics and criteria that are contributing to the high academic performance of students served by bilingual education programs, thus helping others identify successful programs or raise the bar with their own bilingual education programs.