The authors critically examine multicultural education and its failure to address the stark differences that characterize student achievement in North America in terms of a praxis that would bring equity in learning or other developmental outcomes. Arguing that dismantling proportional group based inequality depends on the systematic reform of structures and policies currently perpetuating the correlation between children's ethnocultural and economic history and their school achievement, we draw from a cultural historical theoretical framework to outline how the multiple and complex factors influencing underachievement might be better understood and, moreover, effectively counteracted in ways that begin to reverse the rates of school failure for U.S. ethnic minority students, in particular U.S. English learners.
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