District Supervisors’ Sensemaking and Implementation of English Language Development Standards: WIDA 2020 Edition

Abstract

English language development (ELD) standards are federally mandated in all U.S. states and impact the experiences of multilingual learners (MLs) in local schools and classrooms. This study examined district supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020—the latest and most widely adopted ELD standards in U.S. K–12 education—as well as the contextual factors that supervisors perceived as shaping their sensemaking and implementation. Based on in-depth interviews with 18 English as a second language (ESL)/bilingual supervisors across diverse districts in one northeastern state, we found that supervisors’ emerging understandings of WIDA 2020 and patchwork implementation efforts (e.g., retrofitting existing curricula) were shaped by multiple factors, including their multiple and varied roles and responsibilities and their limited opportunities for collaboration with content area colleagues. We discuss implications for policy and practice and future directions that can advance research on ELD standards as an understudied policy lever for pursuing ML equity.

In U.S. K–12 education, the Every Student Succeeds Act requires that each state adopt English language proficiency (ELP) standards that are “aligned with the challenging State academic standards” (U.S. Department of Education, 2015, p. 24)—in other words, that reflect the language used for communication in school content areas (e.g., science, social studies). To comply with this federal legislation, multiple sets of ELP standards have been adopted across U.S. states. As of May 2025, standards developed by the WIDA Consortium are being used in 35 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories and agencies (https://wida.wisc.edu/about/consortium). Ten states use ELP standards developed by another multistate consortium, ELPA21 (Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO], 2014), while four states (Arizona, California, New York, and Texas) use their own standards. Collectively, these sets of ELP standards contribute to shaping the curriculum, instruction, and assessment experienced by U.S. multilingual learners (MLs), who make up the fastest growing subset of the K–12 student population (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2024). However, despite the potential of ELP standards as a powerful policy lever for pursuing ML equity, ELP standards appear to exist on the margins of education policy, with the knowledge base on their implementation restricted to only a handful of studies.

In December 2020, the WIDA Consortium released the WIDA English Language Development (ELD) Standards Framework, 2020 Edition (hereafter WIDA 2020). The product of a multiyear revision of its predecessor (WIDA, 2012), WIDA 2020 aims to reflect the latest theoretical developments in the field of language education (e.g., Grapin & Lee, 2022), align with the latest college- and career-ready standards in content area education (e.g., Lee & Grapin, 2024), and address critiques of previous editions of the standards (e.g., Lee, 2018). WIDA 2020 puts forth an ambitious vision for pursuing ML equity through systematic integration of content and language learning that is supported by sustained collaboration among stakeholders, including content and language educators (Molle & Wilfrid, 2021; WIDA, 2020). As WIDA 2020 is implemented in the education system, its ambitious vision calls for significant shifts in teachers’ curriculum, instruction, and assessment with MLs in content areas.

Whether this ambitious vision is realized will depend, in large part, on how educators construct their understanding of the standards and translate that understanding into action in diverse contexts (Menken & García, 2010; Spillane et al., 2002). While implementation of policy initiatives, such as ELD standards, requires attention to multiple interconnected levels of the education system (Weddle et al., 2024), district leaders play a “critical intermediary role” in filtering federal and state policies to local levels (Mavrogordato et al., 2022, p. 337). Specifically, English as a second language (ESL)/bilingual district supervisors are typically responsible for developing curriculum and designing professional learning for teachers—two long-recognized levers of standards-based reform (Stornaiuolo et al., 2023). However, research on ELD standards is thin, and the voices of district leaders—those most closely charged with interpretation and implementation—have rarely been elevated in research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL/bilingual district supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020, as well as the contextual factors that supervisors perceived as shaping their sensemaking and implementation. In doing so, this study adds to the limited knowledge base on ELD standards broadly while offering timely insights into the implementation of a set of ELD standards (WIDA, 2020) that is currently being implemented in the education system and poised to impact over 2 million MLs across 36 U.S. states.

For consistency throughout this article, we use the term “ELD standards” (i.e., the term used by the WIDA Consortium), whereas federal legislation (U.S. Department of Education, 2015) and other sets of standards (e.g., CCSSO, 2014) use the term “ELP standards.” Likewise, we use the term “MLs” (i.e., the term adopted by WIDA 2020) when referring to students in U.S. K–12 education designated as learning English. However, we preserve “English learner,” or EL, (i.e., the term used in federal legislation and many states and districts) when used by other sources (e.g., extant literature, demographic data) and by participants in our study (see Grapin, 2021; Kanno et al., 2024, on differences in terminology across research, policy, and practice).

Theoretical Background

As federal legislation requires that ELD standards align with content standards (U.S. Department of Education, 2015), ELD standards, such as WIDA 2020, exist at the intersection of content area education and language education. Thus, this study is grounded in parallel theoretical perspectives on policy implementation from these fields.

In content area education, whereas traditional perspectives on policy implementation tended to view policies as “static ideas . . . transmitted unaltered into local actors’ minds” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 392), contemporary perspectives turn attention to how implementing agents (e.g., administrators, teachers) engage in an active process of sensemaking (Weick, 1995). Since “what a policy comes to mean for implementing agents depends to a great extent on their repertoire of existing knowledge and experience” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 393), agents’ sensemaking may be in varying degrees of alignment with policymakers’ intent. For example, when encountered with new science standards, educators bring to bear their views of science disciplines, of students, and of what it means to teach science to students (e.g., Haverly et al., 2022). At the same time, “sense-making is not a solo affair” (see also Coburn, 2001; Spillane et al., 2002, p. 40). Implementing agents’ sensemaking is situated in social and institutional contexts that “provide norms, rules, and definitions of the environment, both constraining and enabling action” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 405). For example, in constructing meaning of standards, educators’ sensemaking may be shaped not only by their own knowledge and experiences, but also by the norms and structures of their schools, districts, and states (e.g., norms for collaboration across departments, accountability systems; Meyer & Rowan, 1978; Weick, 1976). Thus, policy implementation is constituted in the dynamic interaction of “policy signals [e.g., standards documents]” with agents’ “existing cognitive structures [and] their situation” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 388).

In language education, the evolution of theoretical perspectives has followed a similar trajectory. Whereas traditional perspectives focused on top-down policies “handed down” to educators, who would presumably implement those policies as intended, contemporary perspectives turn attention to how, “at each level of an educational system . . . language education policies are interpreted, negotiated, and ultimately (re)constructed in the process of implementation” (Menken & García, 2010, p. 1). As educators “act on their agency to change the various language education policies they must translate into practice” (Menken & García, 2010, p. 1), they draw on their knowledge, experiences, beliefs, and ideologies to make sense of what policies mean. For example, educators’ ideologies about language (e.g., ideology of language separation) mediate their construction of classroom language policy (e.g., Henderson, 2017). At the same time, educators’ sensemaking and implementation interact dynamically with aspects of context (e.g., school and district language policies), an insight captured by Ricento and Hornberger’s (1996) metaphor of the language policy “onion” consisting of multiple layers that “permeate and interact with each other in a variety of ways and to varying degrees” (p. 402). Extending Ricento and Hornberger’s metaphor, García and Menken (2010) call for “stirring the onion” in language education policy implementation by moving beyond top-down or bottom-up perspectives to viewing implementation as the “joint product of educators’ constructive activity as well as the context in which this constructive activity is built” (p. 256).

In sum, theoretical perspectives across fields position educators as active sensemakers and agentive implementers of policies in dynamic social and institutional contexts. While these perspectives have been deployed extensively to examine educators’ sensemaking and implementation of content standards in content area education (e.g., Haverly et al., 2022; Seeber et al., 2024) and some policy initiatives in language education (as described in the Literature Review), only a handful of studies have examined implementation of ELD standards specifically, which cut across content area education and language education.

Literature Review

We review the literature in three areas relevant to the aims and design of the present study: (a) research on leaders’ sensemaking and implementation of language education policies, (b) research on sensemaking and implementation of ELD standards, and (c) emerging research on the WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition.

Research on Leaders’ Sensemaking and Implementation of Language Education Policies

Research has identified state, district, and school leaders as key implementing agents of language education policies. In one line of inquiry, Mavrogordato and colleagues (Bartlett et al., 2024; Mavrogordato & White, 2020; Mavrogordato et al., 2022) have examined the role of state and district leaders in “shaping policy interpretation and implementation for EL student equity” (Mavrogordato et al., 2022, p. 337). For example, Bartlett et al. (2024) found that the extent to which EL-focused policies (e.g., Title III) expanded or constrained equity for ELs depended on how deeply leaders understood the policies, whether their approaches to implementation were technical or transformative, and the interactions of leaders’ understandings and approaches with external factors (e.g., human capital, professional networks). In another line of inquiry, Menken and colleagues (Menken & Solorza, 2015; Menken et al., 2024) have examined the role of school leaders as “linchpins” in bilingual education, with “great power in shaping the education of emergent bilinguals” (Menken & Solorza, 2015, p. 680). For example, Menken and Solorza (2015) interviewed principals who had recently eliminated their bilingual programs and found that principals’ decisions were shaped by both personal characteristics (e.g., lack of formal preparation in bilingual education) and contextual factors (e.g., test-based accountability).

While research on leaders’ sensemaking and implementation of language education policies underscores the “critical intermediary role” of state, district, and school leaders as they filter policies to local levels (Mavrogordato et al., 2022, p. 337), this research has focused primarily on bilingual education policies as well as on more general policies affecting MLs (e.g., Title III). A much smaller body of research has examined sensemaking and the implementation of ELD standards specifically, which are required by federal legislation to be implemented in all states, and shape the curriculum, instruction, and assessment that MLs experience daily in local schools and classrooms.

Research on Sensemaking and Implementation of ELD Standards

Research on educators’ sensemaking and implementation of ELD standards has focused on the WIDA standards, either WIDA 2007 or WIDA 2012, which is unsurprising given WIDA’s long history and wide reach as the largest multistate consortium responsible for developing ELD standards. Molle (2013), in the “first attempt to systematically assemble and analyze evidence related to WIDA ELD standards implementation” (p. 2), interviewed educators across seven WIDA-affiliated states about their implementation of WIDA 2007. Molle found that district EL coordinators (comparable to ESL/bilingual district supervisors in our study) “shaped the use of the WIDA standards in powerful ways” (p. 1), particularly in how they created (or not) formal opportunities for ESL teachers to collaborate with their general education colleagues. Westerlund (2014) focused on the subsequent edition of the standards (i.e., WIDA, 2012) and conducted a descriptive case study of “the sense making teachers used to understand what it means to implement WIDA ELD standards and what it looked like in their daily instruction” (p. 3). Westerlund found that teachers frequently “used shortcuts to mediate the standards’ vagueness,” such as “replacing the standards with Can Do Descriptors” (p. 139)—a resource from WIDA 2012 that concisely describes what learners can do with language at each grade level/band and level of English proficiency. Echoing Molle (2013), Westerlund’s (2014) study reinforced the importance of “supportive leadership . . . that carved out dedicated time for collaboration” as well as “leadership to maintain a focus [on ELD standards implementation] among competing agendas” (p. 140). Kray (2020) also investigated educators’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2012, but with a particular focus on a standards-aligned curriculum writing tool that was developed through “collaborative and distributive leadership with teachers, directors and principals” (p. xviii).

Together, these studies paint a picture of ELD standards “implementation . . . as a complex process that depends on many factors” (Molle, 2013, p. 12). However, these studies did not elicit in-depth accounts from district leaders, even as the perspectives of these leaders were described as “essential [to] understanding how the standards were used” (Molle, 2013, p. 3). One exception is Morita-Mullaney’s (2017) narrative analysis of the experiences and actions of eight EL/bilingual district leaders in a state that was transitioning from state-specific ELD standards to WIDA 2012. Morita-Mullaney found that, while the transition brought “national legitimacy by being part of a multi-state consortium” (p. 257), EL/bilingual leaders continued to experience a “contingent leadership role . . . where their authority and expertise [were] diminished in instructional collaborations with general education educators” (p. 245). This marginal status was compounded by external accountability mechanisms (e.g., federal legislation such as No Child Left Behind; U.S. Department of Education, 2002) that privileged academic content standards—and, by extension, the leaders responsible for their implementation—over ELD standards. Living on an “EL/[bilingual] island” with limited scope of influence (Morita-Mullaney, 2017, p. 257), the EL/bilingual leaders pushed for “incremental transformations” with small groups of willing educators in small venues (p. 265).

In addition to revealing ELD standards implementation as a “contextual process [that] requires . . . sense-making” (Westerlund, 2014 p. 152) and negotiation of “constructed power hierarchies” (Morita-Mullaney, 2017, p. 264), the studies above revealed shortcomings of the ELD standards themselves, specifically WIDA 2012. Participants in these studies consistently reported that the standards were “unclear and ambiguous” (Westerlund, 2014, p. 148) and “not . . . user-friendly enough in their design to be meaningfully . . . operationalized by educators in practice” (Kray, 2020, p. 3). Such empirical accounts of the standards’ shortcomings are complemented by critical analyses of ELD standards documents, including WIDA 2012, from the perspectives of content area education (e.g., Lee, 2018, 2019) and language education (e.g., Grapin, 2019; Grapin et al., 2019). These shortcomings and critical analyses, in part, informed WIDA’s latest revision of its standards, as described next.

Emerging Research on the WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition

The WIDA Consortium has been developing ELD standards that meet federal requirements since its first edition in 2004. The latest edition, WIDA 2020, reinforces WIDA’s longstanding “commitment to an asset-based approach” (WIDA, 2020, p. 356) by adopting the term “multilingual learner” (rather than “English language learner” that was used in WIDA 2012). Specifically, WIDA 2020 is guided by four Big Ideas: (a) equity of opportunity and access, (b) integration of content and language, (c) collaboration among stakeholders, and (d) functional approach to language development (WIDA, 2020, pp. 15–20).

WIDA 2020 reflects a significant evolution from previous editions of the standards in multiple respects. First, WIDA 2020 seeks to reflect evolving theoretical perspectives in language education that embrace more expansive conceptualizations of communication. For example, WIDA 2020 eschews references to academic language (“the language of school” in WIDA, 2012, p. 6) and instead focuses on “language for thinking and doing” in content areas, whether that language has traditionally been considered academic or social (WIDA, 2020, p. 24). Second, WIDA 2020 seeks to align with the latest college- and career-ready standards in content area education that emphasize student engagement in disciplinary practices (e.g., argue, explain). For example, WIDA 2020 is organized around four Key Language Uses—narrate, inform, argue, and explain—that reflect disciplinary practices across content standards (WIDA, 2020, p. 26). Finally, WIDA 2020 seeks to address shortcomings of previous editions of the standards that lacked specificity for guiding classroom practice (e.g., Kray, 2020). For example, whereas WIDA 2012 included one set of Performance Definitions to be applied across content areas and K–12 grades, WIDA 2020’s nearly 400-page framework includes a complex architecture in which the four Key Language Uses (narrate, inform, argue, explain) are articulated across content areas (language arts, math, science, social studies) and grade levels/bands (K–1, 2–3, 4–5, 6–8, 9–12), thus enabling teachers to “focus on how language is used in the service of each content area and at their particular grade level/band” (Grapin & Lee, 2022, p. 831).

Together, these shifts from WIDA’s previous editions call for significant shifts in the curriculum, instruction, and assessment that teachers enact with MLs in content areas (Grapin & Lee, 2022). For example, shifts embodied by WIDA 2020 dovetail with contemporary instructional approaches with MLs that emphasize functional use of language in content areas (in contrast with traditional structural approaches) and sustained collaboration between content and language educators (in contrast with traditional siloing within education systems). While there is a growing body of literature supporting such shifts (see, e.g., the English Learners in STEM Subjects consensus report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2018), enacting these shifts in practice poses challenges at both individual and organizational levels (Cowhy et al., 2024; Weddle et al., 2024).

Research on sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020 is in its infancy, which is unsurprising considering (a) the lack of attention to ELD standards in policy implementation research generally (as described above), and (b) the release of the standards in late 2020 and the time it takes for states and districts to work toward implementation. Upon initial release of the standards, articles were published in practitioner journals in WIDA-affiliated states to raise awareness of the standards and their pedagogical implications (e.g., de Oliveira & Westerlund, 2021; Shafer Willner et al., 2021). Other articles published in scholarly journals addressed theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of the standards and their implications for research, policy, and practice (e.g., Gottlieb & Chapman, 2022; Grapin & Lee, 2022; Lee & Grapin, 2024; Molle & Wilfrid, 2021). To our knowledge, the only empirical study of WIDA 2020 investigated the sensemaking and vision for implementation of pre-service teachers who had not yet entered the education system (Grapin, 2022). While research on standards-based reform broadly suggests strong buy-in and support for the WIDA Consortium among stakeholders in the education system (e.g., Desimone et al., 2019; Polikoff et al., 2022), no study has examined how district leaders make sense of and implement WIDA’s latest standards, which was the focus of the present study. Specifically, our study was guided by the following research questions:

• (1) How do ESL/bilingual district supervisors make sense of and implement WIDA 2020?

• (2) What contextual factors do supervisors perceive as shaping their sensemaking and implementation?

Method

The study involved in-depth interviews with 18 ESL/bilingual district supervisors in a northeastern U.S. state considered a major immigrant destination (Migration Policy Institute, 2024). As an initial inquiry into WIDA 2020, the study adopted an interview-based approach to gather a range of local perspectives and identify patterns across diverse district contexts.

Context and Participants

According to the latest data available, the focal state ranked 10th in terms of number of ELs, with 8.2% of public school students formally designated as learning English (NCES, 2024). This state provided an interesting context for the study in at least two respects. First, educators in the state have implemented the WIDA (2007, 2012, 2020) standards over multiple editions. Thus, conducting the study in the focal state enabled us to probe supervisors’ sensemaking of how WIDA 2020 represents a departure (or not) from previous editions, especially WIDA 2012. Second, while sharing similarities with 17 other U.S. states with EL populations between 6% and 10% of the total student population (NCES, 2024), the focal state is known for its hyperlocal governance structure (Vey & Storring, 2022). Specifically, the state boasts about 700 school districts that vary widely in terms of size and demographic composition, among other characteristics. Thus, conducting the study in the focal state enabled us to explore similarities and differences in supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation across diverse contexts (e.g., districts with smaller vs. larger EL populations).

The study was carried out between April and August 2024, approximately 3.5 years following the release of the standards in December 2020. This gap between the standards’ release and the study period allowed sufficient time for supervisors to develop familiarity with and begin constructing their understanding of the standards, as well as to formulate plans for implementation and begin enacting those plans. The study period also coincided with the months leading up to mandated statewide implementation of the standards beginning September 1, 2024. This timing enabled us to capture supervisors’ implementation during a crucial moment of transition in which “the sensemaking process is heightened” (Donaldson et al., 2021, p. 3). As resources to support educators’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020 were only beginning to emerge at the time of the interviews, the study offers timely insights that can inform ongoing implementation efforts.

Following other interview-based studies aimed at eliciting the perspectives of “mid-level” leaders (see also Haverly et al., 2022; Mavrogordato et al., 2022, p. 331), participants were recruited using a combination of snowball and purposive sampling. As the first author was formerly an ESL teacher in the state and collaborates on research projects with ESL/bilingual district supervisors, sampling began with contacting colleagues and collaborators, who recommended potential participants who fit the inclusion criterion (i.e., supervisors who, at least as part of their responsibilities, oversaw district ESL/bilingual departments). Leveraging supervisors’ personal and professional networks was crucial in light of well-documented challenges regarding missing, incomplete, and out-of-date information on district ESL/bilingual departments and the supervisors who oversee them, particularly in districts with smaller EL populations (Palacios et al., 2022). Snowball sampling was combined with purposive sampling (Parker et al., 2019) by asking interviewed participants to recommend potential participants with a diverse set of characteristics, including district size and EL population as well as supervisor roles and responsibilities (e.g., supervisors who oversaw only ESL/bilingual departments vs. supervisors who oversaw multiple departments). This purposive sampling reflected the study’s goal of examining factors shaping supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation across diverse contexts. Ultimately, the combination of snowball and purposive sampling helped recruit participants who may not have otherwise been identified or contacted (due to a lack of publicly available information) while also ensuring a diverse sample along multiple characteristics.

In total, 18 ESL/bilingual district supervisors participated in the study. Two supervisors were exclusively assigned to oversee ESL/bilingual departments, while nine supervisors oversaw world language education in addition to ESL/bilingual education—a common administrative pairing given the shared emphasis on supporting language development. Six supervisors oversaw ESL/bilingual education and world language education in addition to at least one other area, such as social studies, music, and/or performing arts. One participant was an ESL teacher leader who assumed both formal and informal leadership roles in their K–8 district, which did not have an ESL/bilingual supervisor position as part of its administrative structure. Most supervisors (n = 16) had participated in at least one professional learning experience related to WIDA 2020, typically through a state professional organization (as elaborated in the Findings).

Table 1 displays characteristics of the participants’ school districts. In terms of district locale and size, two thirds of the districts (12 of 18) were in large suburban locales, which reflects state demographics (67% large suburban). Still, suburban, city, and rural locales were represented in our sample. In terms of grade levels, most supervisors (15 of 18) worked in K–12 districts, while two worked in 9–12 districts and one in a K–8 district. In terms of total student enrollment, the number of students ranged widely from 1,000 to 17,000. Most districts were relatively large, where ELs tend to be concentrated (NASEM, 2017), with only two districts in our sample below the average student enrollment of districts in the state (approximately 2,000 students). In terms of EL students, percents ranged widely from 1% to 33%, with six districts below the state average (approximately 5%) and 12 above the state average. In the findings, we refer to EL populations as small (5% or less), medium (6%–10%), or large (11% or more). Notably, in three districts with large EL populations in our sample, ELs made up between a quarter and a third of the total student enrollment (28%, 32%, 33%). In terms of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch, percents ranged widely from 1% to 81%.

Table 1

Characteristics of Participants’ School Districts

Supervisor Code	Locale and Size	Grade Levels	Total Student Enrollment	Percent EL Students	Percent Free/Reduced-Price Lunch
S1	Rural, Fringe	9–12	1,000	1%	16%
S2	Suburb, Large	K–8	1,000	10%	1%
S3	Suburb, Large	K–12	2,000	5%	15%
S4	Suburb, Large	K–12	2,000	9%	14%
S5	Rural, Fringe	K–12	3,000	2%	12%
S6	Suburb, Large	K–12	4,000	3%	12%
S7	Suburb, Large	K–12	4,000	9%	51%
S8	Suburb, Large	9–12	6,000	4%	13%
S9	Suburb, Large	K–12	7,000	6%	41%
S10	Suburb, Large	K–12	7,000	8%	34%
S11	Suburb, Large	K–12	7,000	13%	46%
S12	Suburb, Midsize	K–12	8,000	3%	47%
S13	Suburb, Large	K–12	8,000	28%	48%
S14	Suburb, Small	K–12	9,000	4%	6%
S15	City, Small	K–12	10,000	11%	1%
S16	City, Small	K–12	10,000	32%	81%
S17	Suburb, Large	K–12	10,000	33%	81%
S18	Suburb, Large	K–12	17,000	5%	21%

Note. Total student enrollment numbers have been rounded to preserve anonymity of districts (see Mavrogordato et al., 2022, for a similar approach). Data on district locale and size and total student enrollment were retrieved from the NCES (2024) for the 2022–2023 school year. Data on the percent EL students and students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch were retrieved from the Education Law Center (2025) for the 2022–2023 school year.

Data Collection

All interviews were conducted virtually by the first author. The interviews lasted 50 minutes, on average, and were recorded via Zoom, which produced initial transcripts that were subsequently verified for accuracy. The interview protocol was designed to answer our two research questions that addressed (a) supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020, and (b) contextual factors that supervisors perceived as shaping their sensemaking and implementation. The protocol was organized into three parts (see Appendix A).

In the first part, supervisors were asked to provide brief background on the EL/ML population in their district, their roles and responsibilities related to serving ELs/MLs, and their professional background (e.g., disciplinary background, teaching experiences). This part of the interviews provided useful background information for contextualizing the subsequent conversation focused on supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation. Before proceeding to the second part of the interview, to guard against socially desirable responding (Bispo Júnior, 2022), the first author reminded supervisors that he was not affiliated with the WIDA Consortium and was interested in supervisors’ candid responses.

In the second part, supervisors were asked about their interpretations of WIDA 2020 (e.g., “What kinds of changes are the standards calling for in pedagogy with English/multilingual learners?”). This part of the interview was intended to elicit what supervisors perceived as the “salient features of the reform” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 401). In addition, supervisors were asked about their interpretations of specific components of WIDA 2020 (e.g., “How do you interpret what the standards are trying to communicate with [the four Big Ideas]?”) and the relevance of these components to their implementation efforts. The purpose was to elicit supervisors’ sensemaking related to specific components of the standards identified as salient in the literature, especially components that indicate shifts from previous editions (de Oliveira & Westerlund, 2021; Grapin & Lee, 2022). Also, presenting components of the standards as stimuli was useful given that WIDA 2020 is extensive (nearly 400 pages), and supervisors were unlikely to recall specific components without such stimuli.

In the third part, supervisors were asked to describe current or planned initiatives related to the standards as well as implementation challenges they faced or anticipated facing (e.g., “What, if any, are your district’s plans for supporting implementation of the standards?”). Although contextual factors shaping sensemaking and implementation emerged throughout the interviews, this third part explicitly aimed at eliciting such factors.

While the three-part organization of the protocol provided a general structure, the first author used follow-up questions and probes to further explore supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation. In addition, at the end of the interviews, supervisors were asked to share any artifacts mentioned during the interviews. Thirteen supervisors shared one or more artifacts: curriculum guides (n = 7), professional learning resources (n = 6), state policy documents (n = 2), and technology tools (n = 2). As the nature of the artifacts varied widely and did not constitute a coherent corpus for analysis, the analysis reported below focused on the interviews as the primary data source while leveraging the artifacts as a secondary data source to elucidate supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation as expressed during the interviews.

Data Analysis

Guided by the two research questions, data analysis occurred in three stages: (a) open coding, (b) axial coding, and (c) selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In the first stage, open coding, the first author read the full corpus of data to develop an initial codebook. Codes included inductive codes reflecting the study’s focus on ELD standards that have not figured prominently in prior theory and research (e.g., “Key Language Uses” to indicate supervisors’ sensemaking of a component of WIDA 2020) as well as deductive codes based on prior theory and research on policy implementation broadly (e.g., “Professional networks” to indicate a factor shaping supervisors’ implementation). Interview excerpts could be double coded, which was important given that, within the same excerpt, supervisors often expressed the “what” of their sensemaking and implementation (e.g., initiatives they were implementing) along with the “how” (e.g., factors that supported or constrained those initiatives). Through open coding, the first author iteratively developed and refined the initial codebook that included (a) the codes, (b) a description of each code, and (c) an example interview excerpt for each code.

The first and second author used the codebook to independently code two randomly selected interview transcripts, which helped “reveal any obvious problems with code definitions or interpretations” prior to formal evaluation of intercoder agreement (O’Connor & Joffe, 2020, p. 3). Next, the authors independently coded six randomly selected transcripts (i.e., one third of the full corpus) to evaluate intercoder agreement and further refine the codebook. Given the semi-structured nature of the interviews and the tendency of coders to segment data into differently sized units (O’Connor & Joffe, 2020), it was less important that coders identified the same start and end points for coded text than that they assigned similar codes to the same parts of an interview. Thus, adapting an approach used by Kurasaki (2000), we focused on the number of matching code occurrences within each part of an interview (see parts of the protocol in Data Collection) and then divided this number by the total number of codes assigned. Of the 107 code occurrences across the six transcripts, 88 were matching (82%). The authors met to resolve discrepancies and clarify the conceptual and operational definition of each code. Finally, the first author coded the remaining 10 transcripts using the revised codebook (see Appendix B).

In the second stage—axial coding—codes from the previous stage were organized into broader categories. For example, codes related to the context of supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation seemed to cluster around three factors that subsumed multiple codes: (a) factors related to ESL/bilingual district supervisors, (b) factors related to district collaboration, and (c) broader factors beyond the district level. Using the constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), this stage involved looking for similarities and differences across supervisors (e.g., supervisors with different roles and responsibilities) and their district contexts, especially total student enrollment and EL population (see Table 1). In this stage, we also leveraged the artifacts that supervisors had provided to triangulate our emerging interpretations of “the ‘story’ in the data” (Deterding & Waters, 2021, p. 727). For example, while supervisors described in the interviews how they had undertaken curriculum revision to align with WIDA 2020, these efforts seemed more superficial and compliance oriented than substantive and pedagogically oriented. Thus, we examined the curriculum guides that some supervisors had provided as artifacts to triangulate their descriptions of the process with the artifacts produced.

In the third stage—selective coding—the categories were further refined and synthesized into overarching findings that addressed the research questions. In presenting the findings, we highlight broad patterns as well as notable exceptions, with the latter pointing to what is possible beyond typical constraints. In addition, we use participants’ own words as much as possible to elevate the voices of ESL/bilingual supervisors, who have been largely absent in the literature and experience “marginal status” in educational settings (Morita-Mullaney, 2017, p. 255).

Findings

The findings are organized into two sections that correspond to the two research questions guiding the study. The first section focuses on ESL/bilingual district supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020. The second section focuses on the contextual factors that supervisors perceived as shaping their sensemaking and implementation. Throughout the findings, we use “they/them/their” pronouns to preserve supervisor anonymity.

Supervisors’ Sensemaking and Implementation of WIDA 2020

The sense agents make of policies guides their implementation, which leads to further sensemaking (Spillane et al., 2002). While acknowledging the reciprocal relationship between these processes, for analytic purposes, we organize the findings into two subsections that foreground (a) what supervisors understood to be the main ideas of WIDA 2020 (i.e., sensemaking as foreground), and (b) what actions supervisors reported taking based on their understandings (i.e., implementation as foreground).

Sensemaking of WIDA 2020

Supervisors’ sensemaking of WIDA 2020 revolved around two main ideas: (a) equity for MLs and (b) the integration of content and language learning. These ideas correspond closely to two of the four Big Ideas of WIDA 2020 (“Equity of Opportunity and Access” and “Integration of Content and Language”) while also making connections to the two other Big Ideas (“Collaboration Among Stakeholders” and “Functional Approach to Language Development”).

Most supervisors (n = 14) understood WIDA 2020’s equity focus to be a main idea of the standards. Supervisors described leveraging this equity focus as a jumping-off point for communicating with district stakeholders that “they are all responsible for the progress of our MLs” (S10). In particular, supervisors noted how WIDA 2020’s shift toward asset-based terminology—from “English language learner” in WIDA 2012 to “multilingual learner” in WIDA 2020—bolstered efforts to adopt asset-based terminology in their own districts and “get central office and other supervisors and teachers and principals to understand . . . what we value and what is important to our department” (S8). As summarized by the supervisor in the largest district in our sample (S18), working toward ML equity “takes a village,” and WIDA 2020 was one piece in the foundation of “the village we’re building [in our district].”

How supervisors characterized the implications of this equity focus varied by district characteristics, especially EL population. In districts with large EL populations, WIDA 2020’s equity focus seemed to affirm what had already been a focus of districts’ efforts. For example, one supervisor who was working in a district with 28% ELs described how “the equity piece [of WIDA 2020], at least I can say for our district, is just an imperative” (S13). In contrast, in districts with small or medium EL populations, WIDA 2020’s equity focus seemed to shine a spotlight on inequities that had previously been overlooked. For example, in one district with 9% ELs—including a recent influx of students with interrupted formal education, or SIFE—one supervisor described how WIDA 2020 initiated conversations among district stakeholders about “the ways we’re providing different supports, different challenges, different ways to get access” to students who have never been to school before (S4). In this district where there was a “very big culture of ‘they’re your students’ [referring to ESL teachers],” WIDA 2020 acted as “a kind of armor of ‘Remember, we have to achieve these standards.’” However, while supervisors underscored the implications of WIDA 2020’s equity focus for shifting the mindsets of district stakeholders, less clear was whether and how this equity focus was operationalized in the norms and structures of districts’ work (Meyer & Rowan, 1978; Weddle et al., 2024).

All of the supervisors (N = 18) understood the integration of content and language learning to be a main idea of WIDA 2020. Supervisors described WIDA 2020 as “more integrated and aligned with content area standards” (S7) and “much clearer to be able to tie into the subject areas themselves” (S4) compared with previous editions. This emphasis on language use in content areas was “eye-opening for ESL teachers, [who] tended to focus on language in isolation and forget about the content” (S16), and would require significant instructional shifts that represented a departure from teachers’ current pedagogies:

For my ESL teachers, [WIDA, 2020] helped them understand that they had to cover those content areas. Before, they just did English [language development], and I told them, “No, our goal is to get ready for the [content] classroom. You have to integrate readings in science, in civics and social studies. You have to do math language and readings.” I think the [WIDA, 2020] framework is really great in explaining that to ESL teachers who have been doing this for a long time. (S3)

In particular, most supervisors (n = 14) pointed to the potential of the Key Language Uses (narrate, inform, argue, explain)—WIDA 2020’s operationalization of its functional approach to language development—for promoting communication and collaboration with content area colleagues. Because the Key Language Uses make “explicit how the standards framework is really exactly supporting [content area teachers’] content delivery” (S2), supervisors leveraged this component of the standards to:

push out a message of, “Here is what we do [in the ESL department]: We are working on X, Y, and Z [i.e., the Key Language Uses] with the students to be able to get them to apply it in your subject area.” (S4)

One supervisor connected the Key Language Uses to their equity-focused work on ensuring district stakeholders, especially general education and content area teachers, felt shared responsibility for MLs:

[The Key Language Uses] speak to everyone, so general education teachers aren’t looking at us [in ESL] weird anymore. What’s a [language] feature? What’s a [language] function? Oh, narrate! Okay, good, I can help you with that. So, it is helping us communicate with content area teachers. (S10)

While supervisors’ sensemaking reflected main ideas of WIDA 2020 at a high level, some of the more specific ideas expressed by supervisors reflected traditional thinking that WIDA 2020 attempts to go beyond. For example, as noted earlier, WIDA 2020 eschews the dichotomy of academic and social language that framed previous editions and has been subject to intense scrutiny (e.g., Flores & Rosa, 2015) but remains deeply entrenched (e.g., Kibler et al., 2024) in the field of language education. Still, supervisors interpreted “the integration piece [to be] about the academic language that’s necessary in order to be successful” (S13), since “it’s not just social language that students need to learn in school” (S17).

Similarly, WIDA 2020 highlights alignment with language arts, math, science, and social studies standards and, in doing so, seeks to overcome a pitfall that ELD standards have been construed as “junior, or a precursor to, English language arts [ELA]/literacy standards” (https://www.elpa21.org/elp-standards/) in both policy (e.g., CCSSO, 2014) and practice (e.g., Hopkins et al., 2015). While acknowledging that Key Language Uses reflect disciplinary practices across content standards, supervisors tended to focus on alignment with ELA standards: WIDA 2020 has “an ELA vibe to it” (S6), “leads very nicely into ELA” (S3), “transfers a lot better to a general ELA class” (S10), and “mirrors what ELA is doing” (S18).

Overall, supervisors interpreted WIDA 2020 as adding “more specificity” compared to previous editions of the standards “but kind of the same idea” (S13). This tendency to “see new ideas as familiar” (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 398) was reflected in supervisors’ implementation efforts, as described next. It was also shaped by contextual factors (e.g., state policy linking WIDA 2020 and ELA standards), as described in a subsequent section.

Implementation of WIDA 2020

Supervisors’ implementation of WIDA 2020 revolved around two main areas: (a) curriculum and (b) professional learning. In prior research, these areas have been identified as key “reform levers to support local education actors [e.g., district supervisors] in implementing standards-based education policies” (Stornaiuolo et al., 2023, p. 526).

Most supervisors (n = 14) reported that they had revised, or were in the process of revising, ESL curricula to align with WIDA 2020. Typically, curriculum revision occurred at a regular interval set by each district (e.g., every 5 years) and was accomplished by convening a group of teachers during the summer months. However, curriculum revision as described by most supervisors suggested more superficial revisions compared to the deeper shifts embodied by WIDA 2020. Specifically, supervisors described curriculum revision as a matter of “putting in [to the existing curriculum] whichever [WIDA, 2020] standards applied” (S3) and “making sure all our documents are set in place keeping in mind [state] parameters” (S12). This retrofitting of curricula with an eye toward compliance was reflected in the curriculum guides that supervisors provided as artifacts. In these guides, the WIDA 2020 Key Language Uses appeared throughout, but the language focus remained primarily structural (e.g., isolated grammar), in contrast with WIDA 2020’s functional approach, and the content focus remained largely traditional (e.g., organized around common ESL topics, such as holidays), in contrast with WIDA 2020’s focus on language use in content areas. At the high school level, curriculum guides addressed language use in content areas but disproportionately emphasized alignment with ELA. Two notable exceptions were a curriculum that leveraged the Key Language Uses as its organizing principle (S6) and another that focused on alignment with science and social studies standards (S11).

Moreover, half of the supervisors (n = 9) reported facilitating professional learning for ESL/bilingual teachers based on WIDA 2020. Professional learning experiences typically occurred during department meetings or district-designated professional development days and took a variety of forms, such as lesson study (S16), co-rating of assessments (S11), and instructional coaching (S15). For example, one supervisor engaged teachers in co-rating unit assessments using the WIDA 2020 Proficiency Level Descriptors to promote consistency in expectations across classroom-based and high-stakes assessment (S11). However, these professional learning experiences were generally described as one-offs and not sustained over time. Supervisors described how their efforts to provide professional learning based on the standards bumped up against a range of school and district initiatives that competed for time and attention: “There’s so much going on. We talk about social-emotional learning. We’re talking about AI. And we only get four [professional development] afternoons with teachers according to the contract. It’s just there’s so many priorities. How do we prioritize this?” (S8). Given these competing demands, supervisors lamented that, “with professional development, doing it one time is not enough” (S16), and “a professional learning session doesn’t mean classroom implementation” (S4).

When it came to professional learning for teachers beyond the ESL/bilingual teachers under supervisors’ direct oversight, supervisors described a patchwork of experiences that aligned with WIDA 2020 to varying degrees. Eleven supervisors mentioned a training in structured English immersion (SEI) that enabled districts to comply with the state bilingual code requiring that teachers in SEI programs who do not hold an ESL/bilingual endorsement receive training on instructional adaptations for MLs. However, other than one supervisor who indicated that their district’s SEI training included a “half day of explicit frameworks training” (S18), supervisors described the SEI training as complementary to their implementation efforts but not tailored to WIDA 2020 specifically (State training materials provided by one supervisor offered evidence that this was the case.). In addition, nearly all supervisors mentioned sharing the Can Do Descriptors from WIDA 2012 to support content area teachers’ instruction and assessment with MLs—the same “shortcut” uncovered in Westerlund’s (2014, p. 139) study of WIDA 2012 implementation. However, at the time of the study, the Can Do Descriptors had not yet been updated to reflect WIDA 2020 and, in particular, the Key Language Uses (https://wida.wisc.edu/teach/can-do/descriptors). Still, supervisors saw the Can Do Descriptors from WIDA 2012 as more tractable for content area teachers than the complex architecture of WIDA 2020. In sum, teachers beyond ESL/bilingual departments had minimal opportunities to engage substantively with WIDA 2020.

Contextual Factors Shaping Supervisors’ Sensemaking and Implementation

Supervisors perceived three overarching contextual factors as shaping their sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020: (a) multiple and varied roles and responsibilities, (b) limited opportunities for collaboration with content area colleagues, and (c) broader factors beyond the district level.

“Jack of All Trades”: Multiple and Varied Roles and Responsibilities

While all of the participants led ESL/bilingual departments, for most, this was not their only, or even their primary, responsibility. As noted earlier, only two supervisors—both in districts with large EL populations—were exclusively assigned to oversee ESL/bilingual departments. The remaining supervisors oversaw ESL/bilingual education in addition to at least one other area, such as world language, social studies, music, and/or performing arts. For these supervisors, ESL/bilingual education had often been added to their responsibilities in response to a growing EL population. For example, one supervisor described how ESL/bilingual responsibilities had initially been “scattered to the different people at the different buildings” (S4), but when the district experienced a 16-fold increase in EL enrollment, it became clear that “somebody needs to take this on full-time.” As the only untenured supervisor in their district, they were assigned to oversee ESL/bilingual education in addition to their regular roster of social studies, world language, and financial business programs.

Such administrative arrangements in which supervisors had multiple and varied roles and responsibilities meant they needed to be a “jack of all trades” (S1, S4), which posed multiple challenges to their sensemaking. One challenge was that half of the supervisors—all in districts with small or medium EL populations—did not have a disciplinary background or teaching experience in ESL/bilingual education (seven in world language education and two in social studies education). Supervisors with a background in world language education described being less familiar with ELD standards as compared to standards informing their world language programs. One supervisor, who was a former world language teacher, described their sensemaking of WIDA 2020 as a matter of “building the plane and flying it at the same time because [they weren’t] an ESL teacher” (S8). Another supervisor, whose disciplinary background and teaching experience were in social studies education, described how they “didn’t even get to the standards [their first year in the ESL/bilingual supervisor role] because [they were] spending time on understanding Title III.” Reflecting on the time and knowledge it took to get up to speed on federal and state requirements for serving MLs, this supervisor lamented that “something is lost now that we don’t have content-specific supervisors” (S1).

A related challenge was that supervisors’ roles and responsibilities outside of ESL/bilingual education seemed to demand their attention and take priority. This was particularly the case in districts with small or medium EL populations that tend to “throw ESL at you” (S13). For example, one supervisor who oversaw both ESL/bilingual education and world language education but whose disciplinary background was in ESL/bilingual education described the situation as follows:

[The ML population in our district] is big enough where it’s having an impact on what’s happening overall, but it’s small enough where it could be potentially ignored. It’s kind of that sweet spot where it makes it tough. The bigger part of my job is world language. It serves everyone. But the more complex part is the 450 MLs we serve. (S9)

Another supervisor, who oversaw world language and performing arts in addition to ESL/bilingual education, described how competing demands for supervisors’ attention restricted their opportunities to engage deeply with WIDA 2020: “[Districts] start throwing more departments on you, more issues, more paperwork. You’re treading water so much that there’s such a barrier to really feeling like you’re in it” (S15). Such challenges stemming from supervisors’ multiple and varied roles and responsibilities were exacerbated by the length and complexity of WIDA 2020, which supervisors characterized as comprehensive yet “overwhelming” (S3, S4, S6, S7, S10, S14, S18).

As mentioned above, two supervisors working in districts with large EL populations exclusively oversaw ESL/bilingual departments. Both supervisors commented on the affordances of their administrative arrangements for providing the time and knowledge to construct their understanding of WIDA 2020 and advance implementation efforts. For example, when one supervisor who was particularly well versed in WIDA 2020 was asked about the conditions that enabled them to construct their understanding, they responded as follows:

My job title is [ESL/bilingual supervisor]. Period. That’s very, very unique and unusual. I hate to say it in front of colleagues [who supervise] ESL and bilingual, world language, visual arts, performing arts, and who knows what else. I have been able to focus on ESL and bilingual because that’s my only title. I guess I take it to heart, right? If there’s anything out there professionally about what should be happening in the classroom, then I see that as my responsibility, even though we are overloaded with everything else we have to do. (S11)

“Bridging Two Worlds”: Limited Opportunities for Collaboration With Content Area Colleagues

As described earlier, supervisors recognized the potential of WIDA 2020 for promoting collaboration with content area colleagues. However, a major challenge to realizing the potential of collaboration was the traditional siloing of departments, especially ESL/bilingual departments and content area departments. While supervisors acknowledged that “one of the big things in the standards is collaboration,” they also noted “[it’s] easier said than done when it comes to reality” (S8) and that reaching content area teachers who were not under their direct supervision was a “mammoth undertaking” (S9). As one supervisor put it, collaboration is where “the magic could possibly happen, but we do everything in siloes and isolation,” which meant limited avenues for “bridging two worlds” (S7).

Specifically, supervisors described the siloed nature of standards implementation as posing challenges at both administrative and pedagogical levels. At the administrative level, supervisors reported limited opportunities for collaboration on standards implementation with their content area counterparts, which reflected the findings above regarding supervisors’ multiple and varied roles and responsibilities: “I have a [content area] supervisor who is 20 feet away from me, but our opportunities to create anything from that that’s a hybrid [of WIDA 2020 and content standards] are, you know, rare” (S15).

At the pedagogical level, supervisors reported that the teachers under their supervision also faced challenges related to siloing. For example, ESL/bilingual teachers and content area teachers were rarely given common planning time, even in push-in models in which teachers co-taught in the same classroom. Supervisors in districts with large EL populations tended to report more buy-in and felt need among content area teachers for standards-based professional learning as well as stronger administrative support for facilitating collaboration (e.g., support from principals), but collaboration in these districts was stymied by other challenges, such as a view of push-in ESL/bilingual teachers as “glorified paraprofessionals” (S13), and high turnover in the context of a teacher shortage in the state (S11), as elaborated in a subsequent section.

As “an all-hands-on-deck approach [to WIDA 2020 implementation] from everybody in the district [was] a tough sell” (S6), supervisors tended to center their implementation efforts on their “areas of control” (S8)—ESL curriculum and professional learning of ESL/bilingual teachers. This effectively limited the reach of WIDA 2020 to the very colleagues who the standards had the unique potential to speak to.

One exception to supervisors’ limited opportunities for collaboration was collaboration with colleagues in ELA at the high school level. The impetus for such collaborations was a recent amendment to the state bilingual code—what one supervisor described as a “seismic” change (S15)—that allowed MLs to apply credits earned in ESL courses to ELA course graduation requirements. In response to this amendment, supervisors reported collaborating with their ELA counterparts to align ESL curricula not only with WIDA 2020, but also with the state ELA standards. In this way, ESL classes could “be a training ground for ELA” (S10) and ensure “successful transitions for MLs who exit the [ESL] program” (S18). A consequence of implementing WIDA 2020 in conjunction with this state policy was that supervisors privileged connections to ELA in their implementation efforts. For example, one supervisor described their department’s approach to revising ESL curricula as “covering language arts standards” while “making interdisciplinary connections with all the other subjects” (S16). Indeed, the state bilingual code itself describes WIDA 2020 as a version of ELA that addresses the developmental stages of students learning English. This policy context helps explain supervisors’ sensemaking of WIDA 2020 as relating more closely to ELA than other content areas.

Other exceptions to siloing involved district-specific administrative structures. One supervisor, who was in the largest district in our sample, credited their district’s administrative structure in which there was a “separate content supervisor for every level [i.e., elementary middle, and high school]” as crucial to advancing their implementation efforts (S18). An exception to the privileging of ELA was one district in which the ESL curriculum had been revised to align with science and social studies standards in elementary school, which was not subject to the state policy on high school graduation. The supervisor described their rationale as follows: “If [WIDA, 2020 is] saying that we have to pay attention to the language for all of these [content] areas, how are we gonna possibly do that if we’re doing [only] language arts?” (S11).

“800 Fiefdoms”: Broader Factors Beyond the District Level

Supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation of WIDA 2020 was shaped by broader factors beyond the district level: (a) state policy climate, (b) COVID-19 impacts, (c) teacher workforce, and (d) professional organizations and networks.

While the findings above suggest ways that state policy (e.g., amendment to the state bilingual code) shaped supervisors’ implementation of WIDA 2020, supervisors also commented on the impact of the broader state education climate. Specifically, supervisors lamented that state guidance regarding WIDA 2020 implementation was limited to advice such as, “Talk to other districts” (S3). In the absence of guidance, standards implementation became a compliance-oriented guessing game in which “districts are afraid to put out there what they’ve done because they don’t know if it’s correct based on what the state wants” (S6). Quoting a former state administrator, one supervisor connected this lack of guidance to the decentralized nature of policy implementation in the state: “You have 800 different fiefdoms [i.e., districts]. Each district makes the final decision. How do you have equity when the buck stops down here?” (S2).

Another factor was the untimely rollout of the standards in December 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, instruction was primarily remote (Full-time in-person instruction was not mandated by the state until fall 2021.). Unsurprisingly, supervisors recalled this time as one in which they were operating in “survival mode” (S10) and “just trying to keep [their] heads above water” (S18). This untimely rollout “kind of disjointed implementation” and may help explain why districts “are in very different stages of it [i.e., WIDA, 2020 implementation]” (S11).

Still another factor shaping implementation was the status of the teacher workforce in the state. Supervisors lamented how state-approved teacher preparation programs paid minimal attention to curriculum and instruction for working with MLs. Reflecting on implications for WIDA 2020 implementation, one supervisor cautioned, “If you’re seeing the standards for the first time the first week of school when you have a class of 25 third graders and 10 of them are MLs, you’re gonna feel overwhelmed” (S6). Beyond pre-service teacher education, supervisors—particularly in districts with large EL populations, as well as the one rural district in our sample—highlighted challenges recruiting and retaining ESL/bilingual teachers, which meant that many teachers currently in classrooms were “just learning to be ESL teachers” (S13) and thus did not have a solid foundation for making sense of WIDA 2020.

Finally, one bright spot was how supervisors described the role of professional organizations and networks in shaping their sensemaking and implementation. Supervisors described their state ESL/bilingual teacher organization as a “strong, vibrant state organization” (S2) that provided a variety of professional development opportunities related to WIDA 2020. These organizations played a particularly crucial role for supervisors whose disciplinary background and teaching experience were outside of ESL/bilingual education and were therefore less likely to have developed formal networks of colleagues in the area. The one supervisor in a rural district described how a mentoring program sponsored by a state organization connected them with a supervisor from another district who became their “go-to for ESL-specific questions” (S1). In the absence of guidance from the state, supervisors leaned heavily on these organizations and networks to make sense of and implement WIDA 2020.

Discussion

Supervisors constructed their understanding of WIDA 2020 at a high level. For example, they recognized the standards’ emphasis on integrating content and language learning via the Key Language Uses. At the same time, supervisors’ sensemaking did not always reflect deeper shifts embodied by WIDA 2020, such as the emphasis on language use across all content areas beyond a focus on ELA that has traditionally been conflated with ESL in the education system (Hopkins et al., 2015). In general, supervisors understood WIDA 2020 to be adding much-needed specificity that was missing from previous editions of the standards (Kray, 2020; Westerlund, 2014) but not necessarily calling for fundamental changes. While the tendency of implementing agents to interpret policies based on their existing frames of reference reflects theoretical perspectives in content area education (e.g., Spillane et al., 2002) and language education (e.g., Menken & García, 2010), the present study extends this phenomenon to sensemaking of ELD standards, which draws on implementing agents’ ideas about content learning, language learning, and the relation between the two.

Supervisors’ emerging understandings of WIDA 2020, in part, explain the inconsistent, perfunctory, and patchwork nature of their implementation efforts. For example, supervisors took a more technical—rather than transformative—approach to implementation (Bartlett et al., 2024; Mavrogordato & White, 2020) by retrofitting existing ESL curricula. At the same time, supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation were shaped by the realities of their contexts. For example, supervisors were stretched thin by multiple roles and responsibilities—of which ESL/bilingual education was not necessarily a priority—and faced challenges carving out time for ELD standards on the professional learning agenda, particularly for content area teachers. Prior empirical work has documented the persistent marginalization of ESL/bilingual departments and their leaders (e.g., Hopkins et al., 2015; Morita-Mullaney, 2017) as well as the difficulty of managing competing priorities in standards-based reform (e.g., Haverly et al., 2022; Seeber et al., 2024). The present study shows how these factors intervened in supervisors’ sensemaking and implementation of the latest ELD standards, which aim to “move away from the idea that language specialists alone should assume sole responsibility for students’ language development” (WIDA, 2020, p. 19).

Implications for Policy and Practice

Extending the theoretical and empirical literature, this study offers implications for policy and practice. One implication is the need to develop resources and accompanying professional learning experiences that help educators construct their understanding of ELD standards. While resources and experiences to support educators’ sensemaking of WIDA 2020 were only beginning to emerge at the time of the study, several are now available, for example, an administrator supplement that “focuses on programmatic aspects of standards implementation” (WIDA, 2023, p. 4) and a digital explorer that enables educators to focus on parts of the standards specific to their content area and/or grade level (https://satchel.commongoodlt.com). As these resources and experiences continue to be developed, what is important is that they draw educators’ attention to “deep underlying principles [beyond] superficial aspects” of the reform (Spillane et al., 2002, p. 416). For example, while updating resources such as the Can Do Descriptors would be welcomed by educators, particularly given the length and complexity of WIDA 2020 (as indicated by participants in our study), updating such resources without engaging educators in deeper shifts embodied by WIDA 2020 would likely result in only superficial changes in practice.

The development of resources and professional learning experiences could be informed by a growing body of literature on educators’ sensemaking of the latest content standards that demand significant instructional shifts (Allen & Penuel, 2015; Andersen et al., 2024; Heredia, 2020). For example, research on sensemaking of the Next Generation Science Standards has employed a variety of tools (e.g., contrasting vignettes) to help make visible critically important, although seemingly subtle, differences in traditional versus reform-based science instruction (McNeill et al., 2021, 2022). Specifically, this research has “helped link [educators’] actions and ideas to new standards in a concrete, focused way” through curriculum-based professional learning (Short & Hirsh, 2023, p. 2), an approach to standards-based reform that could help connect the two main areas of implementation undertaken by supervisors in the present study. More broadly, research on content standards attests to the significant time it takes to achieve coherence across components of the education system (e.g., curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional learning, pre-service teacher education) that leads to transformations in practice (Smith & Plumley, 2022). ELD standards, such as WIDA 2020, face the added challenge that they are intended to be implemented in conjunction with content standards that are themselves grappling with implementation (Lee, 2019).

An important insight from our study is that resources and professional learning experiences need to be differentiated for leaders given their widely varying backgrounds and experiences. In our study, half of the supervisors reported having disciplinary homes outside of ESL/bilingual education. On the one hand, this poses difficulties to making sense of ELD standards such as WIDA 2020 that are complex and assume a degree of shared knowledge. On the other hand, and in the spirit of an asset-based perspective on sensemaking (Grapin, 2022), supervisors’ diverse backgrounds and experiences could be viewed as assets to be leveraged. For example, supervisors with a background in world language education could leverage their knowledge of world language standards that have moved toward functional approaches and emphasized alignment with college- and career-ready competencies (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2015). Supervisors with a background in content area education (e.g., social studies) could bring knowledge of academic disciplines that help them make sense of the role of language in content learning, which is at the heart of ELD standards, as well as the institutional knowledge and positioning from which to advocate for systemwide implementation of policy initiatives.

Another implication is the need to bridge departmental siloes, which are particularly problematic in the case of ELD standards implementation. ELD standards are required by federal legislation to support MLs in meeting the demands of academic content standards (U.S. Department of Education, 2015), and MLs spend the majority of their instructional time in content area classes (NASEM, 2017). Thus, when ELD standards remain “owned” by ESL/bilingual departments, their impacts are severely diminished. Informed by the growing body of literature on promoting shared responsibility for MLs (Weddle et al., 2024), district leaders may consider how they can pursue this bridging work strategically by “reimagining existing routines . . . as opposed to simply adding new time commitments” (p. 257). For example, ESL/bilingual supervisors could work with their content area counterparts to integrate components of WIDA 2020 (e.g., Key Language Uses such as argue and explain) into existing professional learning experiences for content area teachers in ways that directly support content area departments’ priorities and initiatives (e.g., initiatives focused on science practices such as argumentation and explanation; Reiser et al., 2017). As attested to by participants in our study, promoting cross-departmental collaboration will require administrative support at the school and district levels.

As siloing has been identified as a barrier to implementation across a range of ML policies (Cowhy et al., 2024; Weddle et al., 2024), it is likely to persist. Thus, it is important to also think about ways to work within siloed systems. An important insight from our study is that exceptions to siloing at the district level occurred in response to policies at the state level that added compliance “teeth” to implementation. For example, ESL/bilingual supervisors collaborated with their ELA counterparts in response to a state policy allowing ESL courses to count toward ELA graduation requirements. Thus, district leaders may consider how they can leverage these “broader regulative influences” (Cowhy et al., 2024, p. 12) to advance implementation efforts while remaining vigilant of unintended consequences (e.g., ELD standards become associated with ELA to the exclusion of other content areas).

Future Research Directions

Together, these implications point to future research directions on WIDA 2020 specifically and ELD standards broadly that build on the contributions of the present study. One direction could involve designing and studying the resources and experiences that support educators’ sensemaking of ELD standards, with particular attention to how these resources and experiences work for educators from different disciplinary backgrounds (e.g., ESL/bilingual education vs. content area education). Given the time it takes to promote deep instructional shifts and the range of contextual factors that shape sensemaking and implementation, this research may best be accomplished through research-practice partnerships that involve sustained collaboration of multiple stakeholders (Coburn & Penuel, 2016).

Another direction could involve case studies of ELD standards implementation in schools and districts. Building on the present study that elicited the perspectives of ESL/bilingual supervisors and identified patterns across their district contexts, in-depth case studies could provide more comprehensive and nuanced accounts of implementation in specific contexts by eliciting the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (e.g., content area supervisors, school leaders) using a variety of data sources (e.g., observations of curriculum revision and professional learning). While cases across diverse contexts would be illuminating, districts that, in the present study, seemed to create conditions for addressing persistent challenges facing ELD standards implementation (e.g., departmental siloing) could be of particular interest.

Conclusion

ELD standards are required by federal legislation to be adopted in all U.S. states and have the potential to influence the opportunities and access of MLs in local schools and classrooms. However, despite their broad potential for impacts, we know very little about what educators make of ELD standards, how they are used, and what conditions facilitate or constrain their use. Focusing on the leaders most closely charged with interpretation and implementation, this study was an initial inquiry into the latest ELD standards that represent a significant evolution from previous standards and are poised to impact 2 million MLs across 36 U.S. states. Ultimately, we envision this study as one step toward developing a robust knowledge base that provides theoretically and empirically grounded insights into ELD standards and their promises and pitfalls for enhancing ML equity. In addition to guiding practice in the present, this knowledge base could inform future generations of ELD standards, which must continuously evolve to reflect changing perspectives and policies at the intersection of language education and content area education.