BPA is conducting an independent evaluation of WestEd's Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) in three Southern California counties. This is a five-year random assignment study funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute for Educational Statistics (IES).

QTEL is a unique professional development program that helps teachers and teacher educators become better equipped to educate secondary students who are also learning English as a second language. Based on an apprenticeship model of adult learning, QTEL provides teachers with a week-long summer intensive combined with six cycles of coaching throughout the school year. The developers believe this model will enable teachers to gradually appropriate the abilities necessary for effective teaching of English language learners in diverse teaching contexts. The theory of action that underlies this study postulates changes in three types of outcomes: teacher knowledge and efficacy, teacher practice and classroom interactions, and student English language proficiency.