Students with English as a Second Language (ESL) face two critical challenges: they need to develop English literacy while, at the same time, acquire content knowledge across subject areas. These students need a targeted ESL curriculum from elementary to high school that will allow an extended learning time and opportunities to practice as they struggle to overcome barriers to English language acquisition. In the school-based action research program developed by PLATO Learning, academics, principals and teachers participate as co-researchers, conducting studies that look at the contribution that mastery-oriented learning technologies can make to school reform efforts. With over five years of research utilizing standardized tests results, there is confirmation that test scores of students who use PLATO[R] Achieve Now are reliably higher than the scores of matched students and/or scores from students in a national sample that lacked access to the program. A hallmark of the PLATO Achieve Now program is the increased time that is spent on learning through a variety of implementations that include classroom use, after school and summer school programs and family involvement. The foundation of PLATO Achieve Now and the piston that drives student achievement is family involvement. By combining strong parental involvement with rigorous yet engaging literacy and mathematics instruction that increases learning time, students in PLATO Achieve Now classrooms have achieved significant gains in both reading and mathematics scores. And by establishing such a strong academic foundation in the elementary and junior high school grades, these schools are removing many of the risk factors that work against ESL students and their graduation goals.