Leonard M. Baca

Leonard M. Baca is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder and a leading scholar in bilingual special education. He earned his Ed.D. in Special Education from the University of Northern Colorado and has taught at CU Boulder since the 1970s, focusing on bilingual and bilingual special education and serving as program chair. Baca founded and long directed the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education, which has generated tens of millions of dollars in external funding to promote the education of English learners and students with disabilities.

Baca is coauthor of Why Do English Learners Struggle With Reading?: Distinguishing Language Acquisition From Learning Disabilities, alongside John J. Hoover and Janette K. Klingner. He has authored or coauthored numerous works on English learners with and without disabilities, including books such as The Bilingual Special Education Interface and Methods for Teaching Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Exceptional Learners, and over one hundred professional publications in bilingual and cross-cultural special education.