Arturo's family, however, immigrated to Texas, which ranks third, after California and New York, in the number of students in bilingual classes. Most of the students in the Texas program speak Spanish. But unlike California, Texas has no plans to cut back on bilingual education. Students like Arturo, who start their schooling with little or no English, are taught mostly in Spanish through elementary school. Business owners want their employees to be bilingual.
All students can benefit from bilingual education.
That two states with seemingly common issues take such vastly different approaches to bilingual education reflects the national muddle on the subject. The result is a mishmash of teaching methods with wildly varying results. Even when they are well implemented, they don't produce results that are very impressive. And, when they're poorly implemented, it's a disaster. The most common argument against bilingual education is that it produces students who understand neither English nor their own language well.