Much to the chagrin of bilingual education supporters, a recent study demonstrated that support for bilingual education programs decreases among non-Hispanics almost in proportion to how much they know about it. Just last night at a little barbecue, we were talking about this bill . . . These people were afraid of the bill or what it might do because they felt it would slow their children down in learning English. I want to say to them that there is nothing to fear. . . . These reassurances were and remain misleading.
Bilingual education is a demonstrated failure at teaching English.
When one adds the fact that students in bilingual education classrooms learn two languages, their native language and a second language, one can conclude that a statistically non-significant finding demonstrates the positive advantages of bilingual education. The main argument made for transitional bilingual education in the court decisions and the regulations, however, is that it produces greater English language achievement and content mastery than doing nothing, not the same achievement . . . Another technique used in research reviews to make transitional bilingual education appear to be superior is to include superior performance in Spanish language arts as one of the research findings demonstrating its superiority. Zappert and Cruz also do this. Again, while we agree this is important, it is not the goal of government policy nor the stated object of the court decisions.