Let's tell the public the truth about bilingual education

Bilingual education has been dismantled in three states, and is slowly dissolving in several others. This is a major attack: The three states that passed anti-bilingual education initiatives enroll 43% of the English language learners in the United States (Crawford, 2003). This should never have happened. The case for bilingual education is very strong, but somehow this information has never reached the public. I will briefly review the strong case for bilingual education, discuss what went wrong, and suggest what could be done about this in the future. I will suggest that the cure is better public relations (but not necessarily from public relations professionals), and even better programs.