ABSTRACT

During the past decade conservative educators such as the former secretary of education, William Bennett, and Diane Ravitch, among others, have mounted an unrelenting attack on bilingual and multicultural education. These conservative educators tend to recycle old assumptions about the "melting pot theory" and our so-called common culture, assumptions designed primarily to maintain the status quo. The incessant attack on bilingual education, which is based on the claim that bilingual education tongue-ties students in their native language, not only points to a xenophobic culture that blindly negates the multilingual and multicultural nature of US society but also falsifies the empirical evidence in support of bilingual education, which has been amply documented. This chapter discusses that the answer to the fundamental questions has nothing to do with whether English is a more viable language of instruction or whether it promises non-English-speaking students "full participation first in their school and later in American society".