ABSTRACT
The debate over the efficacy of bilingual education continues. In fact, bilingual education in the U.S. appears to be in the process of being dismantled state by state. California voters passed Proposition 227 in 1998, which dealt a serious blow to providing bilingual education programs in the state with the largest concentration of Spanish-speaking students, primarily of Mexican origin, in the U.S. In November of 2000, voters in Arizona passed Proposition 203, an even more restrictive piece of legislation aimed at eradicating bilingual education in that state. 1 In both cases, the educational approach being mandated is centered on providing English language learners (ELLs) with only one year of intensive English instruction before mainstreaming them into an all English classroom setting. 2
Are these new educational policies evidence that bilingual education has failed to deliver its promise to ELLs, principally Spanish-speaking students of Mexican origin, to a meaningful and equitable education? Moreover, is there any research evidence to support such policies? In this chapter, a review and critique of bilingual education research conducted over the last ten years is provided. This section is followed by a discussion revolving around what this research suggests, limitations of the research, and direction for future research endeavors. This author takes the position that it is time to move beyond the narrowly focused, quantitatively-driven effectiveness debate in order to further our understanding of how to best meet the needs of ELLs. Next I will describe each of these studies. A following section offers a critique of them.
