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Bilingual education has really been misrepresented in the media. The idea behind bilingual education is to provide instruction in certain subjects like math and science in their native language while they're learning English. That way, non-English speaking kids won't fall behind their English speaking peers in the core subjects. Unfortunately, bilingual education hasn't been particularly effective in practice, possibly due to a shortage of trained teachers. On the other hand, immersion programs can be equally ineffective if not implemented properly. When I was going to school in California, there was a Spanish-speaking boy in my class who recieved no special instruction in English, and spent most of the day in class bored. By the end of the year, he hadn't learned any more English, and he certainly hadn't learned any of the material we'd been learning, taught entirely in English. Immersion programs have to be carefully structured to be effective. I think the core of bilingual educators association's argument against that woman's appointment is that immersion programs can lead to cases where non-English speaking kids are put in classrooms that don't meet their needs. Don't get me wrong, the way the association is presented in the article, they sound irrational and rascist; I'm just saying that they might actually have the kid's interests at sake.
Fun fact: Less than 3 percent of people living in the US (according to census materials) speak English less than "well" or "very well." It's a myth that people aren't learning English when they come here.
Nastenka, the cunning linguist.
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