From 1998 to 2008, voters in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts passed anti-bilingual education ballot initiatives that required English-only instruction for the vast majority of the states' English language learners. The contentious political discourse leading up to the votes largely ignored the research on best practices for educating English language learners, as well as the practical and pedagogical issues facing educators. The author of this article examines the research to counter several "myths" underlying the English-only movement: that all schools should be required to adopt the same approach in serving their differing populations of English language learners; that bilingual instruction is the reason for English language learners' low levels of English proficiency; and that students can learn English quickly and then easily catch up with native English speakers in literacy and content learning.