Simply put, children with poor English skills are less likely to succeed in school and beyond. What's the best way to teach English to young children who aren't native English speakers? In this article, Lisa Barrow and Lisa Markman-Pithers examine the state of English learner education in the United States and review the evidence behind different…

Rising immigration in the United States has been accompanied by growth in the number of children from homes where a language other than English is spoken. Of utmost national concern is to provide the best possible program models and educational opportunities to address the diverse needs of this growing group of students. This article provides an…

In this article, the author talks about a dual language program in a New York City public school, "Nuestros Amigos". This program's goal is for the school's African American and Hispanic students to develop proficiency in both English and Spanish as prescribed in New York State and City English Language Arts and Native Language Arts…

The Center for School Success (CSS) at New Visions for Public Schools was founded in 1999 to document and disseminate innovative educational practices demonstrated by New Visions' schools that hold promise for increasing student achievement throughout New York City. Over the first year, CSS concentrated its initial documentation efforts on…

A new urban legend claims, "As a result of the state dropping bilingual education, test scores in California skyrocketed." Krashen disputes this theory, pointing out that other factors offer more logical explanations of California's recent improvements in SAT-9 scores. He discusses research on the effects of California's Proposition 227,…

The Plattsburgh French Language Immersion Program (FLIP) is designed to enrich the education of majority-group children. In discussing evaluation methodology for FLIP, the general problems of evaluating a program are discussed, as well as reactions to details of the design developed by the research group for FLIP. Evaluation is distinguished from…

This monograph in the Urban Diversity Series examines historical and current policy in the teaching of language minority students in New York and California. It explores the key issues in the public's understanding of bilingual education and defines bilingual education in terms of local educational legislation and implementations. Part I,…

The United States has seen a tremendous growth in dual-language programs over the last decade. This rapid growth brings up questions about the congruency between labels and implementation. Our experiences observing some of the programs and listening to teachers talk about the programs in New York City led us to propose that many of the…

Since the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Education has enthusiastically embraced bilingual education. In this paper, the author evaluates the federal bilingual education program. Based on her studies of the implementation of bilingual education in California, Massachusetts, and New York City, she concludes that the program is of dubious value. She…