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To Improve Bilingual Ed…

Rethinking Schools asked a number of people involved in bilingual education about the challenges facing bilingual programs. Following are excerpts from their answers.

Josue Gonzalez, director of the Center for Bilingual Education and Research at Arizona State University.

I refuse to answer the question, Does bilingual education work? Bilingual education is like monolingual education. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It all depends on how well you do it.

It’s important to be clear about the vision [for bilingual education], and that vision has to do with biliteracy, not emptying out the Spanish in order to make room for English.

The vision of biliteracy has to be open to everyone, not just language minority kids, and it should focus on Spanish. Spanish is the number one language in the hemisphere and the number two language in the country.

Rosita Apodaca, assistant superintendent in San Francisco who oversees bilingual education.</p