The original objective of bilingual education was to ensure students would not fall behind academically because of a poor command of English and to gradually teach them English as a second language. If language-minority students were taught some subjects in their native tongue, proponents insisted, they potentially could learn English without sacrificing content knowledge. But bilingual education’s critics argue that the approach keeps students in a cycle of native language dependency that ultimately inhibits …showed first 75 words of 366 total…

…showed last 75 words of 366 total…in bilingual education from 29 percent to 12 percent, the Arizona initiative is expected to end bilingual education because, unlike the California initiative, it makes it very difficult for parents to seek waivers from English immersion that would permit some bilingual education to continue. Arizona officials expect to implement the law by fall 2001. Despite the “English only” message that Propositions 227 and 203 bear, the debate over how best to instruct linguistically diverse students is far from decided nationwide.