Focused Efforts from the Academic Community

The professional organizations cannot do this alone. They need more help from the only segment of the population that has the time and expertise to deal with some of the issues in detail: University-level researchers.

Bilingual education is now in a state of all-out war, one we are losing. Researchers can no longer devote their time to peripheral issues and academic subtleties. They must focus their energies and abilities to studying the impact of bilingual education, studying different models and innovations, and responding to attacks with empirical evidence. Each attack is a research opportunity, an opportunity to see if in fact the bilingual education approach has been deficient, and to extend our knowledge. Is it true that bilingual education causes dropouts? Is it true that children "languish" in bilingual programs for years? Is it true that current immersion programs are getting better results than bilingual education? The studies and analyses need to be done, and need to be reported in clear and concise language. Opponents of bilingual education have kept up a steady stream of attacks; researchers should regard these as research opportunities. (Note that I am not recommending that researchers simply become a cheering section for bilingual education. As Jim Crawford has noted (personal communication), bilingual education supporters need to apply the same high level of scrutiny to apparently positive results for bilingual education as they apply to what appear to be negative results.)

Improve Existing Programs

A third path is probably the most effective of all: Currently existing bilingual programs need to be made so good that there is no doubt. As noted earlier, bilingual education has done well, but, like most things, it can improve. Moreover, simply showing that bilingual education is as good or better than alternatives may satisfy the academic community, but it will not satisfy a critical public who has been convinced that it is a failure. The absolute achievement of students in bilingual education must be higher.

There is an easy way to do this: Improve the print-environment. Research supports the common-sense view that children with more access to print read more, and it also supports the common-sense view that children who read more read better (e.g. Krashen, 1993; McQuillan, 1998). Thus, improved access to books means improved reading, a conclusion consistent with research on the positive impact of school libraries (Lance, 1994; 2001; McQuillan, 1998).

It is also very well established that children from low-income backgrounds have little access to books: they live in communities with inferior public libraries, few bookstores, come from homes with few books, and attend schools with inferior school libraries (Smith, Constantino & Krashen, 1997; DiLoreto & Tse, 1999; Neuman & Celano, 2001).

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