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Why Juan can't read: all across Texas, bilingual education programs are failing to teach English to Hispanic children. A promising "dual language" approach delivers much better results.

Article Excerpt
Two years ago, more than eight out often seventh- and eighth-graders with limited English skills failed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test. Ninth- and tenth-graders did even worse. These depressing results occurred despite extensive bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) programs and come at a time when the number of students with limited English skills--some 15.5 percent of the total public school enrollment--has doubled in the past two decades. And yet these students drop out of high school at twice the rate of their counterparts. This is a catastrophe in the making: the noneducation of tomorrow's Texas workforce. [paragraph] I would like to be able to report that state education officials are on top of this crisis and studying ways to fix it, but it should come as no surprise that this is not the case. In February the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed a motion contending that the state had failed to live up to agreements it made as a result of a 1981 federal lawsuit that accused Texas of failing to provide Spanish-speaking students equal educational opportunities. In that case, brought before U.S. district judge William Wayne Justice, the state agreed to provide bilingual classes in elementary schools, where academic material would be taught primarily in Spanish, in every school district with at least twenty students in the same grade who had limited English skills. In grades nine through twelve, students who were still identified as having limited English skills were to attend regular classes taught in English and receive special instruction in English as a second language only during a separate class period. Chief among MALDEF's current complaints is that budget...

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