Letters

To the Editor:

Your article "The Politics of Language," (Research, March 5, 1997) did a fine job of sorting out the problems with research on bilingual education and neatly avoided the tit-for-tat quality most articles on this subject revel in. But I'm skeptical of the idea, voiced by many of the people you interviewed, that academic researchers will settle the debate over bilingual education just as soon as they get enough money to do the job right. The debate, after all, is not about how we should teach our children so much as it is about what we want them to know.

Public schools traditionally have stuck to a simple principle: Non-English-speaking children should learn English as quickly and effectively as possible. At least the schools did during the last great wave of immigration in the first part of this century, when they considered the Americanization of a foreign-born population an essential task. Polls suggest that most Americans (including Hispanic parents) still view English acquisition as critically important, but their belief is not shared by many education professionals. Spanish "should no longer be regarded as a 'foreign' language," writes Josue Ganzalez, who led the federal government's bilingual efforts in the Carter administration and is now a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University. Spanish should be "a second...