Chicago Board Approves Plan To LimitStudent Time in Bilingual Ed. to 3 Years

By Caroline Hendrie

Starting next fall, Chicago schools will be expected to move most students out of bilingual education and into mainstream classes after no more than three years, under a hotly debated policy the school board approved last week.

Concerned that children are languishing in programs that are ostensibly transitional, district officials intend to crack down on schools that take too long to move students into all-English classes. The new transition policy is part of a broader plan to overhaul foreign-language instruction in the nation's third-largest school system.

"It will bring accountability to the bilingual program," said Gery J. Chico, the president of the Chicago school board. The change was needed, he said, "because of the growing numbers of students who were making a career...