Reporter's Notebook

At the Department of Education's first summit on English-language acquisition, Secretary of Education Rod Paige tip-toed around the fierce national debate over how best to teach English to immigrant children, which led some participants to try to interpret the department's position on the subject.

In his 15-minute speech on Nov. 13 to more than 1,600 educators who work with English-language learners, Mr. Paige never uttered the words "bilingual education" or "English immersion," which are the names of the two methods for teaching English to immigrant children that are at the center of the debate.

Instead, he urged educators to have high expectations for all children."Learning is a...