Advocates of Bilingual Education Eager to Embrace Obama as Ally

Supporters of bilingual education are hoping that the election of Barack Obama as president will lead to a thaw in attitudes toward what they consider a proven educational method that has been ignored—or worse—by the Bush administration.

Advocates are encouraged by the endorsement of bilingual education by President-elect Obama in the recent campaign, and see the pending reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act as a vehicle to change federal testing and other policies they view as hostile to dual-language instruction.

In such a context, presidential support “could make a huge difference in the public perception of the effectiveness of bilingual education,” said Peter Zamora, the regional counsel in Washington for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and an...