know what’s causing what” (Wildavsky). At the same time that English immersion programs were implemented, class sizes decreased and phonics-based reading instruction began (Wildavsky). In addition “test scores for all students were up in California this year as a new state accountability system has given schools a big incentive to boost results” (Wildavsky). Also, the proponents of bilingual education point to a 1991, study conducted by a National Academy of Sciences research team headed by David Ramirez, which followed 2,000 Latino school children. Ramirez stated, “’It is a myth that if you want children to learn English, you give them nothing but English’” (Hornblower). Stephen Krashen explains, “Because we learn to read by reading--that is by making sense of what is on the page--it is easier to learn to read in a language we understand. Once we can read in one language, we can read in general.” However, bilingual education programs will fail if they are taught by unqualified instructors, if they are over-crowded, if they lack appropriate materials, or if they are filled with the wrong grouping of students (Hornblower). A study conducted by George Mason University that spanned thirteen years and ended in 1995, compared the performance of 42,000 non-English speaking students and found that “children who had six years of bilingual education in well-designed programs performed far better on standardized tests in the 11th grade” than those with only three years of bilingual education (Hornblower). Also, “children who are plunged into an English environment before they are fluent ‘are left out of the discussion in their mainstream classes’” (Hornblower). According to Virginia Collier, a professor at George Mason University, shortened teaching in bilingual education “show up in the long term when the academic going gets tough” ...
