In response to Linda Chavez’s July 30 Op-Ed column regarding “the failure of bilingual education”:
It’s very frustrating when people who are bystanders of the educational process wipe their opinions across the faces of those of us who are the educational process. As a bilingual teacher, I know that some bilingual programs work. What doesn’t work are certain types of traditional bilingual programs that don’t fully address the needs of their students.
There are, however, very strong programs out there (some of them here in the Chicago area) that graduate students at a higher level than the regular education students So please take note: Hasty generalizations about a dynamic and enormous field such as bilingual education are not productive. Only well-examined opinions that are grounded in theory, not in speculation, are worthwhile.
