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schools. Of course in the career and employment areans, knowing job related concepts in English is more likely to ensure economic success.

The proposal to develop enough Bilingual teachers so that every child has one is also flawed. By the time that this many teachers could be trained (or upgraded, or retrained)...

1.) The country will have a Spanish speaking majority, and our national language laws will be changed to either be Spanish/ English or Spanish only

2.) Every long-time resident student will know enough English and Spanish to get by from exposure on television and radio, from grocery store packaging and from dealing with recent immigrants

The issue is that the development of (or the retraining of) teachers is a time-consuming process. It takes three years, probably a lot more, to retool the methods that teachers use to deliver instruction in the classroom. And, the instructional delivery of language learning is different than the delivery of "facts and knowledge" concept skills for regurgitation on high-stakes tests that students face in classrooms today.

Current Bilingual teachers may not be adequately trained, may not receive the extra funding for specialized materials, and are subject to the biases of their superiors on how they must teach. The current debate upon whether 1.) immersion, 2.) dual, parallel tracks, or 3.) first language learning first, then transitioning to English is next to useless. The focus of the debate should be on the skills and methods of the teacher, not the philosophies behind the school district's policies or programs.

As far as teaching children both languages at an early age, if we allow our government and our schools to meddle in the normal growth and development of our toddler children, we will only increase the number of learning disabled and dyslexic student, handicapped in both languages.

The last thing that this article will address is the one issue that "trumps" all the other issues. That is...

What do the parents of Bilingual children want?

Almost all parents of Bilingual children want their children to learn English so that their children can compete for better jobs. Most of these parents believe that they can teach their children enough Spanish to get by. In fact, they believe that their children have already learned Spanish to that level by the time that they enter school.

What parents want is for their children to learn English because speaking English opens many employment opportunities.

Of course this is common sense,

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