READ Perspectives, a refereed annual publication of the Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ), Washington, D.C., begins its sixth year with the theme "Educating Language Minority Children: An Agenda for the Future." Volume 6 features presentations from a Boston University conference organized by READ and the Pioneer Institute. The essays represent truly diverse viewpoints on the education of limited-English students, rare in the complex and contentious arena of bilingual education. The lead article, "Rethinking Bilingual Education," by Charles L Glenn of Boston University, inspired the conference's organization. Dr. Glenn proposes new ways of schooling limited-English-speaking children that depart dramatically from the practices of the past 30 years. He proposes sound recommendations for revising Massachusetts bilingual education law, ideas that could well be applied in other states. Also included are Christine Rossell's "Mystery on the Bilingual Express," a critique of the controversial study by Thomas and Collier; Rosalie Pedalino Porter's follow-up review of El Paso, Texas's programs for English learners; Mark Lopez's "Labor Market Effects of Bilingual Education"; "Bethlehem, Pennsylvania's English Acquisition Program," by Thomas J. Dolusio; Maria Estela Brisk's discussion on the need to restructure schools to incorporate the large non-English student population; several articles regarding educational reform in Massachusetts, including two by school superintendents Eugene Creedon and Douglas Sears, and one by Harold Lane, Chairman of the Joint Education Committee in the Massachusetts Legislature; and, finally, Kevin Clark's "From Primary Language Instruction to English Immersion: How Five California Districts Made the Switch." Kevin Clark's California study "From Primary Language Instruction to English Immersion: How Five California Districts Made the Switch," describes how radical changes are being carried out in a few representative school districts since passage of California Proposition 227, the "English for the Children" initiative. Educating Language Minority Children is a valuable selection of the most current thinking on policies, programs, and practices affecting limited-English students in U.S. public schools. It provides a wealth of practical information useful to educators, parents, legislators, and policy analysts, and is an essential addition to libraries nationwide.

Today children who are not fluent in English legal and illegal immigrants, refugees, and native born are the fastest growing portion of our population, accounting for more than half the children in classrooms in many city schools. Bilingual education programs established by federal and state laws have required that such students be taught basic subjects in their native languages rather than in English. Judged by most applicable measures'such as achievement scores and dropout rates these programs have not been successful. This edition includes new material on recent efforts to reform bilingual education, on the growing trend across the country toward English language programs, on the latest national research studies, and on the movement to make English the official language of the United States. Forked Tongue is a devastating inside account of how the twenty-eight-year experiment in bilingual education has failed our language-minority children and why. Rosalie Porter draws on local, state, and international experience to provide us with the first authoritative account of which policies, programs, and practices actually succeed with the children they are intended to serve. Forked Tongue will be of interest to educators, sociologists, and scholars interested in second language acquisition.

READ Perspectives, a refereed annual publication of the Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ), Washington, D.C., begins its sixth year with the theme "Educating Language Minority Children: An Agenda for the Future." Volume 6 features presentations from a Boston University conference organized by READ and the Pioneer Institute. The essays represent truly diverse viewpoints on the education of limited-English students, rare in the complex and contentious arena of bilingual education.

The lead article, "Rethinking Bilingual Education," by Charles L Glenn of Boston University, inspired the conference's organization. Dr. Glenn proposes new ways of schooling limited-English-speaking children that depart dramatically from the practices of the past 30 years. He proposes sound recommendations for revising Massachusetts bilingual education law, ideas that could well be applied in other states. Also included are

Christine Rossell's "Mystery on the Bilingual Express," a critique of the controversial study by Thomas and Collier; Rosalie Pedalino Porter's follow-up review of El Paso, Texas's programs for English learners; Mark Lopez's "Labor Market Effects of Bilingual Education"; "Bethlehem, Pennsylvania's English Acquisition Program," by Thomas J. Dolusio; Maria Estela Brisk's discussion on the need to restructure schools to incorporate the large non-English student population; several articles regarding educational reform in Massachusetts, including two by school superintendents Eugene Creedon and Douglas Sears, and one by Harold Lane, Chairman of the Joint Education Committee in the Massachusetts Legislature; and, finally, Kevin Clark's "From Primary Language Instruction to English Immersion: How Five California Districts Made the Switch." Kevin Clark's California study "From Primary Language Instruction to English Immersion: How Five California Districts Made the Switch," describes how radical changes are being carried out in a few representative school districts since passage of California Proposition 227, the "English for the Children" initiative. "Educating Language Minority Children "is a valuable selection of the most current thinking on policies, programs, and practices affecting limited-English students in U.S. public schools. It provides a wealth of practical information useful to educators, parents, legislators, and policy analysts, and is an essential addition to libraries nationwide.

Today children who are not fluent in English--legal and illegal immigrants, refugees, and native born--are the fastest growing portion of our population, accounting for more than half the children in classrooms in many city schools. Bilingual education programs established by federal and state laws have required that such students be taught basic subjects in their native languages rather than in English. Judged by most applicable measures--such as achievement scores and dropout rates--these programs have not been successful.

This edition includes new material on recent efforts to reform bilingual education, on the growing trend across the country toward English language programs, on the latest national research studies, and on the movement to make English the official language of the United States. Forked Tongue is a devastating inside account of how the twenty-eight-year experiment in bilingual education has failed our language-minority children--and why. Rosalie Porter draws on local, state, and international experience to provide us with the first authoritative account of which policies, programs, and practices actually succeed with the children they are intended to serve. Forked Tongue will be of interest to educators, sociologists, and scholars interested in second language acquisition.

Immigration is one of the most contentious issues in twenty-first-century America. In forty years, the American population has doubled from 150 to 300 million, about half of the increase due to immigration. Discussions involving legal and illegal status, assimilation or separatism, and language unity or multilingualism continue to spark debate. The battle to give five million immigrant children America's common language, English, and to help these students join their English-speaking classmates in opportunities for self-fulfillment continues to be argued. "American Immigrant" is part memoir and part account of Rosalie Pedalino Porter's professional activities as a national authority on immigrant education and bilingualism. Her career began in the 1970s, when she entered the most controversial arena in public education, bilingualism. This book chronicles the political movement Porter helped lead, one that succeeded in changing state laws in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts. Programs that had segregated Latino children by language and ethnicity for years, diminishing their educational opportunities, were removed with overwhelming public support. New English-language programs in these states are reporting improved academic achievement for these students. This book is also Porter's testament to the boundless opportunities for women in the United States, and to the unique blending of ethnicities and religions and races into harmonious families, her own included, that continues to be a true strength of the United States Porter examines women's roles, beginning in the 1940s and continuing through the millennium, from the vantage point of someone who grew up in a working-class, male-dominated family. She explores the emotional price exacted by dislocation from one's native land and traditions; traveling and living in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia; and the evolving character of marriage and family in twenty-first-century America.