Bilingual education has long been the subject of major disagreements in this country. This book provides a detailed critique of the two largest studies of U.S. bilingual education programs. It examines the goals of the studies and what can be learned from them. In addition, using these studies as cases, this book provides guidelines on how to plan large evaluation studies to achieve useful answers to major policy questions about education.

• Front Matter
• 1 Bilingual Education in the United States
• 2 Research Methodology and Bilingual Education
• 3 The Longitudinal Study
• 4 The Immersion Study
• 5 Lessons for the Future
• 6 Conclusions and Recommendations
• Appendix A: Bilingual Education in the United States
• Appendix B: Trajectory Analysis of Matched Percentiles
• Appendix C: Acronyms
• Appendix D: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff
• References