re it is necessary to consider a number of the larger issues in bilingual education. Each element of a bilingual education program is ultimately measured against its ability to empower minority students in an atmosphere that supports their language development and overall learning. Although such a program cannot stand alone as a bilingual education program, the placement of bilingual books in elementary school libraries may go a long way toward meeting the sometimes competing goals of bilingual education.
Bilingual Education in Perspective
Bilingual education has been designed to compensate for the inability of the American education system as a whole to meet the true educational needs of linguistic and cultural minorities (Padilla, 1982). The goal of achieving "equality through education" is incompatible with the fact that the opportunity for education is not equally distributed throughout society. Sometimes regarded as a method for promoting the assimilation of children from minority cultures into the mainstream, and sometimes regarded as a method for preserving the separate existence of minority cultures, bilingual education is intended as a counterweight to inequalities in education. Bilingual education, instruction in two languages, continues to be plagued by conflicts over its objectives.
A failure to meet the first language needs of Limited English Speaking (LES) and Non English Speaking (NES) students has pervaded school based bilingual programs (Fradd, 1987). Most federally funded bilingual programs are not truly bilingual or bicultural (Halcon, 1983). The directors of bilingual education projects generally view bilingual education as remedial, rather than as a means of preserving students' first language skills and cultural orientation (Tilley, 1982). Nevertheless, the need for programs that balance the need to integrate minority students into the majority society with the desire ...