Myth: Bilingual education has been proven ineffective, delaying the learning of English and slowing students down.

Reality: The most comprehensive study is Thomas and Collier's '95 study of 42,000 language minority student records, with 8-12 years of data per student. Research found that "two-way bilingual education at the elementary school level is the most promising program model for the long-term academic success. Students in this program maintain grade level skills in their first language at least through 6th grade and reach the 50th percentile or NCE in their second language after 4-5 years of schooling in both languages. They also generally sustain the gains they made when they reach secondary education, unlike students in programs that provide little or no academic support in the first language." In addition to academic success,they also were able to understand, speak, read, and write in two languages. Unfortunately, this type of program is very scarce in the U.S.