William Ford: “the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Roth] just made another misstatement that cannot be left standing with the Members who…”

“the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Roth] just made another misstatement that cannot be left standing with the Members who are watching this from their offices. He said flatly that once they get into bilingual, it is virtually impossible to get out of it. We fought that battle the last time we reauthorized this legislation with the young gentleman who is now the mayor of a major city in Texas. He was an immersion person, and we finally got around to a compromise and we said that at the end of 3 years of bilingual education the child shall be evaluated to determine whether he needs any more bilingual education, and if he does not, in the opinion of the educators, he is brought out of the program. It is virtually impossible to stay in the program, not virtually impossible to get out of the program. It is not a permanent educational experience for the child. It is a transition from some language other than English into English. If we want everybody in this country to speak English, we should be supporting this instead of trying to destroy it.”