TBE is something that was developednto comply with a 1973 U.S.nSupreme Court mandate requiringnschool districts receiving federal fundsnto provide special instruction to helpnimmigrant children learn English asnquickly as possible — another of thosen”rights” the justices have claimed tondetect lurking in some “penumbra”nbefogging our Constitution.nBut, if you can, lay aside for the timenbeing Constitutional considerations.nWhat flags you to question RosalienPorter’s tacit presumption of a need fornTBE in the first place is the acknowledgementnby this daughter of Italiannimmigrants that she herself received nonspecial help in acquiring the idiomaticnEnglish that fills her pages: she learnednit in a first-grade classroom in NewnJersey, by the old sink-or-swim methodnby which so many millions of othernnon-Anglophone children werenplunged into all-English classroomsnand were quickly acculturated tonAmerica. (Pardon me for wonderingnwhat’s wrong with something thatnswam so well, without courts and thenspecial oudays now totaling over $1nbillion each year.) In any case. TransitionalnBilingual Education is supposednto provide non-Anglophones withnclassroom instruction both in their nativenlanguage and in English, thenmother tongue being gradually phasednout over three years as their English isnperfected. Today it enrolls childrennspeaking 145 different tongues, predominantlynthe Spanish one.nIn practice, Porter shows, these childrennare exposed to as little English asnpossible — in order to prolong theirntime in the TBE programs. The scandalnis that youngsters who can’t makenchange in English are made to concentratenendlessly on things like Caribbeannfolklore presented in Spanish. Nevernmind that students not acquiring Englishntend to become early dropoutsnand soon find themselves on welfarenrolls and in jail in alarming numbers;nand overlook the impressive numbersnof immigrant (mainly Asian) parentsnwho move out of school districts wherenthe bilingual programs are in place innorder to assure that their children learnnEnglish. Forget about, for that matter,na survey released (after Forked Tonguenappeared) in August by the Institute onnEnglish Acquisition and Research. Itnshows that just 10.1 percent of Span­nish-speakers in America list perfectionnof Spanish among the three most importantngoals they cherish for theirnchildren’s education. And only a minusculen0.6 percent say they wantnschools to transmit their ethnic heritagento their offspring.nSo what energizes a program thatnnobody wants? Actually, a few do wantnit. Porter documents that the bilingualnpowers-that-be in the teacher collegesnand state education departmentsn(mostly Hispanics, it happens, whonmake no effort to conceal their habit ofnbarring gringos from their field) alsonhappen to be chauvinistic ideologuesndetermined to keep children out of thenAnglo mainstream. Their practice ofnexpanding the TBE rolls by deliberatelynretarding students likewise expandsnthe cash, scholarships, and jobs thesenself-servers dispense. So they take painsnto keep the bilingual curricula bothnradical and impractical. And they’rencareful to restrict certification to teachnin the bilingual classrooms to theirn(often scandalously incompetent) proteges.nIt’s nice work if you can get it,nand if you’re totally without scruples.nSince Spanish happens to be Porter’snown specialty, she has an insidentrack for going after this gang. Herncommon sense conclusions, acquirednby hands-on experience and (as wenlearn in chapters three through five)nthe voluminous research she has masterednon bilingual education in thenUnited States and abroad, confirm this:nto assure rapid acquisition of a foreignnlanguage, you give non-speakers allnyou can of that tongue, and in a hurry.n(Pardon me again, but doesn’t thisnresemble sink-or-swim?)nIn the Bilingual and English as anSecond Language Program she directsnin Newton, Massachusetts, for example.nPorter’s students are immersed innEnglish. Quickly mastering it, they arenrouted into regular classes, where theynsubsequently tend to become able studentsnand even show a percentage ofncollege enrollment that exceeds thennational average. Another result is thatnstudents receiving intensive foreignlanguagenimmersion lose nothingnwhatever of proficiency in their nativentongue, thus exploding one of thenbiggest arguments used by the ideologuesnto attack Porter’s method.nRosalie Porter holds a doctorate innher field and worked for a time innnnWilliam Bennett’s Department of Education.nShe appears, moreover, to benamong those legions of liberals whonhave of late been partially mugged bynrealities liberalism has generated. Innher case the mugging was perpetratednby doctrinaires in the MassachusettsnDepartment of Education trying tonprotect their stranglehold on TBE, firstnby attempting to block the awarding ofnthe advanced degree Porter hadnearned, and later by issuing a transparentlyndoctored audit branding her programnat Newton a failure. The latternmove enabled this gang to cut offn(temporarily) her state funding. It wasnunwise of them. The lady has foughtnback ever since, exposing the bilingualnbosses in Massachusetts and acrossnAmerica for the false educators theynare. Forked Tongue is designed, amongnother things, to smite them hip andnthigh. They deserve it. To her enemies.nPorter’s unpardonable sin has been tonhelp children learn English.nBut the writer’s determination tonappear everywhere moderate and practicalnought not to lull the reader intonimagining she is the nonideologicalncreature she presents herself to :be.nThis warm, earnest Rosalie Porternemerges from her pages as your oldfashionednstatist: anti-radical to be sure,nbut a statist all the same. One, forninstance, who doesn’t hesitate — in,thenlatter part of her book, where shenaspires to philosophy — to invoke thenauthority of old Horace Mann, JohnnDewey, Gunnar Myrdal, and alliednsocial engineers; and to put forward anvision for education that would leadnAmerica towards democracy and equality—nvery different from the Framers’nideals oi republicanism and freedom.nFinally, Porter’s position on initiativesnto establish English as our officialnlanguage is . . . forked. Eady in thenbook she attacks proponents of thisnproposal with the usual left-of-centernaspersions; then, in chapter seven, shenin effect acknowledges that an Englishas-the-official-languagenamendmentnwould square with her own anti-radicalnposition. After having said this. Porternturns around and again tars its backersn— thus, I take it, reassuring her friendsnshe’s still one of them.nJames B. Graves is a former classicsnprofessor who edits Lookout, thennational pro-family newsletter.nJANUARY 1991/37n