A collection of 18 essays addressing the policy and politics of educating English language learners. It includes subjects such as demographic change and its educational implications, American responses to language diversity, public controversies over bilingual education, and high-stakes testing and its impact on English language learners.

This book aims to bring clarity to major issues confronting advocates in language policy and politics, demographic change, second-language acquisition, bilingual education research. The articles are united by belief that advocates must critically examine their own work to cope with on-going challenges.This is a collection of 18 essays addressing the policy and politics of educating English language learners. The subjects include demographic change and its educational implications, American responses to language diversity, public controversies over bilingual education, high-stakes testing and its impact on English language learners, and the precarious status of language rights in the USA.

1. Introduction
2. Making Sense of Census 2000
3. Monolingual and Proud of It
4. Heritage Languages in America: Tapping a "Hidden" Resource
5. Plus ca change
6. Concern or Intolerance: What's Driving the Anti-Bilingual Campaign?
7. The Bilingual Education Story: Why Can't the News Media Get It Right?
8. Ten Common Fallacies about Bilingual Education
9. Agenda for Inaction
10. "Accountability" vs. Science in the Bilingual Education Debate
11. Hard Sell: Why Is Bilingual Education So Unpopular with the American Public?
12. Has Two-Way Been Oversold?
13. Surviving the English Only Assault
14. Official English Legislation: Bad for Civil Rights, Bad for America's Interests, and Even Bad for English
15. The Bilingual Education Act, 1968-2002: An Obituary
16. No Child Left Behind: Misguided Approach to School Accountability for English Language Learners
17. A Diminished Vision of Civil Rights
18. The Decline of Bilingual Education: How To Reverse a Troubling Trend?
19. Loose Ends in a Tattered Fabric: The Inconsistency of Language Rights in the USA.