IN June, the General Assembly overhauled Connecticut's bilingual
education statute, requiring bilingual teachers to be better
qualified and parents to get more involved in the program . And,
for the first time, it mandates standards for students and sets
a time limit on their participation in bilingual classes.
Lawmakers said they took action because too many children were
languishing in bilingual programs, not learning English fast
enough or well enough to allow them to keep with other students.
But to some bilingual educators and Latino activists around the
state, the law mostly requires what already happens in most
cases. They said the best thing about the new law is what it
promises to do: require districts that already have a bilingual
program to, the law states, ''investigate the feasibility of
establishing two-way bilingual programs starting in
kindergarten.'' That's the true meaning of ''bilingual,'' said
Fernando Betancourt, executive director of the state Commission
on Puerto Rican and Latino Affair