Kenji Hakuta

About the author: Kenji Hakuta, a professor of education at Stanford University, is a scholar and educator at the forefront of bilingual education and has written extensively on the subject. He is the author of Mirror of Language: the Debate on Bilingualism, co-author (with Ellen Bialystok) of In Other Words: The Science and Psychology of Second- Language Acquisition, and editor (with Diane August) of The Debate on Bilingualism, Improving Schooling for Language Minority Children: A Research Agenda.

Pronouncements that English-only approaches work, as shown by increases in test scores in California in 2000, is premature. A highprofile case is that of Oceanside. In 2000, students in the district managed to achieve scores which were higher than scores in past years. However, in 2001, scores in Oceanside stalled. It is...