Most parents want their children to learn English and do well in school. The essence of Bilingual Education is to develop academic English and success in school. The initial education a child receives should be taught in that student's first language. Once the children understand a certain subject instructed in their first language, they would be able to better understand that same subject when taught in the English language. In Bilingual Education programs, the children use the knowledge they acquire in the classes instructed in their first language to better comprehend the English language and the classes instructed in the English language.
             Literacy, the ability to read, transfers between languages. Studies have shown that "the reading process is similar in different languages, the reading development process is similar in different languages, and the correlations between literacy development in the first language and the second language are high (Krashen, 1996)." Efficient Bilingual Education programs teach literacy in the first language to better assure literacy in the English language.
             Bilingual Education has been attributed to being responsible for dropouts, especially among Hispanic students. This belief arises from the fact that Hispanic students have a significant dropout rate, even though they are the ethnic group with the most significant numbers involved in Bilingual Education. Yet, only fifteen percent of Hispanics in California were entirely enrolled in Bilingual Education programs. Furthermore, only one study has been conducted on the impact of Bilingual Education on dropouts, which reported fewer dropouts among Bilingual Education students compared with others (Curiel, Rosenthal, and Richek, 1986). Hispanic student dropouts usually choose to quit school because of a lack of English comprehension (McMillan, Kaufman, and Klein, 1997).
             Since these Hispanic students do not fully comprehend English ...