Bush and Bilingual Education II

The New York Times editorial page weighs in on the controversy surrounding the Bush administration's decision not to publish a report on bilingual education that is at odds with conservative opinion (previous post here). The editorial calls on Bush to allow the researchers to publish the report privately, which is probably the best option seeing how Bush is unlikely to anger conservatives at a time when he is being criticized from the right on immigration.

I understand that there will always be some opposition to teaching immigrant students in a language other than English for political and cultural reasons, but if bilingual education does indeed offer limited English proficient kids the best possible chance of succeeding academically (which the report supposedly says), shouldn't we be giving it a shot? At the very least we should be debating it and commissioning other studes, which can't happen until the administration allows the report to see the light of day.