Bilingual education for immigrant children is a bright star orbiting in the heavens of Political Correctness. Since it presumes to help those that need help, bilingual teaching seems a comforting idea. But, feel-good or not, it does more harm than good.

To encourage more than one language is admirable. To discourage the fluent use of English by providing instruction to immigrant children in their native language is not good. Like the well-intentioned Johnson-O’Malley Act, which for years forced milk on Indian reservation children whose systems could not accept the lactase it contained, this particular do-gooder idea does not measure up. While the Navajo children forced to drink milk were only nauseated, bilingual education for immigrant children will often scar its victims for life. The end result is often an inability to speak either language well.

In New York, for example, more than 90 percent of non-English-speaking students enrolled in a bilingual program were unable to pass an English test after three years. The failure of bilingual education is so painfully evident to those who experience it, that among Arizona Latino parents (who are the true combat soldiers in the wars of bilingual education) more than 80 percent disapproved.

Language, first of all, should enable the user to function in the world efficiently. Once that has been accomplished, teaching a complementary language is just fine. Multi-language facility is a much-to-be-desired resource for any American. Unfortunately, this desirable skill is often confused with bilingual teaching in grade school, where children who should be learning English as rapidly as possible are instead nurtured in their native tongue.

We are an immigrant nation, people of different cultures and languages who have successfully adapted as Americans. And we have done so largely because we were forcefully immersed in English. Why exchange that valuable and hard-earned experience for an unproven method based on feel-good theory – often advocated by those who benefit financially? eddy Roosevelt said it well: “We . . . intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house.”

If history isn’t enough, the Army Language School in Monterrey, Mexico, and the State Department contract schools have demonstrated beyond doubt that languages are best learned by total immersion. To float non-English-speaking children on two languages during their malleable learning years keeps the bad of both and the good of neither. Immigrant children who aren’t forced to learn English tend to regress to home-speak, a fertile soil for the growth of social and economic segregation.

Tacos are a tasty addition to our national cuisine, cornrows can look good on some people, headscarves can hide unwashed hair, but the last thing America needs is the political balkanization to which language differences contribute. Look at Canada. From bilingual education, Quebec has progressed to “Vive la Independence!”

News service reports tell us that Mr. Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken,” was translated into Spanish advertising as, “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”.

It’s a reasonably good bet that the translator was the product of a bilingual program.

Rodney Quinn, who lives in Gorham, is a former Maine secretary of state. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.