The Ramirez report (so called after its principal investigator, J. David Ramirez) speaks directly to these issues. The study compared the academic progress of Hispanic elementary school children in three program types:

• English immersion, involving almost exclusive use of English throughout elementary school,

• Early-exit bilingual, in which Spanish was used for about one-third of the time in kindergarten and first grade with a rapid phase-out thereafter, and

• Late-exit bilingual, that used primarily Spanish instruction in kindergarten with increasing amounts of English instruction thereafter up to about sixty percent in grades 5 and 6.

Among the findings of the study are the following:

• Little difference in academic performance or growth was found between early-exit and immersion programs by the end of grade 3, although a significant gap exists between the general population and these students. Students in each of these programs progress academically at about the same rate as students in the general population but the gap between their performance and that of the general population remains large. In other words, they tend not to fall further behind academically between first and third grade but they do not bridge the gap to the general population in any significant way. The lack of differences between these two programs refutes the long held popular belief that more instruction in English leads to more achievement in English. The early-exit bilingual students have had less English instruction than those in English immersion, yet performed at the same level.

• In contrast to students in the immersion and early-exit programs, "late-exit students appear to be gaining on students in the general population." This pattern is particularly apparent for the program whose students were most at-risk in terms of socio-economic status. According to the report, "as in mathematics and English language, it seems that those students who received the strongest opportunity to develop their primary language skills, realized a growth in their English reading skills that was greater than that of the norming population used in this study. If sustained, in time these students would be expected to catch up and approximate the average achievement level of this norming population."

• Students at a late-exit site who were abruptly transitioned into almost all-English instruction in the early grades (in similar fashion to early-exit students) seemed to lose ground in relation to the general population between grades 3 and 6 in mathematics, English language and reading. This is evidence that suggests that when limited English proficient students receive most of their instruction in their home language, they should not be abruptly transferred into a program that uses only English.

• Parents of children in the late-exit bilingual programs are more aware that their children have homework and more likely to help them with it than parents in either of the other two programs. According to the report "this is attributed to the fact that the greater use of the child's primary language makes it possible for parents to participate and support their child's learning."

• There is a need to improve the quality of training programs for teachers serving language-minority students both at the university and school district levels, so they can provide a more active learning environment for language and cognitive skill development. "Effective training models do exist which can help teachers provide a more active learning environment for language and cognitive skill development".

• "Efforts should be made to disseminate this information and support implementation of the models."

In summary, although the Ramirez report may not have provided definitive answers to all the questions concerning the education of Hispanic children, it has achieved at least two important outcomes: first, it has demonstrated that sustained promotion of children's primary language can be an effective route both to academic excellence and literacy in two languages; second, it has unequivocably refuted the notion that intensive exposure to English is the best way of teaching language minority children.