The essays in Lifting Every Voice illuminate the challenges and joys of educating students from a variety of ethnic, linguistic, and academic backgrounds. The authors -- teachers, community activists, teacher educators, and classroom researchers -- demystify bilingual education by providing concrete examples from their practice and experience in working with bilingual children. Rather than rehashing the tired, old debate on bilingual education, Lifting Every Voice starts with the belief that bilingual education works. Lifting Every Voice is organized into three parts. Part One focuses on the power and significance of bilingualism for language-minority students from a cultural, pedagogical, and political perspective. In Part Two, authors share their research and practice-based experiences and insights into successful bilingual classrooms. Part Three then discusses the political, organizational, and programmatic supports that are necessary to better serve our language-minority students and to nurture their bilingualism. The authors in Lifting Every Voice embody a spirit that embraces the linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity of all our students and trumpet a belief in the transforming potential of bilingual education.
