Since the 1960s, the U.S. Department of Education has enthusiastically embraced bilingual education. In this paper, the author evaluates the federal bilingual education program. Based on her studies of the implementation of bilingual education in California, Massachusetts, and New York City, she concludes that the program is of dubious value. She finds that the means by which children are assigned to it are arbitrary and can be easily manipulated by states and districts to raise or lower the eligible population and that the definition of "bilingual education" varies widely from place to place. She concludes with specific ideas to make the program more valuable for the language minority children who are its intended beneficiaries by fundamentally transforming the program. Comments by Catherine E. Snow and Charles Glenn are included. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures, and 46 notes.)