Something stood out in Bill Barton's letter regarding illegal immigration ("Immigration law," Forum, Dec. 17).

What exactly is the "problem" with more bilingual teachers in the classroom? Is it such a bad thing that children be exposed to a language that is spoken by roughly 34 million people in the United States?

Bilingual education is standard in public schools throughout most western European nations, and children often begin education in their second language at the age of 4.

By refusing to allow multilingualism in our classrooms, despite being the most linguistically diverse nation in the world, we rob our children of valuable skills and assure that they will be less competitive in the global job market as adults.

While we may not have the resources to focus on implementing bilingual programs in public education at this moment, please, let's not label bilingualism a "problem."

Audrey Barron

Madrid, Spain