In preparation for reauthorization of federal elementary and secondary education programs, a study was undertaken to determine how schools are educating the growing limited-English-proficient (LEP) population. Issues studied include: (1) characteristics of this population, nationally and in selected districts, and the challenges faced by school districts in educating them; (2) the ways that districts with linguistically diverse LEP students address the challenges; (3) promising approaches to use when linguistic diversity makes native language instruction difficult; and (4) the extent to which federal programs targeting this population provide the kinds of support districts need to implement programs. The report of the study, presented here, consists of a letter summarizing the findings and a number of appendixes. Appended materials include brief descriptions of educational strategies for instructing LEP students; a list of language spoken by LEP students in five districts to which site visits were made in 1991-92; comments on the study from the U.S. Department of Education; more detailed information on student numbers and characteristics, program designs, promising non-bilingual instructional approaches, and key federal programs; data on the students and programs in the five districts visited; and notes on the scope and methodology of census data analysis. Contains 14 references. (MSE)