Bilingual Education
Fox News
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Sean Hannity. Coming up: A federal judge has ruled on that controversy in Decatur. We'll tell you all about it. That update is straight ahead. But first, the debate over bilingual education heats up as the results of the first standardized tests were taken by California school children since the passage of Proposition 227. They've now been released. Proposition 227, you may recall, passed in California in 1998, dismantled the state's 30-year-old system of bilingual education. Early test scores show significant gains for students who speak little or no English after their first year of English-only instruction. But proponents of bilingual education says it's way too early to judge the effects of the controversial measure, and they argue that factors like smaller class size may have had something to do with the higher scores. Is the English-only classroom the wave of the future? Joining us from Los Angeles, Hector Villagra. He is a staff attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. And joining us from Washington, Ron Unz, the chairman of English for the Children and the author of California's Prop 227. You know, Mr. Unz, we had you on before, didn't we. We had you on prior to that vote. It's been a while. RON UNZ, PROPOSITION 227 AUTHOR: Sure. Exactly. I remember. HANNITY: I had the San Diego papers, the "Union Tribune," the "Los Angeles Times" -- newspapers all up and down the Gold Coast, the California coast, and they're all pointing out to some marvelous thing has happened. All your critics were wrong, and you were not only right, you were right beyond anybody's wildest imagination! UNZ: Certainly beyond what we expected. HANNITY: Yeah. Tell us about the success. You know more about it than I do, but the gains that I see in reading and math and language and spelling- not just up 50 percent or 100 percent, I see scores up 400 percent in some instances. UNZ: Well, I think 400 percent may be on the high side. But what has happened is that 1.4 million children in California who didn't know English have been shifted into a program that emphasizes intensive English immersion with rapid mainstreaming. A study came out just about a week or a week and a half ago showing that when you look at the test scores of the students of schools that stayed with the bilingual program, that used waivers or other ways to stay with that program, and compare those test scores with the students who were shifted to intensive English immersion and then into a mainstream classroom, the ones in English scored 20 percent higher, 40 percent higher, even 100 percent higher after one year of the new program. I think there are very few educational reforms that have been able to raise test scores for students, for hundreds of thousands of students, by 30 or 40 or 100 percent after one year. BOB BECKEL, GUEST HOST: Mr. Unz, first of all, welcome to the show. And I'm sure you appreciate that huge softball that Sean fed you at the beginning. (CROSSTALK) BECKEL: Let me give you some facts, then, as well. The fact is that test scores have gone up all across California in the last year and many districts that have no Spanish-speaking students. And the result in grades 2 and 3 have been directly attributed to smaller class sizes. So for you and the supporters of what I thought was a misinformed proposition -- you won, granted -- but to take credit for those test scores is a little bit, you know, like me taking credit for the moon shot. I supported it, but I had nothing to do with building it. Everybody in California got better -- white kids, red kids, yellow kids and brown kids. UNZ: Can I answer that? BECKEL: Yes, please! UNZ: Excellent. BECKEL: And that wasn't soft. That was a little hard. UNZ: Oh, no. It wasn't soft. And I think it's exactly the sort of question that brings up the facts of the matter. Now, the truth is, class size reduction applied to all the students in California, the English- speaking students, the non-English-speaking students. And if it was caused by factors like that, why did the test scores... HANNITY: All right... UNZ: ... of the non-English-speaking students... HANNITY: Hang on, Ron. UNZ: Sure. HANNITY: Mr. Villagra, I want you in quickly. We're short on time here. Just give us a quick synopsis. We'll come right back to you. HECTOR VILLAGRA, MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE FUND: Well, I think the real question is what we can attribute these increases in scores to. they aren't pointing to Proposition 227. They're pointing to these other reforms, as Bob mentioned. HANNITY: All right, I'll tell you what. We'll pick it up there. We'll take a break. We'll come back, and we'll ask the question, "Should English-only be what we are using in our nation's schools?" We'll come back to that. Jackson. Has he lost all his credibility by going to bat for these kids you see in that film right there starting a mini-riot in Decatur? We'll have an update on that coming up straight ahead. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) BECKEL: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I'm Bob Beckel, in tonight for Alan Colmes, and leaving tonight. Many of you will be very happy to know that. Mr. Villagra, I read enough of what you have written. I admire you very much. I know you're standing up against some serious wing-nuts out in California. But tell me again, what do you think the top two or three results have been of this misguided proposition? And what do you think attributes to the increase in the test scores that Mr. Unz takes so much credit for himself? The entire state he's done all by himself. Go ahead. VILLAGRA: Well, when you -- when you look at the scores in context, what you see is that scores went up statewide for all students, and they went up in very similar ways. And it didn't matter whether you were a native English speaker, a lep (ph) kid, a child in a school that had scored experts look at those scores, they credit reforms like class size reduction, and they credit the new reading program and the emphasis on back-to-basics that's been implemented in the last few years. And what is noteworthy is when you look at the scores, the increases were primarily in the early grades, in 2nd and 3rd, where you would expect them to be if class size reduction was effective. I think the other large factor that has to be considered here is that experts note that when tests are given for the first few years, the scores will increase as teachers and students become more familiar with it. And this is the second time that the test has been administered, and it's clear that teachers and students are becoming more familiar with it. BECKEL: OK, can I ask -- that's a very good point. Now, Mr. Unz, it has been a year since your proposition passed, Commissioner, and the -- after a year, anybody in a country, of a year of being exposed to that country's language, in this case English, is going to do better in English. Now, don't you think some of this can be attributed to the fact that these children have been assimilating into their community, learning more English? Or is it all because of your proposition? UNZ: I couldn't agree with you more, but that's the whole point. Bilingual education is Spanish-only instruction. In the previous system, the children were not getting a year of English. They were getting almost no English. Now that they've gotten a year of English, they're doing much better on the English tests. BECKEL: But -- I'm sorry. UNZ: And the point about it is the students who stayed in bilingual had their test scores go up a little bit. The students who moved to English immersion had their test scores shoot up by 20 percent or 30 percent. They both got class size reduction. They both got all the other reforms. Why did the immigrant students in English immersion have their test scores go up so much faster than the native-born students or the bilingual students? BECKEL: OK, Ron, let me ask you a question. And I will stop picking on your proposition, since this is a sensitive audience on this show. The -- is it not true, though, that in -- where there are -- is not bilingual education in early grades that Spanish-speaking children do fall behind white children who speak Spanish -- or speak English, rather, and they fall behind, many of them never to recover? And particularly in early grades. Isn't that a concern of yours? UNZ: That's exactly what's caused by bilingual education. Now, look at it. In California, there are immigrant students from 140 different language groups. The only group that gets bilingual education, or at least got it before our initiative, were the Spanish-speaking immigrant students. Of all the immigrant groups in California, the Spanish-speaking immigrant... HANNITY: All right... UNZ: ... children did the worst in school, with the highest drop-out rates and the lowest test scores. I think it was because of bilingual education, rather than in spite of it. HANNITY: Hector, I can't believe Bob Beckel just made the point for Prop 227 in his latest line of questioning with Mr. Unz when he's saying, "Well, why don't we just" -- of course, if you immerse them in English education -- that's what it said. That was the point. That would work. And you know what? It did work, and the results were dramatic, and it seems that you guys that were against Prop 227 -- you're afraid to admit that you were wrong, afraid to admit that we've had some success here, when we should all be celebrating that these kids are learning the language of success. Their scores are up. Their opportunity will increase in America. And it's all because Mr. Unz had enough wisdom and insight to realize these kids got to just pick one language, the language of success! VILLAGRA: Well, if that isn't too good to be true, I don't know what is. If you look at the scores of the districts that Mr. Unz is pointing to, what you see is not these dramatic gains that he's talking about. You see in Oceanside, for example, a large gain in the 2nd grade. And basically, after that, very modest gains, and actually a decrease later. One of the points that's buried in this study, this "San Jose Mercury- News" study, is that bilingual kids... VILLAGRA: Mr. Villagra, I'm sorry. We're going to have to get out of this. Mr. Unz, they're looking for a education commissioner in New York. Why don't you come in here? Thank you, Mr. Villagra. We'll be back soon. Coming up next, a big loss for Jesse Jackson's Decatur crusade in the court today. And we'll have the latest. Stay with us. |