Petitions filed for initiative to dismantle bilingual education
Elisa Bongiovanni
PHOENIX---When 14-year-old Vanessa Abarca began elementary school she spoke
only broken English. And despite the wishes of her mother Leticia, who is
fluent in English and Spanish, Vanessa was placed in a bilingual education
class.
"Vanessa wasn't learning anything. Her teacher didn't speak good Spanish and
her translations weren't even correct," said Abarca, 38 of Glendale. "I knew
I had to get her out."
Abarca persisted, and after a year she was able to petition Vanessa out of
bilingual education. Now other Arizona parents may have that option without
having to put up a fight.
Abarca was one of several supporters who went to the Secretary of State's
office Tuesday to file petitions for an initiative that could end 30 years
of bilingual education in Arizona.
The initiative, sponsored by "English for Children," is modeled after a
similar proposal approved by California voters in 1998.
If it passes Nov. 7, bilingual students would be placed in regular English
classes and students not fluent in English would be placed in a one-year
English immersion course.
The group turned in what it said were more than 165,000 signatures, far more
than the 101,000 required needed to qualify the initiative for the fall
ballot. The Secretary of State is now responsible for verifying the
signatures.
Currently, $361 million is spent on about 112,000 students for bilingual
education in Arizona, said Maria Mendoza, co-chairwoman of the English for
Children campaign. She called it a waste of money.
"The time has come to get rid of bilingual education and do away with its
problems," she said. "It is criminal and discriminatory to keep isolating
Hispanic children like this."
John Petrovic, a researcher at Arizona State University's Center for
Bilingual Education and Research, said it would be a mistake to dump
bilingual education in Arizona.
"(The campaign) is a mean-spirited overkill and eliminates the choices that
are currently available to parents," he said. "This experiment in California
has been a dismal failure, so why should we think that it is going to do any
better here?"
Petrovic said that children in bilingual education have consistently out
performed children in English immersion programs in regards to standardized
testing, which he believes shows how well it is working.
"Kids in English immersion programs consistently fall behind in school and a
lot of them drop out because the academic gap between them and the bilingual
students widens," he said. "English immersion is really a hollow choice."
Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., who is leaving Congress next year but maybe a
gubernatorial candidate in 2002, publicly endorsed the measure earlier this
month. |