Don’t Knock Unz
Editorial
In 1998, Silicon Valley businessman Ron Unz wrote California’s Proposition 227 and almost single-handedly planned and financed the campaign that got it passed. Unz’s winning initiative effectively abolished the state’s bilingual education programs in favor of a cold-turkey "English immersion" curriculum. Naturally enough, California’s public education "community," and the Clinton administration were horrified---and went immediately to war in court. If the state’s Spanish-speaking students were no longer taught in their native tongue, the president warned, they would be condemned to "intellectual purgatory" for the rest of their lives. Which is exactly where they already were, as it happens. For nigh unto 30 years, millions of California’s immigrant schoolchildren had been granted the "helping gift" of all-day bilingual education. Consequently, appallingly few of them ever learned to speak English---or do math or science or much of anything else. Apparently, Unz’s opponents thought Proposition 227 would actually make things worse. How might that be possible, one wonders? Answer: It mightn’t. Last month, two years after legal challenges were finally dismissed and Unz’s law went into effect, the first comprehensive standardized test results were released. The numbers are staggeringly good, across the board. Spanish-speaking students’ English language scores, for example, are up more than 50 percent at a number of different grade levels. Ron Unz deserves a Nobel Prize. He has rescued these kids. A handful of California educators have warmly welcomed this success, honorably congratulated Unz, and freely acknowledged the error of their past objections. But from Bill Clinton: silence. And from Al Gore? The meticulously crafted campaign platform he’s now running on explicitly denounces English-only education policies and promises permanent support for bilingual education. Bush, who has at times equated compassionate conservatism with coddling his state’s bilingual-ed establishment, has of late been prudently silent on the subject. The people are now well ahead of their leaders on this subject. For the sake of all the Spanish-speaking kids outside California, let’s hope the political class quickly catches up. |