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Outrageous travesty Editorial ALERT. The State Board of Education is poised to gut one of the most hard-won and needed citizen initiatives in California, Proposition 227. Pressured by educators, lobbyists and most assuredly the governor, the board rubber-stamped a first reading of regulations that promise a return to full bilingual education. This despite 227's mandate that all students be taught primarily in English. The board is expected to take a final vote on the changes next week. Parents and right-thinking educators who don't want to see California schools bankrupted by full-blown, individualized bilingual instruction ought to call Gov. Gray Davis at (916) 445-2841 to protest this attempt to usurp the will of the people. State board members are the governor's appointees and most often follow his lead. In his headlong rush to appeal to Latino voters, Davis may well have forgotten that Proposition 227 passed with a whopping 61 percent of the vote. More important, his tacit agreement to the board's action is a slap in the face to immigrant parents who lobbied for English instruction for their children well before Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ron Unz took up the banner and authored Proposition 227. They saw their youngsters falling behind in school because they lacked English skills. Not surprising, the single board dissenter was former Inglewood educator Emily Ichinaga. Long opposed to bilingual education, this daughter of immigrant parents proved English-only instruction worked for native-language speakers in her school long before Proposition 227. Outstanding educators like Ichinaga and Jamie Escalante of "Stand and Deliver" fame know that bilingual education has effectively relegated generations of immigrants to second-class citizenship because they lack English proficiency. Like it or not, English is the dominant language of not only the United States, but the world. We applaud foreign language courses and believe all children should have the opportunity to learn another language. Our region is a prime example of red-white-and-blue Americans who keep their native cultures alive through myriad festivals and organizations in the private sector. Bilingual education is light years from that concept and in practice remains monolingual or single-language instruction. The majority of those programs are aimed at Spanish speakers. Bilingual education may have begun to right a wrong done to migrant children who were "warehoused" in schools with little or no instruction. But over the years, the well-being of immigrant children was set aside and bilingual education became the vehicle for political activism fueled by contributions from a multimillion-dollar bilingual education industry. It's no secret why bilingual teachers and administrators fought hard to keep the programs. They earn more money than their colleagues. Bilingual textbook publishers too saw their profits fall with the institution of Proposition 227. Everyone wins in bilingual education except the children it was designed to help. Californians need to speak out now and stop this travesty. If they do not, all of California's kids will suffer. But it will be immigrant children who will be hurt the most if they are denied an education in the language of their new homeland -- English. |