Language battle heads to Colorado

Critics of bilingual education say process takes too long; backers reject faster pace

DENVER ? A national movement against bilingual education, already successful in two heavily Hispanic states, is targeting Colorado ? a state whose very name is Spanish.

Colorado means “red” ? and that’s what supporters of bilingual education are seeing as efforts are being made to place the issue on the Colorado ballot in 2002.

Advocates of bilingual education say they’ll go to court, if necessary, to preserve their preferred way of teaching students who speak limited English.

“It is inappropriate to have a single program mandated for all school districts in the state,” said Lorenzo Trujillo, a Denver-area high school principal and board member of English Plus, a bilingual advocacy group. “It goes against the history of the state, and it actually infringes on the authority granted to local school boards by our Colorado laws.”

A hearing on the proposed language for the Colorado initiative is set for Tuesday before the state’s legislative council. The proposed language will then go to the Colorado secretary of state for further hearings and final approval of the ballot language.

Bilingual education, which traces its roots to the Chicano rights movement of the 1960s, calls for non-English speaking students to be taught primarily in their native language as they gradually learn English. Critics claim that such an approach takes too long and often produces students they label “bi-illiterate.”

The primary force behind the anti-bilingual drive is Silicon Valley software entrepreneur Ron Unz, an unsuccessful 1994 California GOP gubernatorial candidate. Unfazed by his setback in seeking elective office, he spent almost $1 million of his personal fortune to end bilingual education in California in 1998 and in Arizona last year.

The Unz alternative calls for students to receive one year of English immersion, then to be mainstreamed into a standard all-English school curriculum.

Mr. Unz, who as a gubernatorial candidate opposed California’s Proposition 187 to deny medical care and education to the children of undocumented immigrants, said he adopted the anti-bilingual cause because he believes bilingual education has never been effective in giving immigrant children a chance to succeed in the American workplace.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the Spanish language,” Mr. Unz said. “I think it’s a good thing that [Hispanic] students become bilingual. But the way you make them bilingual is, since they already know Spanish, you teach them English.”

Other battles

Now, Mr. Unz, 39, is opening his checkbook to dismantle bilingual education programs in two more states ? Colorado and Massachusetts ? through constitutional amendments.

Mr. Unz and his supporters will need 80,571 petition signatures to get on the 2002 ballot in Colorado; 57,100 to do so next year in Massachusetts. The two states are being targeted, in part, because their legislatures can be bypassed via the initiative process.

Texas is not in Mr. Unz’s sights, for now, even though the state has the nation’s second-largest Hispanic population, at 6.7 million.

“The thing is, Texas doesn’t have the initiative process, so it’s hard to do a statewide initiative,” Mr. Unz said.

In picking Colorado and Massachusetts, Mr. Unz is targeting states where there has been ample criticism of bilingual education programs from within.

But in states where voters have already done Mr. Unz’s bidding, his critics are numerous and vociferous.

“I think it’s been a policy disaster for children,” said Norman Gold, a Sacramento-based consultant on the education of children with limited English proficiency. Until last year, he was California’s chief compliance officer for implementation of Proposition 227.

“It promotes an untenable image in the minds of the public that English can be learned, or any language can be learned, within a year,” Mr. Gold said.

The education of Hispanic children in American public schools has become a significant challenge for educators.

According to census data for 2000, Hispanics are the country’s largest minority group among children, increasing 59 percent from 1990 to 12.3 million.

In Colorado, Hispanics make up 17.1 percent of the state’s 4.3 million population. In Massachusetts, Hispanics make up 6.8 percent of the state’s 6.3 million residents.

Many believe that fluency in a common language is key to the assimilation of an immigrant culture. But far fewer agree about how to achieve such a goal.

The Bilingual Education Act of 1968, which was sponsored by Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough, recognized the needs of students with limited English proficiency. The law, which has been reauthorized four times with amendments, provides competitive federal grants and encourages school districts to tailor programs for their students’ needs and circumstances.

Boycott a turning point

The Boston Tea Party of the anti-bilingual movement came in 1996, when more than 60 Hispanic families boycotted a Los Angeles elementary school because of its perceived failure to teach children English. Mr. Unz says this event propelled him into action.

“I would argue that bilingual programs have never worked,” he said. “They didn’t work 30 or 40 years ago when the Hispanic population was much smaller, and they don’t work today.”

Prominent among Mr. Unz’s allies is Linda Chavez, a syndicated columnist who was forced in January to withdraw her name from consideration as President Bush’s labor secretary when it was revealed that she had knowingly housed an undocumented immigrant. Ms. Chavez backed a failed bid to place an anti-bilingual education initiative on Colorado’s ballot in 2000.

Like Mr. Unz, Ms. Chavez speaks only English. She’s nevertheless unhesitant in her advocacy of what’s needed for American schoolchildren who speak little or no English.

“What’s called bilingual education is really monolingual Spanish education,” Ms. Chavez said. “True bilingual education for these youngsters would be immersion in English so that they become fluent in that language.”

Bilingual education opponents in Colorado emphasize that their movement also has strong local support.

English for the Children of Colorado is the name taken by supporters of the initiative, and their chairwoman ? a parent dissatisfied with her own experiences with bilingual education ? is former Denver school board member Rita Montero.

Ms. Montero said that when her son was in first grade, he was placed in a bilingual classroom ? despite being proficient in English ? where the teacher could not speak Spanish. Ms. Montero said she faced such bureaucratic hurdles to having her son moved into a regular curriculum that she pulled him out of the school and enrolled him in a magnet school on the other side of town.

Once a firm believer in bilingual education, Ms. Montero now claims its staunchest advocates are ruled largely by misguided sentiment and emotion.

“It’s like giving up a piece of something that they fought for during the ’70s, and by God, whether it’s good or it’s bad, it’s something they advocated for, and damn it, the white folks aren’t going to take it away from them,” Ms. Montero said.

“That thinking is foolish,” she said. “I mean, they can’t see how they’re hurting kids. They aren’t really an advocate for the kids. They’re an advocate of the past.”

Charlie Brennan is a free-lance writer based in Boulder, Colo.



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