Poll: Voters strongly back bilingual education revamp

Voters overwhelmingly support sweeping change to the state’s bilingual education system and are, so far, eager to side with the English-only concept slated for the November ballot, a new Herald poll shows.

Sixty percent of registered voters oppose the state’s current bilingual education law and nearly two-thirds say they’ll support the initiative mandating non-English speakers learn within a year, the poll shows.

“There is very strong support for the ballot initiative, that seems to be the preferred solution right now,” said Herald pollster R. Kelly Myers of RKM Research and Communication.

“Voters say the current law needs to be changed and what the Legislature is doing now doesn’t go far enough.”

The new Herald poll also found broad opposition to a ballot question abolishing the state income tax and to a constitutional amendment being eyed for 2004 that would ban gay marriage.

The Herald poll, of 402 registered voters, was taken between July 11-13. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percent.

California millionaire Ron Unz is fronting the proposed ballot question, marking the most drastic change to the bilingual education law.

The so-called Unz initiative, already adopted in a handful of states, replaces the state’s current bilingual training with a one-year immersion program for students.

Lawmakers in the House, hoping to head off the initiative, passed legislation seen as a less radical reform that continues bilingual training but caps teaching in native languages at three years.

The Herald poll found voters of all stripes feel the current law is broken, with just 34 percent saying they support it and 60 percent opposed.

And when it comes to change, voters so far clearly support Unz.

Just 22 percent of voters polled said they are against the one-year immersion technique.

The support spreads across party and ideological lines, too, with nearly 80 percent of Republicans and conservatives supporting the initiative alongside more than 60 percent of Democrats, independents, liberals and moderates, the poll found.

“Even among Democrats and liberals, who are a little bit more willing to consider bilingual education, support for this initiative is strong,” Myers said.

Voters also feel strongly against a proposal by the Libertarian Party to abolish the state income tax, the poll found.

Forty-nine percent of voters oppose the outright abolition while 37 percent support it, the poll found.

This comes on the heels of Herald survey published May 6 showing 62 percent of voters would support freezing the voter-approved income tax rollback at 5.3 percent, a move Republicans dubbed a tax hike.

Voters are also showing strong opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The measure – designed to ban gay marriage – is opposed by 52 percent of voters and supported by 38 percent, the poll found.

That question, which won’t be on the ballot until at least 2004, also has broad opposition among Democrats and independents, Myers said.



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