Clinton will stump against Prop. 227

But California voters favor measure to ban bilingual education

WASHINGTON – President Clinton will campaign against a California ballot initiative that would ban bilingual education in the state, administration officials said Monday.

Clinton, who visits California this weekend, will urge voters to reject Proposition 227 but urge the state to provide up to three years of bilingual training for the non-English-speaking children of immigrants, administration officials said.

Marshall Smith, deputy secretary of Education, said the administration has decided to oppose Prop. 227 because the measure is bad education policy.

Public opinion polls show the proposition is heavily favored in the June 2 election.

Smith added: “Proposition 227 is punitive and threatening to young children who have trouble learning English. It’s just a one-size-fits-all deal that goes against every scientific data we have that says programs like this don’t work.”

The initiative would rework the state’s patchwork system of bilingual education. There would be a uniform, one-year immersion in English-only instruction for those with limited proficiency. After that, most students would be placed into English-speaking classrooms.

Clinton’s opposition to Prop. 227 goes against surveys that show most Californians support the measure on the June 2 ballot.

In February, an Examiner poll found that California voters overwhelmingly favored Prop. 227. The controversial initiative, opposed by state teachers unions, is supported by two-thirds of Californians likely to vote June 2.

“I think President Clinton has become the most misinformed citizen in the United States,” said Fernando Vega, a former school board member and honorary regional chair for the Prop. 227 movement.

“We are losing generations and generations of Latino kids to this program called bilingual education,” Vega said.

But critics said they would welcome White House support.

“We know that bilingual education works best without a time limit,” said Ambrosio Rodriguez, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in Washington, D.C.

A public opinion poll of Hispanic voters commissioned by the Spanish-language TV network Univision shows that 83 percent of the 755 Hispanic voters surveyed favored continuing bilingual education.

Asked specifically about Prop. 227, 54 percent opposed it. Sixty-six percent said cutting off bilingual education after one year would be too harsh.

Clinton’s stance on the controversial measure could help bolster his support among Hispanic voters.

Clinton swept 72 percent of the Hispanic vote nationwide in 1996 – up 11 percent from his share of the Hispanic vote in 1992. Latino support helped Clinton carry Arizona, the first time a Democrat has carried that since 1948. Clinton also carried Florida, a state with a large Hispanic population that had not been won by a Democrat since 1976.

The impact of Clinton’s stance on Prop. 227 is uncertain. The president fruitlessly opposed two earlier ballot referendums in California that were approved overwhelmingly by voters despite critics’ claims that the measures were anti-immigrant.

Californians approved Proposition 187 in 1994 to ban social services for illegal immigrants – a ban subsequently stymied by court action.

Voters also passed Proposition 209 in 1996, which ended the affirmative-action contracting programs and admissions preferences for women and minorities designed to compensate for years of discrimination.



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