Listen To Voters On Bilingual Education

Voters in one forward-looking California school district made their views clear this week on bilingual education: They don’t like it and they don’t think it works. That bodes well for a larger effort to end the bilingual-ed tyranny.

Asked whether they support Orange Unified School District’s decision to replace bilingual education with English immersion, 86.5% of voters answered "yes."

That’s right in line with surveys showing huge support for a proposed ballot measure that would end bilingual education statewide. A Los Angeles Times poll last month found that 80% of whites and 84% of Hispanics back the "English for the Children" initiative. Backers of the proposition are gathering signatures for next June’s ballot.

In the meantime, more and more school districts are trying to chart their own English-only course.

Orange Unified, which serves the city of Orange in Orange County, has fought hard to move away from the state’s failed bilingual education policy.

California’s bilingual-ed law expired a decade ago. But only now is the state education establishment letting school districts shape their English instruction policies locally. The state board of education cleared the way this summer for Orange Unified and two other districts in Orange County to try a year of English-only instruction.

But bilingual ed’s backers haven’t gone quietly. After all, a lot of money and union jobs are at stake.

The Golden State pours $300 million annually into bilingual instruction. And certified bilingual teachers earn an annual premium averaging $7,000.

It’s no surprise, then, that the California Teachers Association opposes next year’s initiative, saying it limits how teachers may do their job and "arbitrarily limits the access of some students to the curriculum."

Even if that were true, things couldn’t get worse than they are now. The number of students classified as "limited English proficient" has more than doubled since ’82. But the number reclassified as "English proficient" has remained flat. Only 5% of bilingual students graduate to proficiency in a given year.

The truth is, "bilingual education" is a misnomer for what actually goes on in the classroom. Instruction is given mostly in the student’s native tongue—almost always Spanish. In some cases, students languish in bilingual classes for up to eight years.

The Orange school board wants to set those students free, and now the voters have backed it up. If voters across the state (and nation) had their way, we’ve no doubt that bilingual ed would soon be just a bad memory.



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