Politicians and bilingual education activists blasted a state senator’s plan to scale down bilingual school programs as an “anti- immigrant” policy and vowed to defeat the measure on Beacon Hill.

“What we ought to be doing is putting the appropriate tools in place to hold the 51 districts with bilingual programs accountable,” said State Rep. Antonio F. Cabral (D-New Bedford). “This bill is just a front for anti-immigrant propaganda.”

But California entrepreneur Ron Unz, who spearheaded the Proposition 227 referendum campaign, disputed those charges and said California has seen test scores of bilingual students jump 20 percent in less than a year.

“Why would anyone oppose raising the test scores of bilingual students?” Unz said at a State House press conference. “I don’t understand how immigrant students in Massachusetts would be any different than their peers in California?”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Guy Glodis (D-Worcester), and his supporters pledged to take the issue to voters in hopes they would come out much like Californians, who passed Proposition 227, the model for the Glodis bill.

State Rep. Mary S. Rogeness (R-Longmeadow) said she would join Glodis and other critics of bilingual education in the referendum effort because she believes the state’s 29-year-old regulations have failed students.

“It’s not that these children can’t learn, it’s that they are not being well taught in order to function in our classrooms and in our society,” said Rogeness.

The Glodis bill would dismantle the state’s bilingual education laws, known as Chapter 71-A, under which students can spend three or more years in Transitional Bilingual Education programs, where they learn subjects in their primary language as English is gradually introduced.

Following the guide of Proposition 227, English learners would spend one year in a “structured immersion” class and then be placed in mainstream courses as long as they developed a “working knowledge of English.”

There would be a few exemptions, giving parents the option of keeping their children in the program for more than one year. At a parent’s request, exemptions could also be made for special needs students and children older than 10.



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