Tancredo leading effort to cut back on bilingual education

DENVER—U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is leading an effort to amend the state’s constitution in a move that would nearly eliminate bilingual education in Colorado’s public schools.

A group led by Tancredo and Linda Chavez of the Washington, D.C.-based One Nation Indivisible is still working on language for petitions to get the measure on the November ballot.

The proposal would give non-English speakers one year of intense English instruction before mainstreaming them into regular classes, instead of having students learn in two languages while they gradually move into mainstream classes.

“The best thing we can do is to get children competent in English as quickly as possible,” Tancredo said Wednesday.

Petition organizers, including retired University of Colorado Spanish professor Charles King and Denver businessman Joe Chavez, said students could stay in bilingual programs by getting a waiver or by enrolling in charter schools with bilingual education programs.

Both Tancredo and Chavez have supported other English-only proposals, and Tancredo has said bilingual education has “condemned” thousands of children to a cycle of poverty.

Pam Martinez, director of a group called Padres Unidos that has championed bilingual education in Denver, called the proposal a “very narrow, bigoted point of view.”

“It does not value the benefit of learning many languages,” she said. “Instead of seeing a second language as an asset, they see it as something to get rid of.”

Opponents said Tancredo’s proposed measure would hurt about 25,000 Colorado students in bilingual programs who would struggle without lessons in their native languages.

Supporters of the plan said bilingual programs often go on long after students have become fluent in English, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

A similar initiative implemented in California has met some success though it has been criticized as anti-immigrant.

“The California experience has proved terrific,” Linda Chavez said. “Data from last year suggests students are making improvements toward learning English.”

A hearing next week with the Colorado Title Board will give opponents a chance to speak on the proposal.

It is unclear how the amendment, if passed, would affect Denver Public Schools, which has about 17,000 of the state’s bilingual education students.

A court may have to decide whether Denver’s federally controlled program would supersede a state initiative.

“We’d need to sort out where the authority lies for control of this particular issue,” DPS spokesman Mark Stevens said. “Our program is three years (of bilingual instruction) but parents have the capability of moving their children out before then.”



Comments are closed.