A state ballot initiative that would require schools to teach students in English wouldn’t affect the Palo Alto school district’s popular Spanish Immersion program, according to the initiative’s chairman.

“If children already know English, all these requirements are lifted,” said Ron Unz, the Palo Alto resident who is heading the “English for the Children” campaign.

The ballot initiative qualified this week to appear on the statewide ballot June 2 by gathering more than the needed 433,269 signatures from registered voters.

In the Palo Alto school district’s Spanish Immersion program, students are taught in English and Spanish in an effort to make them bilingual. The program has expanded each year since it was introduced in 1995.

Although the English for the Children initiative would require all instruction to be in English, the restriction could be waived if parents say their child already knows English or would learn it faster by another teaching method.

Opponents have called the measure a one-size-fits-all approach that would destroy some effective bilingual programs.

Unz, 36, doesn’t have any children and said he has no direct experience in education. He studied theoretical physics at Stanford and runs Wall Street Analytics, a local financial services software company.

But Unz said that he’s long been interested in public policy. In 1994, he ran against incumbent Pete Wilson in the Republican primary for the governor’s seat, garnering 34 percent of the vote.

Unz’s idea for the initiative came from a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times, detailing the elementary school boycott by Latino parents who said their children weren’t being taught English.

Unz traveled to Los Angeles to study the situation himself, and said he found it even worse than described.

“It seemed the only way to change the system would be through an initiative,” Unz said.

Unz said that campaigning for the initiative has been a full-time activity for him over the last few months, and that he plans to continue devoting the same amount of effort to the campaign through election day.

The campaign now has between 2,000 and 3,000 volunteers, he said.



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