Bilingual ed opponents hit the pavement

Advocates of English instruction working to get issue on ballot

Outside a Littleton grocery store on Wednesday, Rita Montero eyed an approaching shopper like a cat spying a mouse.

“Are you a registered voter?” she pounced, clipboard in hand.

Montero, spearheading the campaign for English for the Children of Colorado, found plenty of people willing to sign.

In about an hour, she and three other volunteers gathered more than 80 of the 80,571 signatures needed by early August.

That’s what it will take to win a spot on the November ballot for the proposed initiative to limit bilingual education in the state’s schools.

Most who stopped to listen in the King Soopers parking lot at Belleview Avenue and Kipling Street also signed the petition.

Robert Taylor of Lakewood said he empathized with non-native English speakers who want to develop their own languages.

But, “as a nation, one thing that makes us cohesive is a common language,” Taylor said. “We need to ensure English is taught first and foremost.”

Not everyone who signed the petitions, however, seemed fully aware of what they were signing.

“It doesn’t matter to me how long it takes for them to learn English as long as they learn it by the time they get into the work force,” said Samantha Ogden of Littleton, who signed the petition.

Yet timing is the crux of the bilingual issue.

Students for whom English isn’t a native language typically are tested when they enter school and placed in an English acquisition program.

In such bilingual programs, instructors use the child’s native language to teach English.

Colorado law requires English language learners to take state tests in English after three years.

But Montero and other members of English for the Children believe students can, and should, learn English more quickly.

Their proposed initiative would place most English language learners in one year of intensive English-only courses. Students would then enroll in regular classes.

Opponents argue the initiative would rob parents of choice in the English language programs available for their children. They also dispute whether one year is enough time to learn English.

It’s not always easy, though, to pack all those details in a quick conversation.

Montero and her husband, Abran Sandoval, who also was gathering signatures, said few people take the time to read the lengthy paragraph outlining the proposal at the top of the petition page they’re signing.

In fact, one woman in a rush said she “just signed so they would leave me alone.”

Diane Molacek of Bailey said all students suffer when teachers must work with speakers of both languages.

Pat Anderson of Littleton, like others who signed the petition, said she favors students learning two languages at an early age. But she said the language other than English should be taught at home or as an elective class.

English should be taught first, and quickly, she said.

“Until a child learns to speak English and speak it well,” Anderson said, “they won’t be successful in this country.”

mitchelln@rockymountainnews .com or (303) 892-5245.



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