Chaos looms in LA schools as mother-tongue rules go

Los Angeles—WHEN CALIFORNIA’S schoolchildren start returning to their classrooms next month, they are in for a big surprise. Not only will they find that the state’s 22-year-old bilingual education system has been abolished overnight – thanks to a popular referendum passed in June – but there is very little certainty of what they will find in its place.

Under the bilingual system, Spanish-language students were meant to be taught in their mother tongue for five to seven years until their English was good enough for them to switch. But, in practice, very few qualified for the change-over and most ended up graduating in Spanish – a severe handicap in applying for any but the most menial jobs.

The new syllabus, so far, is little more than a skeleton. Moreover, many bilingual teachers are proving reluctant to follow the new rules, and some advocacy groups are working to have Proposition 227, as the referendum is known, overturned.

“It’s going to be a bumpy ride for the first year,” admitted Ruben Zacarias, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has 310,000 limited-English students, most of them Hispanic.

Already, the new school year is lining up to be a multi-partisan confrontation, with teachers and politicians bandying accusations of racism and hidden agendas. The Proposition has come so suddenly, and with a text so open to interpretation, that it seems likely that many of the anticipated disputes will have to be settled in court.

The crux of the matter is California’s shoddy record on education. When bilingualism was introduced, the state had one of the best school systems in the country. Since the late Seventies it has slumped and now ranks 41st among US states.

That means that many schools are having trouble maintaining standards in English, let alone extending their thin resources to other offered languages (Spanish, overwhelmingly, with some Korean). In particular, the LA Unified District, which caters to one quarter of California’s limited-English students, has become a byword for poor standards and incompetence.

The bilingual system itself also comes in for criticism. “To call it bilingual education is a misnomer,” said Alice Callaghan, a social campaigner and supporter of Prop 227. “In practice it has been about relegating Latinos to second-class citizenship by failing to provide them with the linguistic tools to get ahead. It’s a class issue.”

Equally passionate are Latino intellectual groups like Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which have an ideological commitment to bilingual education and are fighting to have Proposition 227 declared unconstitutional.

But most parents of Latinochildren support Prop 227, because they understand that English is the key to prosperity.

The big question is what will happen next. Oakland, in the San Francisco suburbs, has been most militant in trying to ignore or overturn Prop 227. In Los Angeles, parents are asked to choose between a waiver enabling children to continue in Spanish, a one-year English immersion course, and differing degrees of Spanish-language assistance in the classroom.

Despite complaints by LA officials about the enormity of their task, activists like Ms Callaghan say English immersion classes should be easy to arrange for Latino children. She accuses LA teachers of clinging on to their own interests, not those of the children.

Even officials like Ted Mitchell, education adviser to the mayor of Los Angeles, admit there are too many vested interests. “In the future, school systems must be held accountable for student performance,” he said.

“One advantage of this Proposition is that the spotlight will be on English-language proficiency, and we have to make sure teachers and principals perform in this area.”



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