and end bilingual education nationwide. |
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Begun with the best of theoretical intentions over thirty years ago, bilingual education has proven itself a dismal practical failure. For decades, millions of mostly Hispanic immigrant students have remained trapped in these Spanish-almost-only classes.
Then in 1996, immigrant parents began a public boycott of Ninth Street Elementary in Los Angeles after the school administration refused to allow their children to be taught English. Their example inspired the 1998 California "English for the Children" initiative, which won in a landslide and successfully dismantled most bilingual education programs in that state. As a direct result, the test scores of over a million Hispanic students rose by an average of 40% in just two years.
In November 2000, Arizona voters passed a similar measure, Proposition 203, by an even greater landslide.
Our nationwide effort to follow the lead of California and Arizona is bipartisan, with Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, immigrants and the native-born. All of us share the belief that young children should be taught English as quickly as possible in American public schools.
With your help, we can end bilingual education nationwide in the near
future.