Initiative would send shock waves through education establishment

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Again, for good or ill, a California ballot initiative is the harbinger of a nationwide debate on a major social and political issue. This time, it’s the dismantling of bilingual education.

“It’s already impacted other states like Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, where people are challenging the bilingual education power structure and winning,” said Tim Schultz, a spokesman for U.S. English, an English-only advocacy group.

“This initiative may not impact Kansas, but it will have an affect on any state with a large immigrant population,” he said.

Proposition 227, authored by Silicon Valley millionaire and unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Ron Unz, would end most bilingual education programs in the state. It would require children to be taught “overwhelmingly” in English.

Critics question whether Proposition 227 will have the same national impact as property-tax cutting Proposition 13 of 1978 or Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action initiative of 1996.

But there is no doubt the measure could have a dramatic impact on polyglot California, where 55 different languages are officially recognized in the schools and even more dialects are spoken on playgrounds and in school cafeterias.

Of some 5 million California public school students in kindergarten through the 12th grade, about 1.4 million have limited English proficiency. About one-fourth of those are in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest public school district.

“If the initiative is approved, it is our understanding that instruction would be given in English,” said Toni Marsnik, L.A. Unified’s curriculum specialist. “Some of our programs are bilingual, some are English-only, but it would effect all of them. It would essentially substitute the initiative plan for our programs.”

The district’s board opposes the initiative, as do a number of other districts. So do the California Teachers Association and state schools Superintendent Delaine Eastin.

But statewide polls show about 60 percent of voters support it, including about half of the Hispanic voters polled.

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson has not yet taken a position on the issue. But spokesman Sean Walsh said Wilson is impressed by the success of language immersion techniques used in Israel.

“Whether a 70-year-old from Moscow or a 4-year-old from Paris, they seem to integrate into Israeli society by using total immersion,” Walsh said. “The concept does seem to have some merit to him, but he needs to study it in greater detail.”

Currently, students with limited familiarity with English are tested in their native language and in English. The schools assess their ability, then place them in programs that teach in both their native language and in English. Gradually, the level of English instruction is increased.

Backers of the initiative say that procedure takes too long and produces children who are unable to cope in a linguistic environment dominated by English.

“What we call bilingual education has never worked anywhere in America on a large scale in 30 years of effort. Never,” Unz says.

The initiative requires “sheltered immersion,” which means placing English-learners in an English-transition class for up to a year. The class could be composed of various age groups.

After that, the students would be placed in mainstream classes. English tutoring also would be available — the initiative provides $50 million annually for a decade to pay for it.

Parents who want their children exempted from Proposition 227 would be required to submit their requests in writing, renewed annually.

“The goal is to give them special help and try to teach English as quickly as possible. We believe that could take place within a year,” Schultz said.

But opponents say Proposition 227 would disrupt the children’s education.

“It would, for the first time since the 1970s, mandate a single program for the entire state, taking kids out of their regular classrooms and creating a single classroom,” said Holli Thier, a spokesman woman for the opponents.

“There would be kids of all different backgrounds and ages, and they would have 180 days (the length of a school year) to learn English,” she said.

“How in the world is a teacher going to teach math to a classroom of fifth-graders and kindergartners? You can’t do it.”

Bilingual education programs exist nationwide, with particular concentrations of non-English-speaking children in Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. But California’s public schools account for more than half of the estimated 2.44 million non-fluent students nationwide.

If the initiative is approved, Unz says his next stop will be Capitol Hill. The House of Representatives in March approved a midyear spending bill which would cut bilingual education spending, but President Clinton has threatened a veto.

Like California, Texas has a large immigrant population; a third of Texans are Hispanic.

But thus far, there is no indication that a Proposition 227-style measure would receive support there, said Al Kauffman of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund in San Antonio.

“There certainly have been differences over bilingual education, but I have not heard of any movement in the Legislature to stop the bilingual education program,” Kauffman said.



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