Prop. 227 Worries Educators

Some feel Hispanic students will be left behind

Alfonso Ramirez has good reason to fear the passage of Proposition 227.

He remembers the way his Hispanic friends struggled and failed at Texas schools in the 1960s before the dawn of bilingual education programs.

“The future is very dark,” said Ramirez, a bilingual teacher at Shackelford Elementary School in Modesto. “If 227 passes, we are going to have students sitting in the back of classes wasting time and doing nothing. They’re going to get frustrated and fall behind. They’ll be punished for not understanding. Then they’ll just drop out. We’re going back to the 1960s.”

Ramirez, who has a master’s degree in bilingual special education, is one of many Stanislaus County bilingual teachers and administrators strongly opposed to the June ballot initiative that would virtually eliminate bilingual education in California. They feel approval of Proposition 227 — written by software entrepreneur Ron Unz — would be a nightmare.

“It’s pretty scary,” said Claudia Lockwood, a bilingual education consultant for Stanislaus County and director of multilingual education with the San Joaquin County Office of Education. “It is the worst thing that could happen to limited English proficient kids in California. I think it’s going to confine them to permanent second-class status.”

That could affect approximately 1.4 million students across the state. According to the state Department of Education, limited English proficient, or LEP, students comprise 23 percent of the 5.5 million kindergarten through 12th-grade public school students in California. Twenty percent to 30 percent of those children are in bilingual programs.

Stanislaus County has 16,550 LEP students, and San Joaquin County has 23,670. There are 15,854 LEP students in Merced County — nearly one-third of the entire student population. Roughly 80 percent of LEP students speak Spanish as their primary language, followed by Vietnamese, Hmong, Cantonese, Tagalog and Cambodian.

Time running out

Those figures have Lockwood hoping for a dramatic turnaround before the June 2 primary, but she knows time is running out. A February poll of likely voters conducted by the San Francisco Examiner found that the English-only initiative is favored by 67 percent to 24 percent, with 9 percent undecided.

“Most people recognize a need to eliminate the current underclass,” said Sheri Annis, spokeswoman for the initiative campaign. “Immigrants and nonimmigrants want the same thing for their children, and that is having a chance to succeed in our society. Hispanics are supporting this initiative because they don’t want their children segregated for up to seven years in a bilingual program.”

Proposition 227 was put on the ballot by Unz, a 1994 gubernatorial candidate, and co-chairwoman Gloria Matta Tuchman, an Orange County schoolteacher who is running for state superintendent of public instruction.

Among the changes the measure proposes:

* School districts would be prohibited from teaching students in their native languages, except in certain circumstances.

* Teachers could instruct students only in English, and parents would be allowed to sue teachers to enforce the initiative.

* Individual school districts no longer could decide what bilingual programs they offered.

“Bilingual education is not on the ballot,” said Richard Brown, a bilingual education teacher at Shackelford. “Prop. 227 is on the ballot. That’s the one taking away my rights as a parent, my rights as a teacher and also the school districts’ right to decide for themselves.

Not the problem

“There are a lot of problems with bilingual education across the state, but this proposition is not the solution. … Our program has been extremely effective. The (students) we send to the county spelling bee usually come out of our bilingual program.”

One of the main reasons Proposition 227 opponents fear the initiative is because it would replace the state’s existing LEP student programs — such as dual immersion and transitional bilingual education — with a process called sheltered English immersion.

The technique is described in the measure as having “nearly all classroom instruction in English but with the curriculum and presentation designed for children learning the language.”

“It’s based on a lot of visuals,” Annis said. “The idea here is that if children hear the English language and are familiar with the English language, they will most easily acquire the English language.”

Under the initiative, LEP students would attend intensive English classes for one year and then be placed in mainstream classes. Bilingual educators are skeptical of the plan.

“There’s no research on (sheltered English immersion) to tell you what will happen,” Lockwood said. “And the research we do have says no one develops academic language in a year.”

Not enough teachers

Lockwood acknowledges problems with the state’s existing bilingual education system, but cannot see throwing away decades of work in favor of an unknown method. Annis said the bilingual theory cannot properly be implemented now, because California lacks about 30,000 certificated bilingual teachers.

“Our main objective is to make sure students are exposed to the English language as soon as they enter school,” Annis said, “rather than waiting until they’re older to transition them to English.”

Edmund Lee, director of state and federal programs for Modesto City Schools, said he believes many of the initiative’s supporters do not fully understand the objectives of bilingual programs.

“A lot of people don’t hear the “bi’ in bilingual education,” he said. “They seem to equate it with Spanish. Teaching English is one of our primary goals.”

Ramirez said bilingual education has worked wonders for his family. His three daughters went from elementary bilingual programs to Gifted and Talented Education programs at Modesto junior high schools.

He said the end of bilingual programs will crush the number of Hispanic success stories and translate into many empty chairs in classrooms throughout California.

“We cannot do miracles and teach these students English in one year,” he said. “The average level of education of Hispanics will drop from ninth grade to fourth or fifth in a matter of five years. They will drop out of school because there will be no hope for them.”

Staff writer Ty Phillips may be reached at 578-2366.



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