"English for the Children-Arizona" Launches Signature Drive for Anti-Bilingual Education Initiative

Tucson, AZ—The drive to qualify a new statewide ballot initiative to dismantle Arizona’s system of "bilingual education" was launched today at the El Rio Community Center in Tucson. The Center had served as the meeting place for parents, teachers, and community activists opposed to bilingual education. They were inspired to begin their own Arizona initiative by the recent landslide success of Proposition 227 in California.

Maria Mendoza, statewide Chair of the campaign, believes that bilingual education is harming the education of Hispanic schoolchildren. "Twenty-five years ago, I began legal action against Tucson schools for discriminating against Hispanic students and denying them an equal education. Today, those same practices are far worse, but they are called bilingual education. Segregation was wrong then, it’s still wrong today, and our initiative will finally end it."

Hector Ayala, statewide co-Chair, agrees. "I was born in Mexico, and as a high school teacher I have seen many Hispanic students enter my school barely able to read or write or even speak English despite years in American schools. Bilingual education may work in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice, and we can’t allow the lives of tens of thousands of young Hispanic children to be destroyed. Our ballot initiative is the only hope for these children."

The proposed ballot initiative would require that children not fluent in English be placed in a special intensive "sheltered English immersion" program to teach them the language as rapidly as possible, instead of being taught for years in Spanish as is now the case. California voters passed a similar statewide initiative last June by landslide margins. Arizona’s own bilingual program recently attracted considerable controversy then the state revealed that over 97% of limited-English students each year fail to learn enough English to be moved into mainstream classes.

Two recent statewide polls indicate that 70% or more of Arizona residents would currently vote for the proposed measure. Arizona requires 112,000 valid signatures for an initiative to qualify for the next election ballot.


Comments are closed.