CalMatters falsely sums up the motivation and aftermath of Proposition 227 eighteen years ago.
Swept up by anti-immigrant politics nearly 20 years ago, California voters approved an initiative that required school children be taught almost exclusively in English. The measure triggered anger in some immigrant communities, where it was viewed as an attack on multiculturalism.
It was Hispanic parents who put Proposition 227 on the ballot, most decidedly NOT anti-immigrant voters. However, it is true that anti-immigrant voters unwittingly helped Hispanic parents achieve their objective.
Hispanic parents found that “bilingual” was usually a euphemism for pretty much Spanish only all day long. Once their child was placed in the bilingual program, even over parents’ strenuous objections, their child could rarely escape, no matter how fluent in English they became, and no matter how often the parents asked for their child to be released from the bilingual “jail.” The bilingual program thus blocked Hispanic students from ever attaining the English competency necessary to do well enough on the SAT. Furthermore, immigrant communities did not see the Prop 227 as an attack on multiculturalism. Immigrant communities recognized that the English-only faction of the electorate hoped that Prop 227 would be an attack on multiculturalism.
CaliforniaChoices mischaracterizes the motivation of present-day supporters of Prop 58.
Supporters of Proposition 58 believe that the requirements of Proposition 227 (1998) limiting bilingual education are outdated in an era of increased globalization, when the native bilingualism of California students will be an asset. They also believe that the reasons given for Proposition 227 for English immersion were largely based on myths regarding student acquisition of an additional language.
Supporters want you to believe that the purpose of Prop 58 is to provide more bilingual opportunities for native speakers of English. The actual purpose is to usurp the decision-making power of Hispanic parents once again. English immersion is far from being a myth; it is a well-documented effective method that has been found to work well even among students who native language relies on a far different writing system. For example, immersion works well for Japanese and Chinese students learning English, so much so that Japanese and Chinese parents are increasingly enrolling their children in bilingual/biliteracy schools where the additional language is English.
Contrary to this diarist , it is Prop 58 that smacks of racism.
An LA Times headline proclaimed, “Proposition 58 would bring back bilingual education in California. And that's a good thing.”
Instead of bringing non-English speaking students to fluency over time, many public schools were letting them languish in Spanish-only classes through most of their education, dooming them to a future without college education or access to better-paying jobs. Immigrant parents were staging protests in L.A. against these programs
The San Francisco Chronicle agrees.
Meanwhile, it’s important to remember the reason voters approved Prop. 227. Before 1998, countless English learners were parked in a multiyear bilingual system that failed to teach them English and, hence, failed them in other subjects as well. There were horror stories about English-speaking students wasting away in bilingual courses because of their Spanish surnames; of students who spent years in public schools without learning the basics. Parents who tried to steer their children into English immersion classes often got nowhere because school administrators were convinced they had to teach students in their native language first. As one activist in the Latino community told me in 1997 that the problem with bilingual education is that it is “misnamed. It should have been named Spanish.
The headline is misleading. Bilingual education never left. Prop 227 never banned bilingual programs. California schools never got rid of their bilingual programs. They always remained available for native-speakers of English if the parents so desired. It has always been possible for parents to request additional foreign languages to be taught. Schools usually ignored those requests with the empty excuse that the desired language was “not part of the curriculum we offer.” Most parents were unaware that if a sufficient number requested a language , it would be offered. Requests to offer a language usually came to the district office singly; rarely did parents realize that an organized effort was necessary for the district to respond to demand for additional foreign languages. Meanwhile, charter schools tended to be on the cutting edge of offering languages such as Japanese and Chinese, even as public schools returned to a bygone era by offering Latin.
The San Diego Tribune unhelpfully presents a proposition designed to usurp parent choice as one that promotes parent choice.
Parent choice. It’s what we all want and expect in deciding what is best for our children. Parents are a child’s first and most familiar teacher. Yet they have limited impact in determining how best their child will master a key skill in academic success: learning English or a second language. That restriction and others now in place hold back millions of California children.
Prop 227 includes no such restriction. In fact, pre-Prop 227, the decision was entirely out of the hands of parents, and educators routinely overruled parent choice. That is why parents protested.
Like Brexit, People who think the proposition is about parent choice are likely to vote in favor and just as likely to regret it later when they find their vote was won through misleading and false information.
As the San Francisco Gate reported, “A new Field-IGS Poll reveals that California voters favor Proposition 58,...but the support turns to opposition when voters are told the measure would replace much of Proposition 227. As one online comment put it, “Proposition 58 should be called ‘keep the Mexicans in their place’ proposition.” Shame on the California Teachers Association for encouraging misleading conclusions. Way to model critical thinking.
Vote NO on Prop 58