Monday, July 13, 1998
Prop. 227 offers real solutions to ineffective bilingual
classes
LANGUAGE: Arguments obscure desired benefits to elementary
education
By Daniel B. Rego
I find it sad that some students (such as Cory Jong in the
Viewpoint article "Monolingualism in a multicultural society: the
effects of Proposition 227," June 6) are bent on twisting the truth
of Proposition 227, which required a realistic way of teaching
children.
First, virtually none of the individuals who are affected by
Proposition 227 could vote at all, since they are around
six-years-old! Voters do generally care about California’s children
and its educational facilities, despite the "us vs. them" attitude
of Jong. It is true that only one out of every three Latinos/as
voted for the measure, but let us remember that at one point, it
had over 70 percent voter support (more than whites). Though Jong
is surprised by Asian voting on the measure, it is clear that most
Asian registered voters – as well as about half of the African
American voters – still supported the proposition.
Furthermore, the measure is completely constitutional. The
initiative simply has an immersion program that would teach
children English, so that they would be able to go on to English
language classes instead of the so-called "bilingual" (Spanish
only) classes that trapped students in second rate classes!
Such students would have to learn more because they have more to
learn. They could easily catch up, especially since this program
affects primarily kindergartners and first-graders, who are at ages
when they can readily learn a language. Also, one cannot cite any
court precedent to stop any initiative since all cases are
different.
The Civil Rights Act was also brought up in opposition, yet it
is bilingual eduction which has been doing the harm. The purpose of
the initiative is to teach English to children, so there should be
no problem with that.
This program was similar to the programs used around the world
to teach children another language, and the rest of the world has
obviously been much more successful in teaching students than we
have here using "bilingual education."
Also, children of different ages could be placed in the same
classroom, which rural districts already do now. Placing all the
elementary school grades in a single classroom is not a bad idea.
(I was in such a classroom in my elementary school, and all of the
students learned far more and far better than in most public
schools).
It is true that bilingualism does not divide us – it is when we
fail to teach children English that we are divided. One only has to
look at Canada (English-speaking Canada vs. French-speaking Quebec)
to see this. Do we want to end up like Canada, divided against
ourselves?