The Lowdown on Prop. 227

California is once again at the forefront of American political battles, and the confrontation that is emerging doesn't bode well for the state of education in this Union. On June 2, Proposition 227 will be voted on by Californians. The so-called "English for the Children" initiative would largely scrap bilingual education in public schools and replace it with a one-year long English immersion program. The initiative is an attempt to deal with a monolithic educational system that is not sufficiently servicing the limited English proficient (LEP) students it claims to help. (The program at present is so convoluted, it puts the Core to shame.) Unfortunately, the proposed alternative is no less monolithic and carries with it undertones of racism and anti-immigrant bias to boot. Although it is clear that the existing system is misguided and badly applied, that Proposition 227 is seen as the best alternative is testimony to the utter disappointment parents have in the present public education system.

Placed on the ballot through the voter initiative process at the hands of Ron Unz, a conservative Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Proposition 227 promotes English-only instruction for students with limited English skills, who comprise more than one fifth of the 5.5 million population. Instead of promising students whose first tongue is not English bilingual education, the new system will force all students not proficient in English into a one-year crash course in the English language. After the year-long course, parents who want to keep their children in bilingual education programs could attempt to do so by seeking a waiver.

However, as Peter Schrag points out in the The New Republic (Mar. 9), the waivers will only be granted if the child's parents themselves appear at the school and if the student has already been failing in a regular class for 30 days, rendering the waiver "a prescription for academic defeat," not a feasible alternative to English-only education. Some Latino political leaders have criticized the proposal for this reason, arguing that students who don't become fluent in English after the mandatory year will be left floundering.

Nonetheless, the proposal has attracted broad support from voters. A poll published in the Sacramento Bee last Dec. 9 reported that nearly seven of 10 California voters favor a proposed ballot measure to scrap bilingual education in public schools and replace it with a short-term English immersion program. More interestingly, though, is the source of support: the poll found approval for the proposed initiative running strongly across all ethnic groups--including 66 percent of Latino voters. The high percentage of supporters among the Latino community is significant, given that the Latino students are the ones who will be most affected by this measure, making up nearly 70 percent of LEP students. Essentially, no one supports the existing bilingual education system. United States Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) went on the record saying that bilingual education "is not working," although she has no position on the proposed ballot measure.

That Democrats and Latino parents are coming out in support of the initiative speaks clearly to the failure of the current bilingual program to educate its constituents. Anecdotes abound about students in the bilingual program for six years who were unable to compose a basic English sentence and about the Ninth Street Elementary School, where "English instruction" consisted predominantly of three hours on the playground and in the lunchroom imbuing the English language.

There is little argument about the defunct nature of the bilingual education system as it stands. Yet the most comprehensive review of research on bilingual education, conducted by the National Research Council, found that native-language instruction can be helpful. Their prevailing finding was that different communities and individual school districts require specialized systems of educating LEP students.

However bad the existing system is, then, replacing it with a one-tiered, un-nuanced program that basically tells the students to swim or drown cannot be the optimal solution. The problem with Proposition 227 is not its diagnosis of a badly ailing bilingual education program; on that, there appears to be overwhelming consensus. The problem is with the particular antidotes it prescribes.

And this problem stems from a more critical failure, this time not of Ron Unz or of his English for the Children initiative. The failure is that of liberal educators--in California and across the country--who have left this debate to be determined by people like Ron Unz. The failure is that conservative voices are the only ones shaping the discourse on bilingual education in California and that no serious alternative plan has emerged from the liberal camp, leaving a vacuum where there should be thoughtful dialogue and a monolithic, conservative program where there should be interesting alternatives.

Talia Milgrom-Elcott '98 is a social studies concentrator in Mather House. Her column appears on alternate Mondays.