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SAN JOSE, December 18 -- San Jose Unified School District on Wednesday became the first
in the state to win federal court approval to continue to teach Spanish-speaking students in
their native language, despite the passage of a measure that bans most bilingual education
programs in California. The decision by U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte means the
district's nationally recognized Spanish dual immersion program at River Glen School will
continue, as will bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking students at 16 elementary
schools throughout the district. Whyte's decision is expected to have little impact on other
bilingual programs through the state, because San Jose Unified is under a federal court
order requiring it to desegregate its schools and offer native language instruction to
Spanish-speaking students. Since voters approved Proposition 227 in June, about 50 school
districts throughout California have asked to opt out of the new state law, which requires
public school instruction to take place overwhelmingly in English. (Contra Costa Times)
SAN JOSE, Calif. December 18 -- Four months into the school year, schoolchildren have
learned to pay attention to their teacher. But they've also been taking cues from forces
outside the classroom, first from voters who banned bilingual education with Proposition
227, then from parents who brought it back through a loophole in the law. Now, more
change may be on the way as Gray Davis -- who opposed Proposition 227 -- takes over as
California's first Democratic governor in 16 years. Davis can make changes on the policy
making state Board of Education. The board has written regulations making it relatively easy
for parents to get individual waivers, but balked at exempting entire districts, prompting a
court battle. That could change if Davis appoints advocates of bilingual education to the
board, although proposition author Unz said "the sense I have is that in a lot of these issues,
Gray Davis seems to be moving very cautiously." (Sacramento Bee)
SAN JOSE, Calif. December 14 -- Judith Lessow-Hurley, a professor in the Bilingual
Department at San Jose State University said, "It's absurd that Proposition 227 limits
parents' rights to choose the language that is used to instruct their children." Ms. Lessow
Hurley's conviction also is held by the parents of thousands of limited-English proficient
students who are taking advantage of a loophole in the proposition that allows parents to
request waivers to have their children removed from English-immersion programs and
placed back into bilingual programs. Of the 4,326 LEP students who began the school year in
English-immersion classes in the Alum Rock Union School District, more than 3,000--or
nearly 70 percent--have been granted waivers, and of 5,048 in the San Jose Unified School
District, 2,833 (56 percent) have been granted waivers. The return rate from English
immersion to bilingual is as high as 90 percent in some San Jose school districts. Many
teachers and school administrators who oppose Prop. 227 say waivers are legal. However,
Ron Unz, the co-author of Prop. 227, said only 5 to 10 percent of parents of LEP students
should legitimately be requesting waivers. (The Business Journal)
SAN JOSE, December 13 -- Hoa Wong's second-grade students are playing a flash-card
game, smiling, shouting out answers and applauding regardless of who wins each duel. But
this is no ordinary classroom scene. The words on Wong's flashcards are all in Vietnamese,
her children are all ethnic Vietnamese and the class is being held long after the regular
school day has ended. Wong and her students at Parkview School in San Jose are taking part
in Project ABLE, a bilingual program that has accomplished a rare feat: It's endorsed by both
bilingual advocates and Ron Unz, author of the anti-bilingual initiative, Proposition 227.
The program, sponsored by the Oak Grove School District, also won a Golden Bell award from
the California School Boards Association this month. (San Jose Mercury News)
PHOENIX, December 10 -- A fiery debate over the value of bilingual education has swept
from California to Arizona. On Wednesday, it ignited in Phoenix. On one side are those who
think all American school kids should learn in English - that giving non-English-speaking
children the option of learning in another language just makes it harder for them to keep up
later on. On the other side are those who believe non-English speaking children learn best if
they take classes first in their native language, and pick up English gradually. Ideally, the
process allows children to become literate in their first language and also fluent in English.
Late Wednesday afternoon, state Sen. Joe Eddie Lopez, a Phoenix Democrat and bilingual
education advocate, introduced the first bill of the 1999 legislative session. It would, among
other things, make schools accountable to parents and state officials for kids' success or
failure in bilingual education, pay bilingual teachers an additional $2,000 a year, allow
parents to remove kids from bilingual programs that aren't working and award special
bilingual diplomas to kids who can prove they know two languages when they graduate. A
recent poll by the Behavioral Research Center found 69.7 percent of respondents favor a
voter initiative such as California's Proposition 227. (Arizona Republic)
SACRAMENTO, December 6 -- Six months after California voters sounded the death knell for
bilingual education with Proposition 227, such programs have dwindled but have far from
disappeared. Educators say they are doing their best to obey the new law despite the struggle
of implementing new programs with very little lead time and an ongoing shortage of qualified
teachers and appropriate books for English learners. Still, the proposition that promised
that all students would "be taught English by being taught in English" has had vastly
different results from district to district and even from school to school. "You see in
(California's) 8,000 schools as many varieties of Proposition 227 programs as there were
bilingual programs before," said Sonia Hernandez, deputy superintendent of the state
Department of Education. "I think there is a wide variation and, in truth, I don't think that's
a problem." (Sacramento Bee)
SACRAMENTO, December 6 -- The statistics don't begin to tell the story of Liz Quisquinay's
reading class. To look at the numbers, Proposition 227 has had little impact on Sacramento
City schools. Parents sought waivers for 526 students to be in bilingual education -- about
the same number as last year and a fraction of the district's 15,000 students not fluent in
English. But that means little to 9-year-old Ana Andrade, who was catapulted into English
only classes this year after spending most of last year being taught in Spanish. "It was an
injustice to do that to them," said Quisquinay, who spoke no English herself when she
emigrated from Guatemala as a child and who is now teaching English learners at Ethel
Phillips Elementary School in south Sacramento. (Sacramento Bee)
LOS ANGELES, December 4 -- California's largest teachers union Thursday asked a federal
court to strike down a portion of Proposition 227 that holds teachers and school
administrators personally liable for repeated violations of the anti-bilingual education law.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, marked the entry of the California
Teachers Assn. into the spate of litigation that followed voter approval of the initiative in
June. So far two federal courts have rejected attempts to halt implementation of the far
reaching law, which requires schools to teach students almost entirely in English as they are
learning the language. But the union's suit appeared to be narrowly focused. Tommye Hutto,
a CTA spokeswoman, said the 285,000-member union remains committed to upholding the
major provisions of Proposition 227. Instead, Hutto said, teachers are fighting a single
section that gives disgruntled parents the right to sue individual teachers, administrators or
school board members who "willfully and repeatedly" break the law. That section of the
initiative, the suit alleges, violates the teachers' constitutional rights to free speech and due
process. And Hutto said it has had a "chilling effect" on how teachers go about their work.
(Los Angeles Times)
Read the full-text of the lawsuit online