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MODESTO, October 30 -- Despite Proposition 227, bilingual education is far from dead in
Modesto City Schools. The proposition, which went into effect two months ago, requires
California students still learning English to be placed in classes taught predominantly in
English. But in Modesto's largest district, 40 bilingual classes have been set up at eight
elementary schools. Ed Lee, who oversees bilingual education programs at Modesto City
Schools, estimates the district has approved more than 1,000 waiver requests from parents
asking that their children be placed in Spanish bilingual programs. (Modesto Bee)
LOS ANGELES, October 23 -- Hundreds of students whose parents have petitioned for
bilingual education in the Los Angeles school system are in limbo while principals try to
arrange bilingual classes. The problem is that dozens of schools have received just a handful
of requests for bilingual education in the wake of Proposition 227--not enough to form even
one class. Data released this week by the Los Angeles Unified School District show that
11,809 requests have been filed for exemptions from English immersion. The district says
it has no evidence that any have been turned down. But a Times analysis of the data and
interviews with principals reveals the district is unable to immediately accommodate
everybody. At least 68 schools received 1 to 20 waiver requests. Under the law, schools are
required to offer bilingual classes when at least 20 students in a given grade are granted so
called waivers from English-intensive classes. (Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES, October 22 -- After a one-month stint in English-intensive classes required
by a new state law, tens of thousands of California students with limited English skills are
heading back into bilingual education this fall at the request of their parents. Close to
12,000 of those students are in the Los Angeles Unified School District, data provided to The
Times on Wednesday show. Though sizable, that number pales next to the about 107,000
Los Angeles students who were in formal bilingual classes before voters last June approved
Proposition 227. Many of the students who are enrolled in English "immersion" classes
actually get substantial help in their native languages. Districts in Oxnard, Pomona, San
Jose and elsewhere report far heavier streams of limited-English students--up to 80% and
90% in some cases--flowing back into hastily formed bilingual classrooms. There, stories
can once again be read as cuentos and mathematics and science taught as matematica y
ciencia. The initial data show Proposition 227 has hit bilingual education much like a
tornado hopscotching through a subdivision, obliterating some programs and leaving others
virtually untouched. (Los Angeles Times)
VENTURA, CA. October 21 -- Ventura County schools could soon start educating a more
mature group of students--adults who don't speak English fluently--through a little-known
clause in the anti-bilingual-education Proposition 227. County educators have until the end
of the month to apply for upward of $1.5 million earmarked annually for the "community
based English tutoring" program created by the landmark ballot initiative. Although local
educators are not certain how they will spend the new money, they have planned a Monday
meeting to discuss snagging every cent possible. "If anything is positive from Proposition
227, this is a positive spinoff," said Cliff Rodrigues, director of bilingual programs for the
Ventura County schools office. "The potential is we'll be able to reach a lot more adults than
we are currently reaching through [English as a Second Language] classes. The big question
is how many. How far can we go with that million dollars?" (Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES, October 16 -- LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Teacher groups opposed to Proposition
227 charged that schools are discouraging parents from seeking waivers that would entitle
their children to continue bilingual education. More than 50 parents contacted the groups --
On Campus and the Civil Rights in Public Education Network -- to say they had been
intimidated while trying to obtain waivers in the Los Angeles Unified School District , the
groups said at a Thursday news conference. One school called parents who signed waivers and
questioned them until they rescinded their requests, one speaker said. Proposition 227,
which voters approved in June, bans schools from teaching non-English speakers in their
native language but allows parents to seek waivers. (Sacramento Bee)
TUCSON, October 15 -- Parents of bilingual education students are rallying to keep the
program, with the threat of a ballot measure to eliminate it. Yesterday, about 40 parents,
teachers and students demonstrated near Mission View Elementary School in support of the
program. Last week, others marched outside Roskruge Bilingual Magnet School in Tucson
Unified School District. ``We're concerned that parents have a choice about bilingual
education,'' said Kathy Franco, the parent of two Roskruge students and a TUSD employee.
Bilingual backers are feeling the heat from English for the Children Arizona, which is
trying to get a proposition on the state ballot in 2000 to eliminate bilingual education.
Similar to the one passed this summer in California, the Arizona initiative would replace the
program with English-immersion classes. (Arizona Daily Star)
CONTRA COSTA, Calif. October 14 -- Some East Bay school districts that started the school
year by complying faithfully with the English-only tenets of Proposition 227 have now
begun to turn back, quietly and legally, to bilingual education. Enough parents in the West
Contra Costa and Mt. Diablo school districts have requested that their children receive
instruction in their native language to trigger formation of classes conducted primarily in
Spanish. At one Bay Point school, 200 of 205 families of students who last year were in
bilingual classes have turned in applications to go back to bilingual instruction. Now the
school is trying to decide what to do with the five children who want the English immersion
promised to them under the law. A Concord elementary school has received a smattering of
such applications, but would have to switch many children among classrooms to constitute
English-only and bilingual classrooms. Prop. 227, which passed easily last June, mandated
that all California children be taught "overwhelmingly" in English, and that limited-English
students be given a one-year, structured English-immersion program. But it provided an
option for parents who believed their children could not learn enough unless some native
language instruction was allowed: If they were dissatisfied with English immersion after 30
days, they could apply for waivers based on their children's individual educational needs.
The 30 days are up. School principals are reviewing waiver requests, redesignating
classrooms from English immersion to bilingual, and switching some children's classroom
assignments to form new bilingual classes. (Contra Costa Times)
SANTA ANA, October 14 -- It's a month into the academic year, and some Orange County
school districts are starting to shuffle students and place them into bilingual classrooms to
accommodate parents' requests for native-language instruction. Despite voters'
overwhelming passage of Proposition 227, which promotes English-only instruction,
primary-language programs can be resurrected if the district is willing and there is
widespread parent interest. The response by parents countywide has been decidedly mixed.
In the Santa Ana Unified School District, for example, a preliminary count shows that 2,037
parents have asked that their children be exempted from the Proposition 227 regulations
and, instead, be enrolled in bilingual classrooms. Even Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified
turned up about 1,000 requests for bilingual programs. More waivers could trickle in later
in the year, officials said. (Los Angeles Times)
SANTA ANA, October 13 -- Nearly a third of the students at Harvey Elementary in Santa Ana
resumed bilingual education Monday, representing the county's largest parental rejection so
far of the state's new regulations against native-language instruction. Under Proposition
227, which mandates that limited-English speakers be taught mostly in English, parents
have the right to request a waiver that would allow their children to transfer to a program
taught in their primary language. At Harvey Elementary, 186 of the school's 600 pupils
switched over to a bilingual program Monday. (Los Angeles Times)
SAN JOSE, Calif. October 12 -- Thousands of parents are asking for waivers putting their
children back in bilingual education, but Proposition 227 campaigners say that doesn't mean
their crusade is shriveling at its grass roots. Proposition 227 sought to scrap bilingual
education by dictating that limited-English speakers be put in a one-year immersion
program taught "nearly all" in English. Parents were allowed to ask that their children be
put back in bilingual education after 30 days. The law took effect Aug. 2, but some schools
have kept bilingual education alive by interpreting the phrase "nearly all" to mean
anywhere from 20 percent to 40 percent of instruction can be in a second language.
Controversy also has arisen over the waiver process, with proposition proponents charging
that schools are stacking the deck against English immersion. Civil rights groups already
are challenging Proposition 227 in federal court and a number of districts are suing in state
court trying to force the state Board of Education to grant them district-wide exemptions
under the waiver clause. Proposition 227 proponents say they'll sue to stop the wholesale
granting of waivers. (Sacramento Bee)
SAN JOSE, Calif. October 11 -- With a dark blue marker on a shiny white board, first
grade teacher Sandra Villarreal draws a crescent moon surrounded by stars. "Ahhh, la luna,"
chorus her attentive pupils. Such talk was banished from California classrooms in June. By
passing Proposition 227, voters decreed children must be taught in English and no longer
assisted with instruction in their native tongues. But last month, parents of the children in
Ms. Villarreal's class at Sherman Oaks Elementary cast a vote of their own -- exercising
their right to request waivers putting their children back in bilingual education. "It's
better," says parent Oliva Rojas. "When the basics are explained in your own language, you
understand more." Mrs. Rojas is among thousands of California parents requesting waivers,
but even before they acted -- after a mandated 30-day waiting period -- many schools had
been keeping bilingual education alive. They did this by interpreting Proposition 227's
mandate that classes be taught "nearly all" in English to mean that as much as 40 percent of
instruction could be in a second language. It's becoming increasingly clear that the voters'
"No" to bilingual education was not the final word on this divisive teaching method. (Star
Tribune)
SACRAMENTO, October 9 -- California school districts will continue to have significant
discretion in deciding how much instruction in English is enough to meet the needs of non
English-speaking students in the post-Proposition 227 world, under permanent rules
established by the State Board of Education Thursday. Proposition 227 bans most bilingual
education programs in public schools and requires that students be taught ``nearly all in
English.'' Since voters approved the measure in June, school districts have been struggling
to comply with its provisions. Many districts had hoped the board would better define what
``nearly all in English'' meant, by writing into the permanent regulations what percentage
of instruction should be in English. But the board declined, saying local districts should have
as much freedom as possible. ``All along we've tried to be as flexible as possible,'' said board
President Yvonne Larsen. ``If there's a number, it could be misconstrued as a mandate. We
want local districts to have as much flexibility and local control (as possible).'' (San Jose
Mercury News)
SACRAMENTO, October 9 -- In a victory for local school districts, the state Board of
Education adopted new Proposition 227 rules yesterday that make it easier for parents to
keep their children out of English-only classes. The board rejected a staff-written plan on
how to implement the ballot measure approved by voters in June aimed at eliminating
bilingual education, deciding instead to leave such decisions up to the local districts. Part of
the plan, for instance, specified that all books, work sheets and homework assignments
should be in English. "We wanted it as short and flexible as possible," said board President
Yvonne Larsen of San Diego. "This is geared to allow the most flexibility and allow local
school districts to be responsible to the needs of their parents." The new rules, which are
similar to emergency regulations adopted by the board in July, a month after the measure
was approved, spell out for California's more than 1,000 school districts how they are to
comply with the law. The law says children can continue to get bilingual instruction but only
if their parents apply for waivers under certain conditions. The rules adopted yesterday
state that such waivers "shall be granted" unless school officials decide that bilingual
education classes would be more harmful than immersion.(San Diego Union-Tribune)
LOS ANGELES, October 9 -- In a seemingly perverse consequence of Proposition 227--the
anti-bilingual education measure approved by voters in June--the Los Angeles Unified
School District has virtually banned formal reading lessons for perhaps as many as
100,000 children who are not native English speakers. Voters may have thought that
Proposition 227 would force schools to teach students to read in English, but that isn't the
case--at least not in Los Angeles, which has more non-English-speaking children than any
other district in the country. Part of the reason is that many schools have not yet received
books printed in English. But a bigger reason is that the district's policy for implementing
Proposition 227 deliberately delays formal reading instruction until children become fluent
in spoken English--a process that could take two or more years. Proposition 227 prevents
the district from teaching children to read in their native language, school officials point
out. At the same time, the officials argue, the district should not teach children to read in
English using phonics lessons because it does little good to teach children to read words they
don't yet understand. (Los Angeles Times)
SAN JOSE, October 8 -- In schools up and down the state, bilingual education is refusing to
go away, kept alive by parents taking advantage of a huge opening in the new law. Beginning
this month, after a mandatory 30-day period of English instruction, an untold number of
bilingual teachers will heed the wishes of parents and go back to teaching children in
Spanish or other native languages. The architect of Proposition 227, Palo Alto businessman
Ron Unz, also gave parents an out. As he wrote it, the law allows them to request bilingual
classes after their children spend a month in English-language classes. Unz predicted no
more than 5 or 10 percent of parents would seek the bilingual waivers. But as the first
month of school draws to a close, the numbers are much higher -- close to 100 percent in
some districts.(San Jose Mercury News)
BERKELEY, October 7 -- Threatened with the loss of $3 million in state funds unless it
starts teaching students only in English, the Berkeley school board was debating late
Wednesday whether to implement Proposition 227 in all its schools. Passed by voters in
June, the proposition requires that all of California's public school students be taught only
in English. But the Berkeley, Hayward and Oakland school districts are bucking the law,
insisting that students benefit most by being taught in both English and their native
language. The districts are challenging Prop. 227 in court and, in the meantime, some of
their teachers are continuing to conduct classes in two languages and to offer bilingual
tutoring. The state Board of Education has vowed to withdraw funding from the three school
districts for their failure to comply with Prop. 227, and could take action today or Friday,
at its regular monthly meeting. (Contra Costa Times)
SANTA ANA, Calif. October 4 -- With days left to decide whether to keep their children in
English-only classes or obtain a waiver that allows students to learn in their native
language, hundreds of Santa Ana parents are requesting waivers from the English immersion
classes, school officials said. Schools were given a 30-day period to explain the English
immersion enrollment process to parents and to accept their requests for waivers. The
period ends at different times throughout the county because schools start their years at
different times, but most are nearing the end of the period. At Pio Pico Elementary,
Principal Judith Magsaysay said the school received 100 requests for waivers on the first
day of parent notification, weeks ago. "They always made it clear that that would be the case,
right from the beginning when it was explained to them that they would have opportunities
to have a choice," she said. (Los Angeles Times)
LOS ANGELES, October 3 -- Bilingual education in California was supposed to be in a grave
by now, essentially killed when residents voted last spring to end it. The ballot initiative,
supported by 61 percent of the voters, sought to replace 30 years of using Spanish and other
foreign languages to help immigrant children in the state learn to read, write and speak
English with a method that uses "nearly all" English instruction. But more than a month into
the current school term, bilingual education is clearly still breathing. The reasons are a
subject of hot debate. Supporters of the initiative, Proposition 227, assert that school
districts and the education bureaucracy are resisting the will of the voters, taking advantage
of loopholes to preserve a rejected method of teaching. Critics of the proposition see the
bumpy transition as a result of confusion, reluctance on the part of some parents and
teachers to push children into instruction they are not ready for, and even basic logistical
issues like the lack of textbooks. What is clear is that the fight over Proposition 227 is not
over yet. (New York Times)
WASHINGTON, October 1 -- One of America's most fascinating public-education perks --
teaching children in two languages so they become literate in both -- is under attack in
California and the nation's Capitol. A bill in Congress would eventually take federal money
away from all classes in this country that teach kids to speak, read and write in English and
a second language, be it Spanish, Cantonese or French. In California, the same kinds of
courses are being complicated by voter-passed Proposition 227. Both jeopardize so-called
"two-way language immersion" programs, a way to give schoolchildren the advantage of
bilingualism when it comes time to compete in the global job market. "People are so frantic
figuring out what to do and worrying about the kids," says Donna Christian, president of the
Center for Applied Linguistics, a Washington, D.C., group studying the programs. "It's a
tragedy, because it deprives these students of an opportunity to become proficient in more
than one language." While the prospect of putting English-speaking children in Spanish
speaking classes may sound risky, Christian's studies show that at an early age children pick
up the new language quickly and in their subjects do as well as, and eventually better than,
children taught only in English. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
