SACRAMENTO BEE

September 15, 1999

State Teachers Association loses challenge to portion of Proposition 227

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The California Teachers Association has lost a federal court lawsuit challenging a provision of Proposition 227, the voter-approved initiative requiring students be taught in English.

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie's ruling leaves standing the right of parents and guardians to sue a teacher individually, if the teacher "willfully and repeatedly" violates Proposition 227.

Rafeedie's decision handed down Sept. 8 rejected the CTA contentions that the lawsuit provision is vague, and that constitutional rights to free speech and due process would be violated by such lawsuits.

No teacher has been sued for alleged violation of Proposition 227, approved by 61 percent of California voters in 1998, the judge noted. The CTA filed suit last December against Section 320 of the law, which abolished most bilingual education programs for California's 1.4 million children who speak little if any English, replacing them with English-only instruction. In some cases, parents can receive a waiver to continue with bilingual classes.

The judge's ruling said that under the proposition "teachers are required to hold lessons for English learners in English, rather than in the native language."

In many other situations, teachers would not be prohibited from using "languages other than English in disciplining students, emergency training, social interactions, tutoring, parent-teacher conferences, or any of the other situations listed by the plaintiffs (CTA)," he said.

The CTA argued that the law on classroom instruction is vague, and said teachers facing lawsuits might lose their jobs if forced to pay damages in a lawsuit.

"We think the judge has misunderstood the law," Tommye Hutto, a spokeswoman for the CTA legal department, said Wednesday. An appeal was likely, she said.

"The teachers can't tell what they're supposed to do and what is prohibited. How much of the speech in a classroom can be in the Spanish language, or the Armenian language or any other language is not spelled out. Nobody knows," she said.

Sharon Browne of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented some parents of limited English students interested in having their children taught in English, said the judge's decision "preserves the spirit and intent behind Proposition 227."

"Without an enforcement mechanism in place, Proposition 227 is of little value to parents whose children attend schools in districts that refuse to comply with the law," Browne said.