BY JIM ALTENBERG
OAKLAND, California - State election officials have placed
an initiative on the June 1998 ballot to ban the use of
bilingual education programs in California's schools. The
"English as a Required Language of Instruction" proposition
would dismantle bilingual programs now offered in Spanish,
Chinese, or any other language. Students who do not speak
English fluently would be given a one-year "sheltered English
immersion" class, after which they would be enrolled in the
regular academic program at their own age or grade level. All
other instruction could only take place in English.
This attack on bilingual education has sparked debate and some protests.
The measure's sponsors are Silicon Valley millionaire Ron Unz and Gloria Marta Tuchman, former board member of U.S. English. This chauvinist outfit campaigns for "English-Only" laws aimed at forbidding the use of languages other than English in schools, courts, voting booths, public services, and workplaces. It has endorsed the Unz measure.
Unz and his supporters claim that bilingual programs fail to teach children English. Parents "wanted their children to learn English, not Spanish, and the record of children in English as a second language in California is dismal," Unz told 350 people at a debate on bilingual education at the University of California at Berkeley last October. "Children in some of those classes speak only Spanish." He claims that there is widespread opposition to bilingual education among Latino parents. Unz's public statements and propaganda feature Latino parents and students who charge that bilingual education denied them the ability to learn English.
The real failures of many bilingual programs have enabled Unz to get a hearing among some Chicanos and Spanish-speakers. Unz appeals to parents' genuine fears that their children are not getting an adequate education to win support for his campaign against bilingual education.
Under current law, parents can choose to send their children to bilingual classes or to classes taught only in English. The Unz measure would end this choice, and force those who want bilingual programs to go through complex and difficult procedures to win a waiver of the anti-bilingual law.
There are currently some 1.38 million school children in California deemed to be of limited English proficiency. Of these, a little over 30 percent are currently enrolled in bilingual education. Availability of these programs varies greatly across the state. For example, Fresno, a large city with a huge immigrant and Spanish speaking population, has 25,566 students who don't speak English fluently, as defined by the state department of education. Only 6 percent are enrolled in bilingual programs. There are no bilingual programs in the Bay Area city of Alameda, although residents there speak many different languages. In San Francisco, 43 percent of the students with limited English attend bilingual classes. In Oakland that rate is 27 percent, and in Los Angeles it is 34 percent - about 100,000 youth. State funds for bilingual education account for only 0.4 percent of the $27 billion education budget.
Law would ban non-English instruction
Unz's scheme, which he had hoped to get on the ballot under
the title "English for the Children," would immediately force
these students into a one-year cram course in English, which
could not be repeated and would not include the regular
academic work these students had been doing in their bilingual
classes. The classes would not group students by age or grade
level. They could include students ranging from 6 to 14 years
old in the same classroom, based on a teacher or school
official's assessment that they are at the same level in their
ability to speak English. Students who speak different first
languages would attend the same class. The Unz measure would
require teachers to speak in English at all times. Teachers,
school officials, and other employees could be held legally
liable and sued for teaching in another language.
Public forums and meetings to oppose the Unz initiative have begun to take place. The 350 participants at the UC Berkeley debate included many Latino students who supported bilingual education. Two hundred people attended a protest meeting in San Jose in December, and a forum in Oakland drew around 60. The Atzlan Bookstore in Modesto also hosted two meetings. Participants included supporters of Chicano and Latino community organizations such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Latina Health Organization, and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, as well as teachers in bilingual programs, students, and trade unionists.
Bilingual classes were won in struggle
In California the first laws requiring bilingual education
were won in 1974 by parents of Chinese-speaking students in San
Francisco, as Chicano, Chinese, and Puerto Rican parents and
youth across the country fought for equal education.
The Chicano movement of the late 1960s and '70s took up the fight for bilingual education as a central demand. High school students held huge protests in Los Angeles, Denver, and other cities in the southwest. Raising the banner of "Education, not Contempt," and "Education, not Eradication," they called for instruction in Spanish as well as English and for the use of course material relevant to their own culture.
In colleges and high schools, students fought to establish Black, Chicano, Native American, and Asian studies programs as well as affirmative action to open up admissions to the universities. The demand for bilingual/bicultural education was part of a nationalist movement for self-determination by Chicanos and for Chicano control of the institutions and communities where they lived. This fight dealt serious blows to the entire racist setup that condemned Chicanos to the worst living conditions, the poorest schools and public services, and the lowest paying jobs.
In the wake of these struggles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1974 Lau v. Nichols case that failure to provide bilingual programs to students who did not speak English was a denial of their right to an equal education.
The Unz initiative comes in the context of attacks on other advances in the fight for equal educational opportunities won through the struggles of the 1960s and '70s, including busing for desegregation of the schools, and the actual right to free, public, and secular education. Under the banner of "school choice," opponents of public education are demanding the power to use school funds for private and religious schools. In Denver, for example, substandard and unequal education offered in the Denver Public Schools has led some Black and Latino parents to join a class action lawsuit against the school district demanding that a voucher system be set up to allow public funding of private schools.
In Napa, California, a fierce debate has opened up around a proposal to turn three schools over to the Edison Project, a company that runs schools as profit-making business operations. Some 25 schools across the United States are already in the hands of this company, which claims fantastic successes in students' educational achievement.
The attack on bilingual education is also part of broader moves by the rulers against the rights of immigrants and the oppressed. In 1994 California's Proposition 187 was adopted. This law curtailed the right of immigrants to receive public services including health care and education. Federal "welfare reform" and recent immigration laws have extended the reach of Prop. 187's provisions, targeting immigrants for loss of benefits and deportation. More than half of the 22 states that have some sort of law making English the "official" language passed them in the last decade. Only the law in Arizona has been declared unconstitutional.
Jim Altenberg is a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union.