This article has been converted to HTML. In addition, minor typographical errors have been corrected. Feel free to distribute as you see fit.
From - Mon Feb 23 09:56:02 1998
Path: news.ucla.edu!not-for-mail
From: "J. Manuel Urrutia" <urrutiaTAKEOUT@ucla.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican.american
Subject: The root of all evil?
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 08:53:43 -0800
Organization: UCLA Dept. of Physics & Astronomy
Lines: 100
Message-ID: <34F1A997.41C6@ucla.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: calvin.physics.ucla.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; IRIX 6.2 IP22)
Xref: news.ucla.edu soc.culture.mexican.american:30190
I have been critiziced for not publicizing and/or supporting LatinoBeat, an outfit that bills itself as "America's leading online daily Latino news and information source." Judging from the article found at http://latinobeat.net/html/biling0212.html, I see no reason to support them as they are not as impartial as they claim to be. The article appears with no by-line and makes no attempt to anaylize the outrageous claims that are put forth by the proponents of 227 (aka "Three Strikes for the Children").
According to 227 supporters, everything that is wrong in the education of Limited English Proficiency students is attributable to Bilingual Education, forgetting that, in this the golden age of bilingual education, only 30% of the students are taught in their native language. In other words, the ills of the Latino population are attributable to the roughly 400,000 kids, statewide, that get bilingual education (what about the other 700,000? And what about the rest of the school population, 4.2 million? Aren't a good number of them "failures?"). Of course, this number applies to 1996-97. Who knows what happened to the those in previous years (Are they in jail? Working in the fields? Standing in corners?). I suppose that given these claims, those yahoos who blame everything on the African-American population are going to have a hard time ("One in four blacks are in prison or on parole"). It is Willie Horton again.
Indeed, school district have been hard pressed to find qualified bilingual education teachers. The need has been known for as long as there has been bilingual education (30 years?). But has the state done anything in the meantime to remedy this? Within the last two years, Wilson decided to throw a couple of million dollars for the training of graphic artists, under the premise the California can ill afford to lose the animation business to the Koreans and Japanese. Fine and good. But what about giving money to the CSUs to train teachers capable of teaching bilingual education? Not on your life, that would be pandering to immigrants, and ingrate and non-voting bunch.
What is really galling is the statement that the measly $5,000 paid to B.E. teachers by LAUSD is unfair. Do this people realize the amount of work that it takes to teach in a bilingual education setting? I suppose that having to develop your own curriculum has to be done for free since you have to be a martyr to work so hard.
But that is not all. To claim that "the opposition is well organized" and has "deep pockets" is totally ludicrous. For example, "Hermandad" is a community organization that depends on grants from many agencies to operate. NABE and CABE are voluntary organizations that do not have "war chests" (why should they? they are not running anyone for office nor have they mounted national campaigns to make a "foreign" language the national tongue). And I know for a fact that LULAC does not have any money to mount radio, let alone TV, campaigns. In my opinion, this is just fear-mongering on the part of the English-Only crowd. They are just screaming "The Mexicans have money and are going to take over the educational system if you, John Q. Public, don't support us." This is a bunch of baloney. And they know it.
So far they have managed to twist public opinion around. But they have forgotten one thing: they are a paper tiger. All their statements can be shown to be lies because the information is out there, in plain sight. As long as the truth gets repeated over and over (even if it makes people's eyes glaze over), the lies will wither away. The emperor has no clothes.
Here are selected portions of the "article:"
Proposition 227 supporters gather for strategy meeting(February 12, 1998)
LOS ANGELES, CA - The California English Campaign and People's Advocate sponsored a meeting of educational, political and community leaders on Jan. 31 in Los Angeles to review the English for the Children initiative.
...
Diamond asked that his statement that follows be made part of the meeting record:"In California, Bilingual Education means native language instruction. This instructional method has been a dismal failure, a cause of high drop-out rates, failures in colleges and universities, limited or no training in skills for employment and a cause of increased crime. The supporters of bilingual education have a vested economic and political interest in maintaining this failed system.
Made unproductive work, employment of teachers without experience or credentials, unfair bonus payments for bilingualism, foreign recruitment of teachers, publications and printing that support the system and a huge army of bureaucrats. It's a multibillion dollar scam.
As Matta Tuchman stated, the opposition is well organized. They have deep pockets that will be used in a vicious, negative campaign. Announced opposition includes teachers unions, Hispanic organizations; MALDEF, LA RAZA, HERMIDAD, LULAC, META, NABE and CABE (National and California Associations of Bilingual Education). They will outspend us ten to one. What we do have going for us is an aware public that is fed up with the present wasteful, failed system and is demanding that it be replaced with 'English for the Children.'"