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From - Mon Feb 23 09:56:35 1998
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From: "J. Manuel Urrutia" <urrutiaTAKEOUT@ucla.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican.american
Subject: It is official: with friends like this, who needs enemies?
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 09:54:48 -0800
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Boy, am I upset!
All this time I have been pilloried by LatinoBeat, both here in this newsgroup and in e-mail for not supporting them. I keep giving the benefit of the doubt, that reasonable people will have differences. But this recent editorial, available at:
http://www.latinobeat.net/html/edit0218.html
is the straw that broke the camel's back. It is replete with the same type of half-truths that Unz and Co. have been spouting. Are they interested in the truth? I don't think so. But let me waste some of my time going over this piece of yellow journalism:
EditorialCalifornia's bilingual education is out of control and it's time for a change
(February 18, 1998)
More than a million California children in California today do not speak English well enough to understand what is going on in theclassroom and this tragedy can be blamed on the opponents California's Proposition 227, better known as the Unz Initiative.
Say what? Isn't this a bit of hyperbole? How could native language instruction, which is given to only 420,000 of these kids be blamed for what happens to the other 980,000 who are mostly in immersion programs, which is what Unz wants? This outright lies makes everything else in this editorial suspect.
Thirty years ago, when bilingual education programs were implemented, the stated goal was to help children learn English well enough to succeed in school. Since then, special interests groups, ivory-tower theorists and school boards have allowed those millions of children to "sink or swim" without any help. Meanwhile, they've experimented on a few hundred thousand students with dubious results.
This is innnendo of the highest order. By saying that there is a "stated goal," the author(s) of this editorial imply that there is now another goal. By implication, that goal is not teaching English, but a "foreign" language. Thus, they are playing to the nativist crowd.
It seems that the Unz crowd loves to bash on "ivory-tower" occupants. Why? Do they have a distate for people who use their brains for a living? Or because they are just not interested on what can be found by careful analysis? From what I have seen in my 20-odd years of looking at educational issues (and this is not my specialty, but my hobby), millions of children were sunk prior to the adoption of bilingual education. With B.E., at least a few thousands have made it through higher education. Is this to be denied? If anything, the Unz crowd and their predecessors should be held accountable for denying educational opportunities to the millions who have never benefitted from B.E. due to political shenanigans.
All this time, bilingual education adherents have been given free reign to develop a multitude of language-acquisition programs ranging from English-as-a-Second- Language to Dual-Exit, a method wherein students are supposed to leave school fluent in two languages, usually Spanish and English.
Free rein, eh? If so, why hasn't there been more support for increasing the number of bilingual education credentialed teachers?
Yet, according to a 1993 Little Hoover Commission report, there is no evidence that any of these methods have proven effective. Indeed, the report found there is no valid assessment system to track whether bilingual education works.
I just love this paragraph. Above, "ivory tower theorists" are blamed for everything and here another set of "ivory tower theorists" are appointed as discoverers of the truth. Sorry, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
After 20 years, billions of dollars squandered and generations of children shoved through some kind of program, the state, the taxpayers, and more importantly, the parents, have no idea whether any of the bilingual education methods work and there's been no accountability by anyone.
Oh, please. This is too much hype. It gives the impression that somewhere there is a kid that has been in school for 20 years and can't speak English yet. Of course, why get into the messy details of why the school system is a revolving door in many communities, why there was continuous stream of Central American refugees that overwhelmed the schools with ther children, why is there so much trouble getting qualified teachers, etc.. No, that would be too hard and would not make good copy.
If one looks at one assessment method considered reliable - high school dropout rates - the federal government concluded in their 1995 High School Dropout report that Latino students who participated in bilingual education dropped out at nearly the same rate as students who did not receive any help.
This is so twisted, it is not even funny. Is bilingual education to blame for high-school drop out rates if the rates are the same for those who had it and those who didn't? Are we then going to scrape all the classes taken by the English-speaking Latinos because they have a high rate of drop-out? Of course not. But since B.E. is vulnerable to a number of criticisms, let's gang on it and kill it. Hell, if we follow this logic, we might as well close all schools.
Looking at other data, students kept in bilingual education more than three years fell behind their peers and failed classes taught in English and Spanish.
What level? What data? Was it processed by "ivory tower theorists?" If it was, your argument can't be used. But let's indulge you. How about the analysis of the Santa Ana data by UC Riverside? The data was collected by SAUSD and collated by UCR and shows that the statement is plainly wrong. So who do I believe? Your experts or mine? The people who have benefitted from B.E. or those in the English-Only camp?
It's time we strip away the emotion and rhetoric that has complicated the issue and acknowledge that California's bilingual education program is a failure and out of control. It's time for a change.
Fine and good. But this editorial is based only on emotion and rethoric. Why should I/we allow you to feed us pap?
Instead of allowing a million children to "sink or swim" each day, Proposition 227, ensures that all 1.3 million English-learning children will get at least one year of help.
Baloney. 227 makes sure that no one has easy access to native-language instruction. And that is the whole centerpiece of this initiative: English is king and the immmigrant better not forget it.
Critics say that the initiative is an "one-size-fits-all" adventure and takes away local control. Nothing is further from the truth. Local control on this issue was forfeited to the State Department of Education years ago which then promulgated its own "one-size-fits-all" pedagogy called "native language instruction."
When local school districts persisted in under-serving their students, the state was obliged to intervene because of Lau vs. Nichols. Did the state force a one-size-fits-all program? The proof is in the numbers. 30% of LEPs get full immersion right now. 30% gets immersion with informal native-language instruction. The other 30% get native-language instruction, overwhelmingly in Spanish. And I think that this is what gets the goat of the Unz crowd: Spanish, the language of the conquered, is being "promoted." Make no mistake about it: the initiative is part of the English-Only movement and their sole interest is the creation of a single national identity.
The California Association for Bilingual Education, one of the chief opponents to the measure, argues that if Prop. 227 passes, children would be taught using an instruction method that is untested. In fact, the method - called "sheltered English immersion" - is actively promoted by CABE which sponsors training classes and teacher workshops to advance this method.
That is not what CABE refers to. The untested aspect of this is that children will be taught English only for one year, according to language ability (that is, there is nothing to stop a 5th grader from being taught next to a kindergartener. It has been done before, why not then?). No other parts of the curriculum may be touched.
Nearly 120,000 California children are already being taught using sheltered English immersion, more commonly called by its practitioners, Specially-Designed- Academic-Instruction-in English. It is one of the methods that is state approved and receives Title VII (bilingual) funds from the federal government.
Hence you contradict yourself. The state has not forced a one-site-fits-all approach on all school districts. But it gets better: Tuchman's own classes, a showcase for the 227 campaign, have only a 17% rate of success according to Unz's way of accounting for success. Why then go to a method that works only slightly better provided that its most of its participants have a better-than-average socioeconomic position?
It does not eliminate bilingual education as the Prop. 227 opponents would have you believe. On the contrary, the initiative requires school districts to take into consideration the parents desires. Districts could then implement bilingual education if it met the needs of the students.
For all intents and purposes it does. In order for the parent to get the waiver, the child has to be labeled as "special." What parent is going to want their child to be stigmatized? In addition, the parent has to get 19 others to go along. If he does not get it, he can go to another district. But that is not all! No distric can be compelled to issue waivers. And then what is a parent to do? Put the kid in private school? Some choice, uh? (Hey, maybe this is what they want: waivers!)
The initiative gives control to the most important group in America - parents.
Bull. The classification of a student as "special" has to be done in writing, approved by the teacher and principal and sent to the superintendent of the local school board for approval, plus the school board has to oversee the process. If this is control to you, you have a peculiar definition of it.
The initiative was not created in a vacuum but rather was sparked by school officials ignoring the pleas of parents to place their children in classrooms taught in English.
Like what? The manufactured "revolt" of 9th St. Elementary? If this is so widespread, where are the rest of those people? And don't just trot out one or two because there are always hooror stories, show us massive organized resistance against b.e., not just some wannabe politicians like Tuchman and Escalante.
Under the initiative, parents have ultimate control over their children's education, over school board and the state's bureaucratic bilingual education machinery.
Ha! Not according to the initiative, which puts the parents at the mercy of that same bureacracy to get a lousy waiver.
Parents are assured their children will be taught in English. However, parents -- should they choose -- can demand bilingual education for their children. This means parents can choose whether they want English immersion or the most complex pedagogy available. On this point of parental control, the initiative should be supported.
Right, let's burn the village in order to save it.
Ron K. Unz, a co-sponsor of the initiative believes parents will opt for English-only and eliminate bilingual education in California. We're not persuaded that is what will occur. However, Mr. Unz and the measure's other co-sponsor, Gloria Matta-Tuchman, have allowed parents to decide.
Of course. And one is always free to be rich as long as one makes lots of money. Or live long as long as one does not get sick. Get real. It has been a very hard fight to get the pittance of bilingual education there is now. It is going to be even harder when the deck is further stacked by 227.
After three decades of ivory-tower academicians using children for their experiments, there is no valid reason to allow them to continue their costly failure. It's time the voters take control and pass the model proposed in Proposition 227. In the end it will meet the needs of all 1.3 million English learners.
Costly failure? Presently, according to the California Department of Education, it is less than 1% of the total educational expenditures ($300 million out of a $30 billion budget) to serve 30% of the school population. I would say that California is getting a bargain.
Indeed, the Latino's worse enemy is other Latinos. Chicano crabs all over again.