What Is Wrong With Proposition 227

By Marsha Feinland

Proposition 227 would destroy bilingual education in California. Children need to learn to read and think in their native languages in order to master these skills in English.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH PROPOSITION 227

If Proposition 227 passes, most immigrant children will be deprived of a decent education, and they will not gain proficiency in English. This is because bilingual education, which is a key element in teaching English proficiency, will be virtually eliminated.

I will attempt to explain why bilingual education methods are superior, but first I will deal with one of the many ludicrous features of Proposition 227.

The method Unz and Tuchman propose to produce English fluency is preposterous. In Article 2 of the initiative, they advocate a one year program of "sheltered English immersion" for children who "do not speak English or who cannot perform ordinary classwork in English." Children would not be grouped by age, grade or native language, but only by "degree of English fluency." Five year olds and ten year olds will spend one year in the same classroom learning English, supposedly because they are on the same level, whether or not they can read or write in any language, do math, understand ideas or spend more than twenty minutes on any task. After that year, they would be ready to work in a regular English language classroom at their grade level. This not plausible.

However, the real problem with 227 is not that students need more time to learn English at their grade level. Using a better method of English language instruction is not enough. Bilingual education which provides English language instruction as well as instruction in the child's native language is the best way to teach English language learners.

It is not too hard to understand the value of native language instruction for older students. If a high school student with limited English skills needs to learn history and chemistry, it makes sense to teach history and chemistry in the native language while also providing English language instruction. When the student has learned English, he or she will be able to perform experiments or recall dates in both English and in the first language.

What many people do not understand is that young children need to learn to read and write in their native language in order to become better learners in any language. It is easy to mistake fluency, the fact that smaller children often pick up everyday language more quickly and with better pronunciation than adults, for proficiency, or the ability to think, read and write in a language. Learning to read requires several skills; it is a synthesis, or combination, of letter-sound recognition, familiarity with syntax (the rules a language follows), and knowledge of the content or meaning of words and sentences.

For a child to put these skills together, it is necessary or important to be familiar with the sounds, syntax and vocabulary of the language. Obviously, a child will be most successful in learning to read and write in his or her native language. As the child learns more English, he or she will more easily learn to read English because the complex of reading skills is already in place.

A good bilingual education program begins with specialized English language instruction and instruction in subject areas in the child's native language, with a gradual transition to mainstream instruction in English. This transition can take five to seven years.

During the transition period, children who have reached an intermediate level of English fluency are placed in "sheltered English instruction," where they receive grade level instruction in appropriate subjects in English delivered by a teacher who is skilled in teaching students with limited English proficiency. Genuine sheltered instruction differs from what Unz and Tuchman call "sheltered English immersion" in several different ways:

1. it is specifically grade level instruction, in specific subjects, not generalized language instruction to a mix of age groups;

2. it is used for students who have some fluency in English, not new learners;

3. it is used for as long as necessary before a child is placed in a mainstream English language class, not terminated after one year;

4. the classes can be composed of a mix of students of various levels of fluency, including native English speakers, as long as the needs of those newly learning English are fully recognized, rather than being confined to one degree of English fluency.

A long-term study of Navajo students at Rock Point, Arizona, shows the benefits of bilingual education. In 1971, the students at Rock Point were two years below the U.S. national norm in English reading, although they were receiving intensive special instruction in English. A new program started Kindergarten students with 80% instruction in Navajo and 20% in English. Reading was not taught in English until the middle of second grade. By sixth grade, 80% of instruction was in English and students were two years ahead of the national reading norms.

Studies of other bilingual programs in the U.S., Canada, Italy and Sweden show similar results.

Article 3 of Proposition 227 provides a complicated waiver process for parents who want bilingual education for their children. It requires parents who may not speak English to contend with many layers of red tape. The waiver process also has three serious flaws. The first is that younger children must already be proficient in English reading and writing skills to be eligible for the waiver, when bilingual education is most beneficial for students who have limited English skills.

The second flaw is limiting the waiver for non-English proficient students to those aged 10 or older. Although it appears that young children can learn a new language faster than older people, this is only because their pronunciation is better. According to the work of Steve Krashen in the late 1970s, in the early stages of new language acquisition teenagers and adults are better learners than elementary school children, and fourth to seventh graders are faster than first to third graders. Bilingual education would not be available to the young children who need it the most.

For schools to provide native language instruction to children with special needs, they must go all the way to the state for approval.

Article 4 of Proposition 227, "Community based English Tutoring," provides $50 million to teach English "to parents or other members of the community who pledge to provide personal English language tutoring to California school children with limited English proficiency." This seems like a good idea, and learning English will in fact help the adults to function more easily in this country. However, it is important that the adults also continue to speak and read to their children in the language they know the best. Children need a solid foundation in the sounds, syntax and context, or vocabulary, of some language in order to learn to read, write and think in any language. They will get a much stronger foundation from their parents in the native language than they will in one the parents are just learning.

One of the reasons so many of our children, native English speakers as well as English learners, have so much difficulty in school is that they are not spoken to and read to regularly and in a meaningful and nurturing way. Encouraging adult immigrants to learn English is fine, as long as their children are not deprived of the richness of the vocabulary of their culture.

It is clear that bilingual programs help children learn English and enhance their education in general. Some of California's bilingual programs may lack the components which have made the model programs successful. Where this is the case, the programs should be improved, not eliminated.

[Marsha Feinland teaches kindergarten and first grade in Alameda. She is North State Chair of the Peace and Freedom Party and in 1996 was the party's stand-in candidate for president.]