# data[].attributes.headline
H.R.3229 - Bilingual Education Act in 1994

# data[].attributes.subject
H.R.3229 - Bilingual Education Act in 1994

# data[].attributes.body
Though the Bilingual Education Act was passed in 1968, it was reauthorized in 1994 to better accommodate limited-English-proficient (LEP) and English-language-minority students. It offered funding for K-12 schools with LEP students, provided updated instructional materials to teachers, and encouraged multiculturalism in the classroom. This was significant to this period because as the call for diversity in the workspace and society became more supported, changes were reflected in the classroom to address the needs of LEP students.

# data[].attributes.body
This proposition required that all public school instruction be conducted in English. In an attempt to replace bilingual programs with strictly English ones, the goal was to encourage English proficiency at a quicker rate. This was done after the House of Representatives approved designating English as the national language and eliminating the use of other languages within the government. It questioned the effectiveness of previously-taught bilingual programs but ultimately passed in 1998. It stirred controversy on a national level over effective methods of teaching English as a second language, as well as debates over the moral consequences of assimilation.

# data[].attributes.body
Porter, R. P. (1998, May 1). The Case Against Bilingual Education. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/05/the-case-against-bilingual-education/305426/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Bilingual education is a classic example of an experiment that was begun with the best of humanitarian intentions but has turned out to be terribly wrongheaded. To understand this experiment, we need to look back to the mid-1960s, when the civil-rights movement for African-Americans was at its height and Latino activists began to protest the damaging circumstances that led to unacceptably high proportions of school dropouts among Spanish-speaking children-more than 50 percent nationwide. Latino leaders borrowed the strategies of the civil-rights movement, calling for legislation to address the needs of Spanish-speaking children-Cubans in Florida, Mexicans along the southern border, Puerto Ricans in the Northeast. In 1968 Congress approved a bill filed by Senator Ralph Yarborough, of Texas, aimed at removing the language barrier to an equal education. The Bilingual Education Act was a modestly funded ($7.5 million for the first year) amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, intended to help poor Mexican-American children learn English. At the time, the goal was "not to keep any specific language alive," Yarborough said. "It is not the purpose of the bill to create pockets of different languages through the country ... but just to try to make those children fully literate in English."

English was not always the language of instruction in American schools. During the eighteenth century classes were conducted in German, Dutch, French, and Swedish in some schools in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. From the mid nineteenth to the early twentieth century, classes were taught in German in several cities across the Midwest. For many years French was taught and spoken in Louisiana schools, Greek in Pittsburgh. Only after the First World War, when German was proscribed, did public sentiment swing against teaching in any language but English.

These earlier decisions on education policy were made in school, church, city, or state. Local conditions determined local school policy. But in 1968, for the first time, the federal government essentially dictated how non-English-speaking children should be educated. That action spawned state laws and legal decisions in venues all the way up to the Supreme Court. No end of money and effort was poured into a program that has since become the most controversial arena in public education.

In simplest terms, bilingual education is a special effort to help immigrant children learn English so that they can do regular schoolwork with their English-speaking classmates and receive an equal educational opportunity. But what it is in the letter and the spirit of the law is not what it has become in practice. Some experts decided early on that children should be taught for a time in their native languages, so that they would continue to learn other subjects while learning English. It was expected that the transition would take a child three years.

From this untried experimental idea grew an education industry that expanded far beyond its original mission to teach English and resulted in the extended segregation of non-English-speaking students. In practice, many bilingual programs became more concerned with teaching in the native language and maintaining the ethnic culture of the family than with teaching children English in three years.

Beginning in the 1970s several notions were put forward to provide a rationale, after the fact, for the bilingual-teaching experiment. José Cárdenas, the director emeritus of the Intercultural Development Research Association, in San Antonio, and Blandina Cárdenas (no relation), an associate professor of educational administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio, published their "theory of incompatibilities." According to this theory, Mexican-American children in the United States are so different from "majority" children that they must be given bilingual and bicultural instruction in order to achieve academic success. Educators were convinced of the soundness of the idea-an urgent need for special teaching for non-English-speaking children-and judges handed down court decisions on the basis of it.

Jim Cummins, a bilingual-education theorist and a professor of education at the University of Toronto, contributed two hypotheses. His "developmental interdependence" hypothesis suggests that learning to read in one's native language facilitates reading in a second language. His "threshold" hypothesis suggests that children's achievement in the second language depends on the level of their mastery of their native language and that the most-positive cognitive effects occur when both languages are highly developed. Cummins's hypotheses were interpreted to mean that a solid foundation in native-language literacy and subject-matter learning would best prepare students for learning in English. In practice these notions work against the goals of bilingual education-English-language mastery and academic achievement in English in mainstream classrooms.

Bilingual education has heightened awareness of the needs of immigrant, migrant, and refugee children. The public accepts that these children are entitled to special help; we know that the economic well-being of our society depends on maintaining a literate population with the academic competence for higher education and skilled jobs. The typical complaint heard years ago, "My grandfather came from Greece [or Sicily or Poland] and they didn't do anything special for him, and he did okay," no longer figures in the public discussion.

Bilingual education has brought in extra funding to hire and train paraprofessionals, often the parents of bilingual children, as classroom aides. Career programs in several school districts, among them an excellent one in Seattle that was in operation through early 1996, pay college tuition for paraprofessionals so that they may qualify as teachers, thus attracting more teachers from immigrant communities to the schools. Large school districts such as those in New York and Los Angeles have long had bilingual professionals on their staffs of psychologists, speech therapists, social workers, and other specialists.

Promoting parental understanding of American schools and encouraging parental involvement in school activities are also by-products of bilingual education. Workshops and training sessions for all educators on the historical and cultural backgrounds of the rapidly growing and varied ethnic communities in their districts result in greater understanding of and respect for non-English-speaking children and their families. These days teachers and school administrators make an effort to communicate with parents who have a limited command of English, by sending letters and school information to them at home in their native languages and by employing interpreters when necessary for parent-teacher conferences. In all these ways bilingual education has done some good.

But has it produced the desired results in the classroom? The accumulated research of the past thirty years reveals almost no justification for teaching children in their native languages to help them learn either English or other subjects-and these are the chief objectives of all legislation and judicial decisions in this field. Self-esteem is not higher among limited-English students who are taught in their native languages, and stress is not higher among children who are introduced to English from the first day of school-though self-esteem and stress are the factors most often cited by advocates of bilingual teaching.

The final report of the Hispanic Dropout Project (issued in February) states,

While the dropout rate for other school-aged populations has declined, more or less steadily, over the last 25 years, the overall Hispanic dropout rate started higher and has remained between 30 and 35 percent during that same time period ... 2.5 times the rate for blacks and 3.5 times the rate for white non-Hispanics.

About one out of every five Latino children never enters a U.S. school, which inflates the Latino dropout rate. According to a 1995 report on the dropout situation from the National Center on Education Statistics, speaking Spanish at home does not correlate strongly with dropping out of high school; what does correlate is having failed to acquire English-language ability. The NCES report states,

For those youths that spoke Spanish at home, English speaking ability was related to their success in school.... The status dropout rate for young Hispanics reported to speak English 'well' or 'very well' was ... 19.2 percent, a rate similar to the 17.5 percent status dropout rate observed for enrolled Hispanic youths that spoke only English at home.

In the past ten years several national surveys of the parents of limited-English schoolchildren have shown that a large majority consider learning English and having other subjects taught in English to be of much greater importance than receiving instruction in the native language or about the native culture. In 1988 the Educational Testing Service conducted a national Parent Preference Study among 2,900 Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Asian parents with children in U.S. public schools. Although most of the parents said they wanted special help for their children in learning English and other subjects, they differed on whether their children should be taught in their native languages. Asian parents were the most heavily opposed to the use of native languages in the schools. Among Latino groups, the Puerto Rican parents were most in favor, the Mexicans somewhat less, and the Cubans least of all. A large majority of the parents felt that it is the family's duty, not the school's, to teach children about the history and traditions of their ancestors. When Mexican parents were asked if they wanted the school to teach reading and writing in Spanish and English, 70 percent answered yes. But when they were asked if they wanted Spanish taught in school if it meant less time for teaching English, only 12 percent were in favor.

In the most recent national survey of Latino parents, published by the Center for Equal Opportunity, in Washington, D.C., 600 Latino parents of school-age children were interviewed (in Spanish or English) in five U.S. cities-Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and San Antonio. A strong majority favored learning English as the first order of business for their children, considering it more important than learning other subjects, and much more important than reading and writing in Spanish.

Having begun quietly in the 1980s and gained momentum in the 1990s, Latino opposition to native-language teaching programs is now publicly apparent. Two actions by communities of Latino parents demonstrate this turn of events.

A hundred and fifty parents with children in Brooklyn public schools filed a lawsuit in September of 1995, charging that because their children routinely remained segregated in bilingual programs in excess of three years, and in some cases in excess of six years, contrary to section 3204 (2) of the State Education Law, these children were not receiving adequate instruction in English, "the crucial skill that leads to equal opportunity in schooling, jobs, and public life in the United States."

New York State law limits participation in a bilingual program to three years, but an extension can be granted for up to three years more if an individual review of the student's progress seems to warrant it. And here is the nub of the lawsuit: thousands of students are routinely kept in native-language classrooms for six years or longer without even the pretense of individual progress reviews.

Unfortunately, even with the help of a strong champion of their cause, Sister Kathy Maire, and the pro bono services of a prestigious New York law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the parents lost their case. Under New York law these parents in fact have the right not to enroll their children in bilingual classes, or to remove them from bilingual classes, but in practice pressure from school personnel is almost impossible to overcome. Teachers and principals tell parents that their children will fail in English-language classrooms. They play on ethnic pride, asserting that children of a Latino background need to be taught in Spanish to improve their self-esteem.

In May of last year the Court of Appeals of the State of New York ruled that there could be no further appeals. But the publicity attracted by the case may encourage other Latino parents to take action on behalf of their children. And one concrete improvement has already occurred: the New York City Board of Education announced an end in 1996 to the automatic testing for English-language skills that children with Spanish surnames had undergone when they started school.

On the other coast an equally irate group of Latino parents moved against the Ninth Street School in Los Angeles. Seventy families of mostly Mexican garment workers planned the protest through Las Familias del Pueblo, a community organization that provides after-school child care. Typical of the protesters are Selena and Carlos (I have changed their names, because they are undocumented immigrants), who left the poverty of a rural Mexican village in 1985 to come to work in Los Angeles. Their children were born in Los Angeles, but the school insisted that they not be taught in English until they had learned to read and write in Spanish, by the fourth or fifth grade. The parents complained to the school for years that children who lived in Spanish-speaking homes and neighborhoods needed to study in English in the primary grades, when children find it easier to learn a language than they will later on.

Persistent stonewalling by administrators finally moved the parents to keep their children out of school for nearly two weeks in February of 1996, a boycott that made national news. The parents demanded that their children be placed in English-language classes, a demand that has since been met. The school administrators waited too long to make this change: the previous spring only six students (about one percent of enrollment) had been deemed sufficiently fluent in English to "graduate" to regular classrooms in the next school year.

In the early 1970s almost all the students in bilingual classes spoke Spanish. Today, of the three million limited-English students in U.S. public schools, more than 70 percent speak Spanish at home; the rest speak any of 327 other languages. California alone enrolls 1.4 million limited-English children in its schools-one of every four students in the state. According to the 1990 U.S. census, 70 percent of limited-English students are concentrated in California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas.

Controversy over native-language education is at the boil in California. In our most multicultural state, where minorities now constitute 46 percent of the population, a revolution is brewing. In 1987 the California legislature failed to reauthorize the Bilingual-Bicultural Education Act, allowing it to expire. However, the California Department of Education immediately notified all school districts that even without the state law the same requirements would be enforced and bilingual programs continued. In July of 1995 the state Board of Education announced two major policy changes: the "preference" for native-language programs would henceforth be revoked and school districts would be given as much flexibility as possible in choosing their own programs; and school districts were ordered to be more diligent in recording evidence of student achievement than in describing the teaching methods used.

Yet in two years only four school districts have succeeded in obtaining waivers from the department, permitting them to initiate English-language programs for limited-English students. Why should schools have to seek waivers when no state or federal law, no court decision, no state policy, bars them from teaching in English? The most important case to date is that of the Orange Unified School District, with 7,000 limited-English students.

Orange Unified applied in early May of last year for permission to focus on English-language teaching in kindergarten through sixth grade while using a small amount of Spanish. The Department of Education strongly opposed the district, as did the California Association for Bilingual Education, California Rural Legal Assistance, and the organization Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy (META). Local Latino activists publicly criticized the district's change of plan, and some bilingual teachers resigned.

Nevertheless, the Board of Education last July granted Orange permission to try an English-language program for one year. A lawsuit was filed, and a temporary restraining order granted. But last September, U.S. District Court Judge William B. Shubb lifted the restraining order. In his seventeen-page decision the judge wrote, "The court will not second-guess the educational policy choices made by educational authorities." And he added a ruling with much broader application:

It is clear that "appropriate action" does not require "bilingual education." ... The alleged difference between two sound LEP [Limited-English Proficient] educational theories-ESL [English as a Second Language] and bilingual instruction-is inadequate to demonstrate irreparable harm.

The federal court ruling allowed Orange to proceed with its English-language program. But the case was returned to Sacramento County Superior Court, where Judge Ronald B. Robie ruled that nothing in California state law requires primary-language instruction, and therefore no waiver is needed for a district to provide an English-language program; and that federal law permits educational programs not to include native-language instruction. Soon after Robie's ruling the Board of Education rescinded the policy that schools must obtain waivers in order to eliminate bilingual programs. Although the court decision may be appealed, these two actions signal a victory for Orange Unified and have implications for other California districts as well. The legal battle has already cost the Orange district $300,000, which no doubt would have been better spent on students. It is estimated that the new program will cost an additional $60,000 the first year, but the superintendent of Orange Unified schools, Robert French, says, "We're not doing this to save money. We're doing this to save kids."

Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has long been concerned about the California education system's failures, especially as they affect its 1.4 million limited-English students. He has decided to put his time, energy, and money into an initiative-"English for the Children"-meant to give all California voters a say on the language of public education. If the initiative passes, in elections to be held on June 2, it will give "preference" to English-language programs for immigrant children, reduce the length of time children may remain in special programs, and make the state spend $50 million a year to teach English to adults. Bilingual programs will be allowed only in localities where parents actually request native-language teaching for their children.

Last November, Unz and the co-chairman of the drive, Gloria Matta Tuchman, submitted more than 700,000 signatures to put the petition on the California ballot. The drive has the support of several Latino leaders in California, most notably Jaime Escalante, who is its honorary chairman. Escalante is the Los Angeles high school teacher whose success in teaching his Latino students advanced calculus gained him national fame in the film Stand and Deliver.

Though some opponents characterize the petition as "anti-immigrant," Unz and Matta Tuchman have strong pro-immigrant credentials. In 1994 Unz ran against the incumbent Pete Wilson in the Republican primary for governor and forcefully opposed the referendum to deny schooling and health benefits to illegal immigrants-a referendum that passed with Wilson's support. Matta Tuchman is a recognized Latina advocate for improved schooling for all immigrant children, but especially Spanish-speakers. The measure is likely to pass, some believe with strong ethnic support. A Los Angeles Times poll last October found Latino voters backing the initiative by 84 percent, and Anglos by 80 percent. A more recent survey showed a reduced amount of support-66 percent of respondents, and 46 percent of Latinos, in favor. But whether or not the initiative passes, bilingual education has had a sufficient trial period to be pronounced a failure. It is time finally to welcome immigrant children into our society by adding to the language they already know a full degree of competency in the common language of their new country-to give these children the very best educational opportunity for inclusion.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why even Latino parents are rejecting a program designed for their children's benefit

# data[].attributes.body
May 1997 - Argument For Bilingual Education

Orange Unified School District asks to teach English in K-6th while using a small amount of Spanish (Porter, 1998). They were opposed by the Department of Education and many bilingual and educational organizations. After heavy critique from Latino activists and the departure of bilingual teachers, the Board of Education allowed them to attempt the English-language program for a year. Judge William B. Shubb states that "The alleged difference between two sound LEP [Limited-English Proficient] education theories—ESL [English as a Second Language] and bilingual instruction—is inadequate to demonstrate irreparable harm" (Porter, 1998). Orange was allowed to continue their program and Judge Ronald B. Robie rules that schools do not need waivers to provide an English-language program.

# data[].attributes.body
June 2, 1998 - Against Bilingual Education

Ron Unz fought for the "English for the Children" initiative (also known as Proposition 227), in which immigrant children will be taught to acquire full English fluency in a rapid and effective manner in order to participate in the American Dream of economic and social advancement. The act would allow the people of California to have a say "on the language of public education[...] give preference to English-language programs for immigrant children, reduce the length of time children may remain in special programs[...]" (Porter, 1998). Because the Prop's main focus is to teach English to immigrant children, bilingual programs would only be available upon request.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Correlation Between Immigration & Bilingual Education

# data[].attributes.subject
The Correlation Between Immigration & Bilingual Education

# data[].attributes.body
The term English Language Learner (ELL) refers to students who are considered to have a lower English language proficiency than their peers. These students are often placed in English as a Second Language (ESL) programs (Nieto, 2009). In the 1990s, the ELL population in the United States increased by 52%. This significant shift reflects the influx of immigration during this time. It is estimated that the number of immigrants that entered the United States in the 1990s exceeded that of any previous decade (Fix & Passel, 2003).

# data[].attributes.body
Fix, M. & Passel, J.S. (2003). U.S. Immigration: Trends and Implications for Schools. Presentation for the National Association for Bilingual Education, NCLB Implementation Institute. New Orleans, LA, January 2003. Retrieved January 2024 from: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410654_NABEPresentation.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
September 1995 - Against Bilingual Education

“Having begun quietly in the 1980s and gained momentum in the 1990s, Latino opposition to native-language teaching programs is now publicly apparent” (Porter, 1998). 150 parents filed a lawsuit against Brooklyn public schools for keeping their Spanish-speaking children in segregated bilingual programs for 3-6 years more than they should have, against the State Education Law's, section 3204 (2), instruction that children must receive adequate English skills in order to have equal opportunity in the United States. The parents lost their case and were told that they had the right to enroll their children into non-bilingual classes; although, it is difficult to work around pressure from school staff to practice bilingualism.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Effects of Reauthorization of The Bilingual Education Act

# data[].attributes.subject
The Effects of Reauthorization of The Bilingual Education Act

# data[].attributes.body
While the Bilingual Education Act didn't mandate bilingual education in American schools, it was still instrumental in the uplifting of marginalized communities. This was achieved primarily by funding programs that "targeted low-income and non-English-speaking populations" (Nieto, 2009, p. 63). 1994 saw the reauthorization of this Act despite various attempts to stop bilingual education during the 1990s (i.e. California Proposition 277).

# data[].attributes.body
According to U.S. census data from 1990 and 2000, there was a significant rise in bilingualism in the home during the decade. On the 2000 census, when asked if they speak a language other than English at home, over 46 million Americans responded yes. This is a 47.4% jump from the data collected on bilingualism in the home in 1990 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Above, there is a graph of bilingualism based on geographic location in 2000. It suggests that Spanish bilingualism is most common in the Southern and Western U.S., while Indo-European bilingualism is most common in the Northeast.

# data[].attributes.body
Nieto, D. (2009). A Brief History of Bilingual Education in the United States. In Perspectives On Urban Education. https://urbanedjournal.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/pdf_archive/61-72--Nieto.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Al's Evaluation

I believe that the 1990s is an interesting transition period for bilingual education. In The Atlantic article that I read for my section, The Debate on Bilingual Education, I learned that in the past, teachers taught in various languages, including German, French, and Dutch. The switch to English was only enforced after the first World War. The trend of families desiring for their children to learn only English in schools, whilst heritage languages are taught at home, persists in the current century; this is evident in the documentary we had to watch for class, "Speaking in Tongues." Although Proposition 227 was amended into Proposition 58 in 2016, it's interesting to see how education and families treat bilingualism today compared to the past.

# data[].attributes.body
I feel that this time period is critical in the acceptance, support, and celebration of bilingual communities. This is reflected in the reauthorization of the Bilingual Education Act in 1994, which re-emphasized the importance of bilingualism in academic settings. The academic validation of bilingualism is critical to the respect of bilingual communities; It positions bilingualism as a form of intelligence, rather than a lack of English proficiency/general competence. However, we must recognize that there existed a great deal of anti-bilingual-education sentiment at this time as well. In this sense, I see many parallels between the 1990s and the 2010s-2020s, particularly with the rise of xenophobic sentiment under the Trump administration which, in part, took place simultaneous to the growth of human rights movements (i.e. Black Lives Matter).

# data[].attributes.body
Kinney, Erin E. (2018). "The Controversial Passage of Proposition 227". Departmental Honors Projects. 73.
https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/dhp/73

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abstract

When Proposition 227 passed in 1998, it essentially ended a thirty-year program of bilingual education in California of students with limited English proficiency, and replaced it with a controversial, year-long, intensive English-immersion program. Paying close attention to how each side of the debate was framed in televised programming and local newspapers, this paper examines why such a controversial law was able to pass by popular ballot. After researching the popular opinions of the previous program of bilingual education as well as the narrative of the state concerning how it views its immigrant populations, with the children of Latin American immigrants most heavily affected by the new law, this paper seeks to put the passage of Proposition 227 into perspective. When the initiative was proposed, it appeared to present a simple and concrete solution to a complex problem that had been brought to the attention of many Californians. Despite its strong political opposition both at the state and federal levels, without any concrete alternative solutions, the California voting public chose to put their faith in an untested solution. This suggests that voters in California are willing to take a chance with a controversial proposition rather than wait for legislative reform when it comes to an issue as important as the education of 1.4 million students. With California often being viewed as the up and coming trend setter in the United States when it comes to passing new laws, it becomes important to understand what is influencing voters within the state and how the sudden publicization of long-term issues can influence voters into passing questionable policies.

Recommended Citation

Kinney, Erin E., "The Controversial Passage of Proposition 227" (2018). Departmental Honors Projects. 73.
https://digitalcommons.hamline.edu/dhp/73

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Controversial Passage of Proposition 227

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When Proposition 227 passed in 1998, it essentially ended a thirty-year program of bilingual education in California of students with limited English proficiency, and replaced it with a controversial, year-long, intensive English-immersion program. Paying close attention to how each side of the debate was framed in televised programming and local newspapers, this paper examines why such a controversial law was able to pass by popular ballot.

# data[].attributes.body
U.S Census Bureau. (2000). Language Use And English-Speaking Ability: 2000. U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/2000/briefs/c2kbr-29.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
California proposition 227, require English instruction in Public Schools Initiative (June 1998). Ballotpedia. (n.d.). https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_227,_Require_English_Instruction_in_Public_Schools_Initiative_(June_1998)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
California Propositition 227, the Require English Instruction in Public Schools Initiative, was on the ballot as an initiated state statute in California on June 2, 1998. It was approved.

A " yes" vote supported requiring public school instruction to be in English, allows for exceptions, and appropriates $50 million per year for 10 years to provide personal English tutoring.

A " no" vote opposed requiring public school instruction to be in English, allows for exceptions, and appropriates $50 million per year for 10 years to provide personal English tutoring.

Election results

California Propositition 227

Result

Votes

Percentage

Yes
3,582,423
61.28%

No

2,263,672

38.72%

Measure design

Proposition 227 changed the way that "Limited English Proficient" (LEP) students are taught in California. It required California public schools to teach LEP students in special classes that are taught nearly all in English. This provision had the effect of eliminating bilingual classes in most cases. It also shortened the time most LEP students stay in special classes. Proposition 227 also required the state government to provide $50 million every year for ten years for English classes for adults who promise to tutor LEP students.

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Propositition 227 was as follows:

Ballot summary

The ballot summary for this measure was:

"

Requires all public school instruction be conducted in English.

Requirement may be waived if parents or guardian show that child already knows English, or has special needs, or would learn English faster through alternate instructional technique.

Provides initial short-term placement, not normally exceeding one year, in intensive sheltered English immersion programs for children not fluent in English.

Appropriates $50 million per year for ten years funding English instruction for individuals pledging to provide personal English tutoring to children in their community.

Permits enforcement suits by parents and guardians.

"

Full Text

The full text of this measure is available here.

Fiscal impact (summary)

The California Legislative Analyst's Office provided the following summarized estimate of net state and local government fiscal impact for Proposition 227:

"

Impacts on individual school districts would depend on how schools, parents, and the state respond to the proposition's changes. These impacts could vary significantly by district.

"Requires state spending of $50 million per year for ten years to teach tutors of limited English proficient students. Total state spending on education, however, probably would not change.

"

Fiscal impact (detailed)

The California Legislative Analyst's Office prepared a detailed statement of the likely fiscal impact of Proposition 227 for the state's Voter Guide. It said:

"

This proposition would result in several fiscal impacts on schools.

By limiting the time LEP students can be in special classes generally to one year, the initiative would reduce the number of special classes schools would have to offer. This could result in major savings for schools.

The proposition could also result in new costs to schools, for a number of reasons. For instance, the one-year special classes could be more expensive than existing classes if schools provide more intensive services. Schools may also need to give LEP students extra help in academic subjects once they are moved to regular classes if they fall behind other students.

Distribution of "Compensatory" Funds.

The state provides "compensatory" funds to schools based in part on the number of LEP students. The proposition would likely reduce the number of students who are considered LEP at any given time. As a result, state funds would be allocated differently--some schools would get more compensatory funds and others would get less.

We cannot predict the proposition's net impact on schools. It would depend in large part on how people respond to its passage, including:

Parents' decisions on the types of services they want for their children.

Schools' decisions on the types and levels of services provided to LEP students.

State decisions on the allocation of "compensatory" funds it provides to schools with LEP students.

The net impact could vary significantly by individual school.

Under the proposition, the state would spend $50 million each year for ten years for English classes for adults who promise to tutor LEP students. This provision, however, probably would not change total state spending for schools. (This is because the level of state spending for K-12 schools is generally based on a formula in the Constitution.) As a result, the costs to the state of this provision would likely reduce spending on other school programs by a like amount.

"

Supporters

Alice Callaghan, director of Las Familias del Pueblo

Ron Unz, chairman, English for the Children

Fernando Vega, past Redwood City School Board Member

Official arguments

The official arguments in support of Proposition 227 can be found here.

Opposition

John D'Amelio, president of California School Boards Association

Mary Bergan, president of California Federation of Teachers

Jennifer Looney, president of California School Administrators

Official arguments

The official arguments in opposition to Proposition 227 can be found here.

See also

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
California Proposition 227, Require English Instruction in Public Schools Initiative (June 1998) - Ballotpedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
California Propositition 227, the Require English Instruction in Public Schools Initiative, was on the ballot as an initiated state statute in California on June 2, 1998. It was approved. A " yes" vote supported requiring public school instruction to be in English, allows for exceptions, and appropriates $50 million per year for 10 years to provide personal English tutoring.

# data[].attributes.body
House - Education and Labor, & Serrano, J. E. [Bill], Bilingual Education Act (1993).

# data[].attributes.body
This proposition denied undocumented immigrants any social services, which meant students were not allowed to enroll in public schools, including universities. It was later deemed unconstitutional and presently, the California Dream Act protects undocumented students. However, despite it no longer being active, it paved the way for other anti-bilingual-education initiatives, like California Proposition 227.

# data[].attributes.body
Freedberg, L. (2019, November 8). Commentary: A quarter century on, schools in California now a welcoming place for undocumented students. EdSource. https://edsource.org/2019/a-quarter-century-on-schools-in-california-now-a-welcoming-place-for-undocumented-students/619463

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
COMMENTARY: A quarter century on, schools in California now a welcoming place for undocumented students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Much has changed since voters approved Proposition 187, an initiative to expel undocumented students from its public schools and universities.

# data[].attributes.body
The 1990s were a time of debate over the necessity of diversity in society, which made its way over to the classroom. The increase in LEP (Limited English Proficiency) students, however, led to pushback on this notion. Politicians introduced policies to further limit LEP students and discourage bilingual education. California shows a deeper problem through their propositions, in that they were not only aimed towards students, but immigrants as a whole. This era was especially interesting as it reauthorized the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 and reconfirmed that bilingualism in the classroom is actually relevant and necessary, despite the beliefs the propositions held.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1997, these two individuals tried to repress the Bilingual education movement by filing a public ballot initiative called "English for the Children" to create an end to bilingual education in schools. Ron Unz is a Republican politician with conservative beliefs. Meanwhile, the face of this campaign, Gloria Matta Tuchman, is a Latina elementary school teacher with decades of experience. She believed that teaching bilingual education hindered the development of immigrant children's complex English skills (Anderson, 1997). They negatively impacted the bilingual education movement by aiding in the passing of Proposition 227 where schools must teach English "as rapidly and effectively as possible" (Canvas) which essentially advocated for English at the expense of bilingual education.

# data[].attributes.body
Anderson, N. (1997, October 20). Latina teacher pushes fight against bilingual education. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-oct-20-me-44845-story.html

# data[].attributes.body
Californians Together. (2022, September 15). Our coalition. https://californianstogether.org/our-coalition/

# data[].attributes.body
This is a coalition of all the different organizations that opposed Prop 227 all coming together. They positively impacted bilingual education because they advocated for the removal of Prop 227, a proposition that prioritized English education at the expense of bilingual education (Canvas). This coalition includes over 1 million people and includes organizations such as Association of Mexican Educators and California Association of Bilingual Educators (2022).

# data[].attributes.body
To me, this time period is characterized by increased political action in the debate of bilingual education. This era had lots of propositions and official resolutions that involved in either progress or push back on bilingual education. The increase in bureaucracy pushes the sense of modernity when it comes to this social issue, but it is interesting because not all of the ideas are progressive. Some of the oppressions include Prop 227 where bilingual education is eradicated, leaving many bilingual students to struggle in English at school. In California especially, we see geopolitical challenges through the division in beliefs between the immigrant demographic and the non-immigrants.

# data[].attributes.body
Introduced Prop 187: "Save our State" initiative. He is a Republican politician from Monrovia, California who advocated for highly conservative values such as anti-same-sex marriage, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, and pro-Iraq war. He negatively impacted bilingual education because Prop 187 denied undocumented immigrant children access to public education, taking away the students who could have benefitted the most from having a bilingual education.

# data[].attributes.body
Chawkins, S. (19 May 2015). "Richard Mountjoy, GOP legislator and key Prop. 187 backer, dies at 83". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-ln-gop-legislator-richard-mountjoy-dead-20150519-story.html

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Richard Mountjoy, GOP legislator and key Prop. 187 backer, dies at 83

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Richard Mountjoy, a retired California legislator who was a steadfast conservative and a key sponsor of Proposition 187, a 1993 measure designed to curb illegal immigration by cutting funds for schooling and medical care for those in the country illegally, has died.