Don’t Hold Your Breath for Polite Bilingual Debate

Maybe the anti-bilingual ed initiative will be so popular that we’ll be spared the sordid sound bites, the inflammatory flimflam. Maybe it’ll be such a blowout that neither side will bother with the bombast and bunk.

We won’t be insulted by being called “racists” or “nativists” or being force-fed TV footage of KKK cross burnings--or, for that matter, grainy film of Latinos racing across the border as a Boris Karloff soundalike warns that “they keep coming.”

Hyperbolic Democrats won’t try to incite Latinos so they’ll register to vote; opportunistic Republicans won’t beam subliminal messages to attract redneck bigots.

Maybe the initiative will enjoy such widespread support that bashing--and bellicose charges of bashing--won’t be considered necessary or credible. A recent Times poll showed that the measure destined for the June 1998 ballot is favored by 80% of voters, including 84% of Latinos.

Maybe. But don’t get too rosy-eyed.

A lot is at stake: Not just the educations of 1.4 million English deficient kids, one-fourth of California’s K-12 enrollment, 80% of them Latino. Not just that, but a whole industry is in jeopardy.

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There’s big money in bilingual education. The state each year kicks in at least $244 million; the feds a minimum $50 million. Actual figures are elusive.

Many jobs are involved. About 85,000 teachers are assigned to students deemed “limited English proficient,” according to the state Department of Education. Of these, 24,000--including 9,700 in L.A. County--are purely bilingual teachers, instructing children solely in their home language. The other 61,000 use various bilingual tools--visuals, tutors--while teaching in English.

And, of course, there are the culture clashes--the competing agendas of ethnic extremists versus the “English only” crowd.

Most people of any ethnicity, however, are somewhere in the middle. These folks simply want kids to learn English as quickly as possible so they can assimilate and compete. But they don’t want them to fall behind in other subjects while they’re grappling with Dick and Jane.

How is that done? By teaching kids in their home language for two, four, six years? Or not at all? That’s what the argument is about--or should be. Not about who’s a bigot or unAmerican.

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Spin doctors will be muddying up voters’ minds soon enough, so here’s an effort at clarity on some basics:

Currently, 30% of California’s non-English-speaking students--410,000--are taught only in their home language. They can be kept several years in these classes. It’s what commonly is called bilingual education and has so many people fuming. L.A. County has 189,000 such children.

Bilingual ed comes in different packages, however. An additional 22% get instruction through a mix of English and home language; 31% are taught only in English, but with simple sentences and visual aids. These programs generally are called “immersion.”

Then there’s “submersion”--also called “sink or swim.” It’s no special program at all and the remaining 17% are stuck in it.

The initiative is co-sponsored by Ron Unz, a rich computer whiz, and Gloria Matta Tuchman, a Latina who has taught elementary school for 33 years. “Bilingual segregates kids,” Tuchman complains, and insists that “a child can learn English in one year.” She uses immersion to teach Santa Ana first-graders.

Their measure would require kids to be taught in English. Students who didn’t speak English would be placed in immersion classes, normally for only one year. Exceptions could be made for children 10 and older or for kids whose parents insisted on bilingual.

The proposal recently picked up the endorsement of Jaime Escalante, whose feats as an East L.A. calculus teacher were heralded in the movie “Stand and Deliver.” Escalante, now teaching in Sacramento, says bilingual ed is “a real tragedy” for immigrant children because they should be learning English faster.

Bilingual advocates counter that their system builds a firmer, all-around academic foundation.

Legislators have been fiddling with bilingual bills for years. Many still hope to pass one co-sponsored by Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado) and Assemblyman Brooks Firestone (R-Los Olivos). It would scale back bilingual education, but stop far short of the initiative. School districts would design their own programs and be required to annually test each student’s progress.

Latino legislators have blocked the bill in the Assembly, but Speaker Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno) reportedly has agreed to free it for a floor vote in January.

In all this, there are enough real issues to argue about without slopping around in the name-calling gutter.