Bilingual Education

* We are entering a fresh new school year with new expectations, new hopes and new faces. I wish all the best.

We are also entering the third year of one-year intensive English immersion. Have the goals and logic behind Proposition 227 come true? No.

Judging by the letter “Bilingual Education” (Ventura County letters, July 9), the best argument that can now be made is “This is the United States of America. We speak English here, not Spanish.”

Please remember that what started with paid signature collectors asking, “Do you want children to be taught English in schools?” was backed by the assertion that children were being forced into a failing bilingual education, and one year of English would end bilingual education forever.

Three school years later, Ron Unz and his group continue to make the same promises in Arizona, Colorado and other states. He tells the press the same things he said here, but one thing he cannot say is, “It worked in California.”

It did not work. One year of intensive English immersion has failed. This failed English immersion can now take on the moniker of mandated status quo.

The students are still here, the California Assn. for Bilingual Education is still here and parents are coming back to the difficult-to-obtain waivers because they are seeing, from experience, what works.

We are helping our American society. Taking a phrase from the paid signature collectors, bilingual teachers are teaching English in our schools. We are making students competitive with academic-quality English. While the student is achieving this high academic standard, teaching a student in the language the student understands should not be illegal. It works, and two languages are better than one.

Proposition 227 arguments will soon be heard in our state court. The main reason that a stay of Proposition 227 was denied was that the judge stated there was no proof that one year of English immersion would not work. Now we have such proof because our court system is so slow that two sets of one-year intensive English immersion have passed.

How many years must we wait for this failed, politically motivated, one-size-fits-all approach to be recognized as the divisive, unconstitutional academic failure it is?

DENIS O’LEARY

President

Ventura County Chapter

California Assn.

for Bilingual Education