California's Latino Divide Over Bilingual Education

Unz says he got the idea after watching immigrant parents stage a public boycott of Ninth Street Elementary in Los Angeles after the school administration refused to allow their children to be taught English. He has enlisted the help of legendary high school teacher Jaime Escalante, whose success in teaching calculus to poor Hispanics in East Los Angeles formed the basis of the movie, "Stand and Deliver." "School prepares you for life," says Mr. Escalante. "You educate yourself to integrate into this society. You do that by learning English."

Escalante and Unz point to the Los Angeles Times October poll as evidence that the ideas have overwhelming support in California. The poll not only found that 84 percent of Hispanics support the initiative, but also that 80 percent of the overall electorate also favors the initiative.

"This is a very important symbolically that the voters of California are behind this initiative," says Linda Chavez, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) in Washington. She says CEO did similar polls in five US cities two years ago - including Miami, Denver, and Houston - and got similar results. "Lobbyists and advocates have been driving this public-policy issue for more than 20 years and the Latino community has never been able to weigh in on this. Now we find they don't want it."

Initiative's opponents

But now the initiative's opponents are beginning to organize as well and are challenging both the premises of the measure itself as well as the means of measuring public opinion about it.

"Now that Unz has filed his signatures, the media and public are going to take a far closer look at what he is doing and you will see the tide turn," says Jaime Zapata, associate director for legislation at the National Association for Bilingual Education.

Those against the initiative, which include the California Teachers Association, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, hold that immersing LEP children in English for one year will not be enough to allow them to successfully continue school.

"These kids will fall further and further behind year after year," says Mr. Zapata. He says there is no evidence that children can become proficient in English in such a short time, he adds: "Those children in all other classes who are fully qualified in English will suffer as well."

Despite the early appearance of voter approval in some polls for the initiative, several observers warn it is too early to gauge public opinion. Another L.A. Times poll in Ventura County found Latinos slightly in favor of bilingual education.

And a November exit poll of Hispanic voters across California conducted by the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project found 57.6 percent against ending bilingual education.

Like last year's Prop. 209, in which pollsters got diametrically opposite findings depending on whether the term "affirmative action" or "racial preferences" was used, public sentiment about the bilingual issue is heavily reliant on how the issue is framed.

"The initiative writers are very careful not to use the words 'bilingual education,' says Los Angeles Times pollster Susan Pinkus. She notes that another volatile issue for Latino voters, Prop. 187 was heavily supported by Latinos, 52 percent to 42 percent two months before the vote. But 77 percent of Latinos voted against it.

"I don't believe the Latino community is of one mind about this," says Pinkus. "If the pro-bilingual forces push all the right buttons, they could easily turn this thing in their favor."

Page: 1 | 2