Mello: Students will suffer as bilingual education declines

By Craig Mello

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In 1997, Ron Unz, a millionaire software designer and former Republican candidate for governor, financed a campaign to end bilingual education in California.

He and his supporters collected more than 500,000 signatures and qualified Proposition 227, known as the "English-only" initiative, for the ballot. On June 2, 1998, it passed, and since that time the number of elementary-aged school children in bilingual classrooms has drastically declined.

At first, it seemed the passage would have little effect on education. In fact, during the first year of its implementation, the parents of more than 1,000 students in Modesto City Schools submitted waiver requests for their children to continue to receive a transitional bilingual education. The approval of the waivers created approximately 40 bilingual classes in the district.

Since then, however, the number of waivers has dropped. In the 2008-2009 school year there were only 295, down almost 75 percent since 1998. Next year there will be around 250, almost 20 percent less than this year.

Though the district uses multiple means to inform parents of the waiver process, the numbers keep dropping. Maybe it's because our depressed economy has people more focused on keeping their jobs than education, or maybe it's because an unprecedented amount of people have been displaced from their homes due to foreclosures and aren't receiving the information. Whatever the reason, the result is the same.

Students who were in transitional bilingual Spanish classes this year or in years past will be placed in "sheltered" classes next year, unless there are at least 18 approved waivers per grade level at each school in order to have a transitional bilingual class. They'll go from classes taught predominantly in their native Spanish to classes taught completely in English, with Spanish support only if the teacher speaks Spanish, which isn't a credential requirement for a sheltered class teacher.

In a bilingual student's education, the transition from Spanish to English normally takes place around the third or fourth grade; it's a gradual process. Now, however, without the necessary waivers, it could happen as early as kindergarten, first or second grade. A class of kindergarteners, for example, could go from 70 percent instruction in their native language one year, to 0 percent the next.

The irony is that, with the exception of the extraordinarily bright students in these classes, most kids will have an extremely difficult time being successful on district benchmark tests and standardized state tests. At such a young age, their understanding of reading is markedly underdeveloped and the tests are entirely in English. Sadly, it's these two forms of assessment that drive our education system today, the results of which are used (on an unspoken level) to determine the worth of our students, teachers and programs.

Educators commonly refer to language situations like this as "sink or swim." These students will either learn to tread water in an all-English classroom, or drown, metaphorically. No matter what your belief on bilingual education is, it's hard not to appreciate the comparison.

After 11 long years it appears the swimming pool is full and the last of the kids are teetering on the edge. All that's left now is to push them in.

Mello is a Modesto teacher and a former visiting editor with The Bee. E-mail him at columns@modbee.com.