The Triumph of English?

Just before New Year’s, the San Jose Mercury News published a banner-headline article announcing that their months-long analysis of California’s statewide test scores revealed that immigrant students in schools adopting Prop. 227-type English immersion programs dramatically outperformed immigrant students in schools still using bilingual programs, by as much as a factor of two after less than one year.

Immediately following this, Joanne Jacobs, a leading Mercury News columnist who had ultimately opposed Prop. 227, published a fine piece pointing out that whereas the educational establishment normally touts educational successes (sometimes even when they are fictitious), they have done absolutely everything to explain away or deny the remarkable success which has almost immediately followed from dismantling bilingual programs in California.

However, reality wins out eventually, and these outstanding results have now persuaded a prominent Massachusetts political figure to begin a push for dismantling that state’s bilingual programs, through legislation modeled directly on Prop. 227. The drive will be announced at a Tuesday press conference in Boston, in which I will be participating.

In the long run, few politicians will remain opposed to an educational change which provides a very real possibility of as much as doubling the educational performance of immigrants students over just a few years.

I am attaching our press release, along with copies of the Joanne Jacobs column and the front-page Mercury News story.

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