Here are a couple of very nice recent articles on Prop. 227 issues from the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
The first deals with the outstanding success of the English immersion program at Bennet-Kew Elementary in Inglewood, which predates Prop. 227. Naturally, the remarkably high test scores of the poor immigrant students at the school—among the best of any such students in the entire state—led to harsh criticism and an investigation by the California Department of Education, angered that the principal had told a reporter that “bilingual education” was ridiculous, and her school used English immersion instead.
The second story indicates the excellent results being achieved by the adult English literacy program established by Prop. 227, quoting various immigrant parents about their happiness in finally learning English themselves, both in order to assist their children in school and improve their job opportunities. Naturally, Tony Cardenas, a prominent Democratic politician, criticizes the program for its lack of “accountability,” a multi-syllabic word of no clear meaning much beloved by politicians and bureaucrats. I would suspect that the many thousands of poor immigrants taught how to read and write English care more about that than they do about “accountability.”
- School excels after dropping bilingual education
Santa Cruz Sentinel, Wednesday, February 9, 2000, FRONT PAGE - English classes for adults who tutor children seen as a $50M proposition
Santa Cruz Sentinel, Wednesday, February 9, 2000, FRONT PAGE
