SAN FRANCISCO
Just days after California voters overwhelmingly
approved a ballot measure to outlaw bilingual education, civil rights
groups have filed suit to challenge the new law and school districts
are finding ways around it.
Sixty-one percent of California voters approved Proposition 227 —
the “English language in public schools initiative” — on June 2, but
several civil rights groups filed suit the next day against Gov. Pete
Wilson, Superintendent Of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin, and
members of the state Board of Education in U.S. District Court here.
The groups include the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational
Fund (MALDEF), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater
Los Angeles, and the California Latino Civil Rights Network.
Proposition 227 gives schools sixty days to develop a year-long
English-only program in which children are grouped by their knowledge
of English rather than grade level or native language. They are to
spend one year in English immersion instruction, after which they will
join the regular curriculum.
Approximately 1.4 million California students — about one in four
— speak limited English and do not understand the language well enough
to keep up in school. Some 700,000 California children have been
taught, at least partly, in a non-English language, records show.
Under Proposition 227, such classes will be prohibited for children
under age ten unless parents of at least twenty students in the same
grade make a request in person each year that their children be taught
in another language.
The new law “will treat [immigrant] children like they have a
disease,” said Ted Wang of Chinese for Affirmative Action, which joined
in filing the suit.
