Ballot Initiative on Bilingual Education Proposed

by Rin Kelly
North Denver Tribune

The battle over bilingual education is back.

Long the epicenter of a contentious debate over the future of bilingual instruction in the public schools, North Denver may once again witness a face-off between supporters of English-language immersion — led by former Denver Public School Board representative Rita Montero — and the bilingual camp that was largely responsible for her loss to Lucia Guzman in the 1999 race for the District 5 seat.

Montero has teamed with Ron Unz, the California millionaire whose organization, English for the Children, sponsored the initiatives that effectively banned bilingual instruction in California and Arizona. Montero is spearheading English for the Children of Colorado in a push to get a similar initiative on the November ballot. She hopes that Coloradoans will vote in the same large numbers to replace native-language instruction and English as a Second Language with an intensive English curriculum. 

The proposed amendment “offers the second-language learner the ability to avail themselves of all the opportunities that their parents brought them here to this country for,” explains Montero. “They get to speak English at an earlier age; they have greater abilities, and greater opportunities are going to be placed in their way.” Montero believes that rapid assimilation into an English curriculum will eliminate the disparity between English- and Spanish-language classes, which are, she says, “dumbed-down maintenance programs” populated with children who end up marooned and neglected. 

The initiative proposes a one-year sheltered English immersion program for all students classified as English learners — those who are “not fluent in English” and are “not currently able to perform ordinary classroom work in English.” The students would work with a curriculum designed specifically for children who are learning the language, and nearly all classroom instruction would be conducted in English. After completing the immersion program the children would enter the mainstream English-language classrooms, where they would be monitored through annual standardized tests. 

This method has proven effective in closing the achievement gap between Anglo and Latino children, say Unz and Montero. California, which passed the Unz-drafted Proposition 227 in 1998, has seen an improvement in test scores; a number of scientific studies show that immersion is the most effective method for teaching English. But opponents emphasize that the effectiveness of immersion does not blunt the edge of the initiative. To them, Montero’s plan is nothing more than a trap that strips away parental choice. 

“They’re going to tell you all it really does is make sure that children learn English,” says John Britz, political consultant for the opposition group English Plus. In actuality, he says, English for the Children supporters want to “prevent public-school parents from choosing what is right for their children.” 

This is most evident, he says, in the initiative’s proposed waiver program — “a total shell game" — which would allow parents to opt out of immersion to place their children in bilingual education, but only through a complex process. 

Under the initiative, any parent seeking a waiver would be required to allow 30 school days to pass before doing so. The parent would then be required to submit a 250-word statement arguing for its approval and would have to reapply each year. Because the ballot issue calls for the creation of bilingual programs at any school with 20 or more students who have been approved for waivers, children whose neighborhood schools serve fewer than 20 would have to travel to different institutions. 

Under the most controversial clause of the initiative, parents would retain for 10 years the right to sue those who approved the waiver. This, according to ballot language, would apply to cases in which a parent concluded that a waiver was “granted in error and ultimately injured the education of their child.” Also subject to lawsuit would be any school officials who flout the law and teachers who repeatedly speak to students in a language other than English. 

In addition to monetary damages, school officials would face suspension from “any position of authority anywhere within the Colorado government or the public school system for a subsequent period of five years.”

Montero defends the punitive clause as a protection against something she has witnessed all too often in the public schools — teachers and administrators making decisions without parental consent. She experienced this firsthand when her English-proficient son was placed in a Spanish-language classroom sans placement testing and, she says, simply because of his surname and status as a member of a bilingual home. 

“Even though DPS is under a court order that says parents have to be informed about where it is their child is being placed, and have to sign to place their child in a program, it’s just not happening in Denver,” she says, adding that the situation is worse in some other Colorado school districts where “parents are not even asked for permission to place their kids.” For Montero, the waiver program would return power to parents and normalize that power statewide.

But opponents feel the waiver system would accomplish exactly the opposite — it would dismantle parental choice by creating obstacles to bilingual alternatives, they say..

“This is Ron Unz telling us how we should be running our schools,” argues Walt Keller, a candidate for House District 5 whose son attends the dual-language Montessori school Academia AnaMarie Sandoval. “This is Ron Unz telling us parents have a choice and then making all choices null and void.”

Because of the punitive measures attached to the waiver system, Keller adds, the likelihood of school officially approving waivers would be “incredibly slim.” This would affect the future of Sandoval, which would most likely have to collect waivers from parents of all of its students in order to comply with the law.

In December 2001, English Plus brought these concerns to the state Supreme Court, claiming that the initiative’s title and summary — the abstract that appears on the ballot to give voters an idea of what the measure would do if it became law — contained misleading language about the choice offered by waivers. The court agreed and ordered the state Title Board to rework the phrasing. After a number of revisions, the title was finally approved in June — a victory for Montero and Unz, but one that left them less than two months to gather the 80,571 signatures necessary to get the measure on the ballot.

Montero knows that she is battling uphill to reach the Aug. 5 deadline.  But she has never shied away from battles and is eager for the one she hopes will begin early Aug. 6 — a statewide debate about the future of the public school system. 

“This is an opportunity for our entire state to move ahead in education,” she says.  “We should all be looking forward to the fight.”