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.
The lawsuit calls Proposition 427 "a superficially alluring, yet educationally simplistic scheme."
African Americans and Latinos strongly voted against the measure. opponents of the proposition argue that replacing bilingual education with 180 days of English lessons restricts immigrant children's access to equal education as guaranteed under federal law. The civil rights groups that filed the lawsuit expects a hearing on the matter in early July.
