TEACHING ENGLISH WINS:
by Jorge Amselle
Introduction
In the spring of 1998 a new statewide assessment exam, the Stanford 9, was implemented in California. Due largely to the efforts of then-Governor Pete Wilson, limited-English-proficient (LEP) students were required to take this test. That summer California voters approved Proposition 227, the "English for the Children" ballot initiative, by an overwhelming 61 percent of the vote. This initiative, led by Ron Unz, reversed more than 20 years of state-mandated bilingual education for LEP children. The initiative replaced failed bilingual programs with structured English immersion for all English learners.
The Stanford 9 test scores for 1999 became available this summer through California's Standardized Testing And Reporting system (STAR), available on the internet at http://star.cde.ca.gov/. Despite all of the rhetoric decrying how California's non-English-speaking students would be harmed by the new English-immersion mandate, the end result is good news. After only seven months of instruction, LEP students were not only not harmed by English immersion; they made significant gains in reading and writing in English as well as math. Not surprisingly, the greatest gains were made in school districts that chose the strictest interpretation of the initiative and implemented the most intensive English-immersion programs. At best, the bilingual programs that remained were barely able to match this performance.
This report summarizes the results of Proposition 227 so far in several school districts, based on the STAR score summary reports for LEP students in reading, math, and language. Scores for spelling are not reported here but are available on the state's web page.
Download the full report in MS Word.From Primary Language to English Immersion.
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Please contact the READ Institute if you prefer to have this complete report mailed to you or if you have difficulty downloading, (202) 639-0167.
