California elections & bilingual ed

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 01:37 PM 6/4/98 -0700, christine wrote:
>Really?  I had heard that initial polls indicated that a slight majority
>of hispanics favored the initiative. I was interested in seeing how that
>would change as more people read and thought though the terms of the law
>(not that you would expect the pollers to actually poll people who speak
>spanish or other languages, or don't have a phone). If students are
>spending 8 years learning english as a second language, there is obviously
>something wrong with the program and I could understand how immigrant
>parents would want to really change the education going on at their
>schools. But it is super hypocritical for conservatives who always trumpet
>local control of schools to create a mandate from up-high on the specifics
>of classroom pedagogical style - ditto for these mandated phonics
>instruction proposals. 

Look, you are barking at a wrong tree.  I am not a conservative swine
trying to control from above education for the poor.  All I was saying that
it is futile, in my opinion, to fight for cultural programs in lieu of
economic issues.  Besides, I was refering to the assessment of the
situation expressed in The Nation several weeks ago, and did not know until
recently how the actual votes  broke down by ethnic groups.

The problem with Hispanics is not in the absence or presence of bilingual
education, but the lack of economic opportunity and, yes, the culture of
poverty.  Example: when I taught in a community college in central CA I
would her stories from Hispanic females, that going to college was a real
challenge for them, because it was discouraged by their families ans
communities.  A friend of mine teaching in HS told me true horror stories
about female studens of hers being beaten up by their boyfriends or fathers
for staying in school after hours and doing assignments.  Even though CA
law mandated reporting such indcidents to the police, her students asked
her not do it fearing for their safety.

As far as your assessment of public education in this country is concerned,
I agree.  I cannot think of any other developed country that
institutionalized the caste system into their education under the guise of
local control (not to mention the use of the diabolic device known as the
multiple choice testing).  But I also think that focusing on cultural
identity (bilingual ed) is a diversion from real problems.  Not just for
conservatives, but for liberals as  well.

For example, that crypto-Nazi swine "Adolf" Giuliani just forced CUNY to
cut most of its remedial education program which is going to have a far
greater effect on the accessibility of higher education to the poor an
minorities (at least in New York City) than all bilingual ed programs
combined.  Yet few people on this list, or elsewhere, shed a tear over it -
because, I suspect, it does not directly touch the issue of ethnic identity
so dear to liberal minds.

So to summarize, I do not fall for the conservative hogwash about
'standards.'  Rather, I concur with the opinion, voiced in The Nation's
article I referred to, that prop 227 was bound to pass because few people
thought it was worth fighting for.

Regrads,

Wojtek Sokolowski