Unz is coming to town

An e-mail from Boston: Unz is Coming to Town

You go home after a very long day -- a full day of teaching, followed by a course for your CLAD certificate. As you sit down at your home computer with a warm beverage and check your e-mail, you open the following from your good friend Albert, who now teaches in Cambridge, Massachussetts:

Help! Ron Unz, your fellow Californian who gave you Proposition 227 and brought it to Arizona, is coming to Beantown! He is everywhere. I turn on the TV news, and there he is, touting the failures of bilingual education, the craziness of our educational theories, and above all, beaming over the success of Proposition 227 in California. I recorded some of the news, which I'm sending to you as an attachment (NOTE: THIS FILE CAN BE FOUND ON CD#2). I checked out his website, at http://www.onenation.org/, and it's full of newspaper stories on the success of 227. A friend also forwarded me an e-mail from Unz to his supporters proudly advancing his campaign here -- click here for the e-mail. I'm even starting to believe some of the things they say, in spite of the fact that many of my friends here are real supporters of bilingual ed. Also, my gut just tells me things just can't be that simple. I'm getting pretty stressed out about his getting on the ballot iniative here in Mass.

Then the other shoe drops. You probably know that I've been pretty active in MATSOL, our local affiliate of TESOL, and the other day, I was asked by the Board to represent MATSOL on a panel discussion on bilingual education at Lesley College. They told me that there would be a local representative of Unz's organization on the panel, as would a representative of the community that supports bilingual education. So, my dear friend, I NEED HELP! Specifically:

As a California teacher, can you tell me what you have seen and heard about the impact of Proposition 227 at the level of the schoolhouse? I need some good stories to tell about what it's been like for a teacher.
Was there indeed a miracle turnaround at Oceanside? What about those SAT-9 scores?
It seems to me that this whole thing of battling ESL against bilingual is a dead horse we don't need to keep flogging! Can you suggest something constructive that we can be doing as a policy?

By the way, this debate is the day after tomorrow!

Send an e-mail back to your friend addressing these questions. You can also raise other issues, but please make sure to address these questions.

Resources (Many thanks to Lisa Nakahara who compiled this great list):

Level I Resources: resources that are absolutely critical to successfully resolve the unit.

Parrish, T. (2001). Effects of the Implementation of Proposition 227 on the Education of English Learners, K-12. Year 1 Report. American Institutes for Research.

Year 1 report from the study team contracted by the California Department of Education to evaluate the impact of Proposition 227 on California schools. Contains a summary of "emerging themes" with an explicit disclaimer that the research to date is inadequate for these themes to be considered "findings."
http://www.stanford.edu/~hakuta/Docs/Prop227_Yr1.pdf, OR
http://www.usc.edu/dept/education/CMMR/FullText/Effects227Year1Report.pdf
See also references and online resources list, pp. 87-92.

Gandara, P., Maxwell-Jolly, J., Garcia, E., Asato, J., Gutierrez, K., Stritikus, T., and Curry, J. (2000). The Initial Impact of Proposition 227 on the Instruction of English Learners. UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute.

Study conducted by the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute on the impact of Proposition 227 in the first year of implementation at 22 schools in 16 districts.
http://lmri.ucsb.edu/resdiss/pdf_files/prop227effects.pdf

English for the Children

Homepage for Ron Unz’s organization dedicated to "end(ing) bilingual education nationwide."
News clips & editorials opposing bilingual education programs.
http://www.onenation.org/

Rossell, C. (2002). Dismantling Bilingual Education Implementing English Immersion: the California Initiative.

Analysis of the barriers to successful implementation of Proposition 227 and recommendations for amendments to Proposition 227. Findings from review of 300 program evaluations on the effectiveness of bilingual education programs and anecdotal findings based on interviews with teachers (including Oceanside) that argue that sheltered English immersion programs are preferable to bilingual education programs.
http://web.bu.edu/POLISCI/CROSSELL/Rossell,%20Calif.%202002%20(collated),%202.pdf

Hakuta, K. What can we learn about the impact of Proposition 227 from SAT-9 scores?

Analysis of 1999, 2000 and 2001 SAT-9 scores at Oceanside that demonstrates flaws in claims that Oceanside scores present evidence of the success of Proposition 227.
http://www.stanford.edu/%7Ehakuta/SAT9/index.htm

Level II Resources: highly useful resources, additional background information, etc.

Official Title and Summary prepared by the Attorney General - English Language in Public Schools. Initiative Statute.

Summary of Proposition 277 and net state and local government impact analysis by the legislative analyst; arguments in favor of and in opposition to Proposition 227.
http://primary98.ss.ca.gov/VoterGuide/Propositions/227.htm
Full text of the proposed law - http://primary98.ss.ca.gov/VoterGuide/Propositions/227text.htm

Questions that may be raised by Proposition 227, U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

FAQ on Proposition 227 with respect to federal law.
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/docs/prop227q.html

USC Center for Multilingual Multicultural Research: The Aftermath: Consequences and Reactions to California's Referendum on Bilingual Education

Extensive resource list covering various aspects of Proposition 227 including the election, implementation, court decisions, reaction to a READ institute report on the California Department of Education’s State Program for English Learners Coordinate Compliance Review Training Guide 2000-2001, and opinion pieces.
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~cmmr/aftermath.html
Also see CMMR’s Prop 227 News Archives http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~cmmr/archives_227.html
CMMR’s Language Policy & Language Rights resource page - http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~cmmr/Policy.html

James Crawford’s Language Policy Website & Emporium.

Life After 227: The Struggle Continues — page covering Proposition 227 after passage in California. Resource list including articles by James Crawford, campaign analysis, related litigation, news articles and opinion pieces.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/227.htm
See also the archive of materials posted during the campaign - http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/unz.htm
Proposition 203: Anti-Bilingual Education Initiative in Arizona — page on Arizona’s counterpart to Proposition 227. It includes links to a page comparing 203 and 227 as well as a link to the "English for the Children—Arizona" page.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/az-unz.htm
For a direct link to the "English for the Children—Arizona" go to http://angelfire.com/az/english4thechildren/body.html

Porter, Rosalie Pedalino. (1998). Twisted Tongues: The Failure of Bilingual Education. READ Institute.

This article summarizes the anti-bilingual education scholarship (but see August and Hakuta (1997) and Crawford (1999) for an analysis of flaws in this scholarship). The article suggests that bilingual education is at least partly at fault for the dropout rate among Latinos, at 35-35%, but does not provide any evidence to support this claim.
http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/pop_biling.html

Linda Chavez’ Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) Bilingual Education Website

This is the official site of CEO, founded by Linda Chavez, former ally of Ron Unz and equally strident opponent of bilingual education. Her bilingual education page is headed by an "ACTIVIST ALERT" looking for parents "who have had a negative experience with bilingual education programs."
http://www.ceousa.org/index.html

Dr. Jill Kerper Mora’s homepage (Associate Professor & Interim Associate Director, School of Teacher Education, San Diego State University)

Analysis of issues related to Proposition 227 prepared by Dr. Mora, including a "Road Map to the Bilingual Education Debate," instructional modules, and analysis of SAT-9 scores.
http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/Prop227PPT/Default.htm

California Teacher’s Association, Proposition 227 Workgroup Report (January 1999)

Finding from the workgroup’s meetings and hearings on member concerns about the passage of Proposition 227. See in particular section on "findings."
http://www.cta.org/inside_cta/training/institute_prop227.html

Language census and standardized test data.

California Department of Education district, county, and statewide Language Census reports.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/demographics/reports/index.html
California's Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) subgroup category program results for 2001, 2000, and 1999.
http://www.eddataonline.com/star/

California Association for Bilingual Education website.

Articles on bilingual education, including several on Proposition 227.
http://www.bilingualeducation.org/news.htm

Education Week "Hot Topics" - Bilingual Education

Overview of bilingual education issues, compilation of recent Education Week articles and external websites related to bilingual education.
http://www.edweek.org/context/topics/issuespage.cfm?id=8
For older articles search the archives for "Proposition 227" - http://www.edweek.org/edsearch.cfm

NEA Bilingual Education Resource List

General list of resources on bilingual education issues (not specific to Proposition 227).
http://www.nea.org/issues/bilingual/resources.html