Massachusetts Voters End Bilingual Education

Liberal Bay State voters want their kids to speak English. They may be liberals but they ain't stupid.

Recheck your math. Liberal=stupid.

Edward Rurak

Ex State Rep, father of Ex Mayor, full time commie. Son quit before he got booted, Grandjury to follow.

"Opponents said a "one size fits all" approach will backfire."

How many 'sizes' does it take, to learn a new language? To learn the language of the country you live in?

That statement about "one size fits all" is doubletalk, for keeping bilingual teachers, who get paid extra, plain and simple.

It has nothing to do with helping the children live better lives. It is all about teachers' pay, don't kid yourselves.

In my family, my wife's family, and in our own lives, we have seen language issues. Total immersion is in first place, way ahead of any other method.

One size DOES fit all!! It is called total immersion.

"Educating the voters about a very complex educational issue is not easy," said Daniel Navisky, spokesman for the opposition committee. "It's really difficult for people to understand what any ballot initiative is about."

What’s difficult about it. Any serviceman who has been stationed overseas for an extended period of time can tell you that immersion in a foreign language is the quickest way to learn that language.

"Some kids -- they just don't learn as much if it's not broken down for them in such a way they can understand," said Jamie Landry, a 27-year-old state youth services worker who voted against the initiative.

Bullshit. I will use the same argument I used for Ebonics:

In my childhood neighborhood NO PARENTS SPOKE ENGLISH at home!

The children learned from playmates and extra-neighborhood kids and parents and storekeepers, etc, etc, and by the time we went to the two-room school, while some pronounciations were funny, by Grade Two, English was being brought home to the parents!

If anyone cares, it was a Polish neighborhood. So I used to gleefully ask the Liberal Ebonics forces.."Are you saying that people of African ancestry are racially inferior to those of Eastern Europe, and cannot be taught English, you RACIST BIGOT??"

This usually produced a "This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down" look on their faces.

"Some kids -- they just don't learn as much if it's not broken down for them in such a way they can understand,"

Well, Yes, but I suspect the pieces of the breakdown are monosyllabic grunts. I just do not buy this!Learning a language is an easy thing for an ordinary child

Agreed. This is good news and a successful implementation would allow other States to use it as an example to get their own initiatives passed.

What happened in Colorado?

I agree with you wholeheartedly, 100%. My dad came from Germany all by himself at age 18, and quickly learned the language. My mom was brought up in a German-speaking household and had to learn English before attending grade school. She did. The younger the child, the more quickly they pick up languages.

I remember two of the smartest kids in 6th grade were Latvian refugees. They were Jews from two families who had fled the Nazis. Not only were they proficient in English after a very short time, you couldn't even tell they weren't born in this country. They spoke with no foreign accent. However, their parents were high achievers and expected the same out of their children.

I have to say, as a Mass. resident, that I was totally astounded that it passed by the margins it did. Working in Amherst (Berkeley East), I found that the place was inundated with flyers, pamphlets, and "newspaper" (liberal rubbish like the Advocate and the Globe) articles and endorsements against Question 2. The unions included anti-Question 2 literature in their membership publications.

This measure even passed by a wide margin in Holyoke, a city with a large Hispanic population! Of course, I can't say if it was the Latinos or the non Latino residents, sick of the incursion of Spanish into their city, that produced this result.

Here is an article from that atrophied limb of the NYTimes, the Boston Globe (hihglights and italicized comments mine):

English immersion plan wins over bilingual ed

By Anand Vaishnav, Globe Staff, Globe Correspondent, 11/6/2002

Massachusetts voters last night overwhelmingly rejected bilingual education and replaced it with all-English classes, defying educators (teacher's unions) and politicians who had warned the contentious measure would spell disaster for thousands of students struggling to learn English.

Returns showed Question 2 winning with 70 percent of the vote, including victories in heavily minority communities such as Lawrence and Lynn. The ballot initiative calls for placing non-English speakers in English immersion classes for a year, with some exceptions.

Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to enact bilingual education 31 years ago, is now the latest one successfully targeted by Silicon Valley millionaire Ron Unz. He financed similar measures that also passed in California and Arizona.

Yet even as Unz's supporters basked in their triumph, lawmakers vowed a top-to-bottom review of the ballot initiative. (looking for loopholes to pull the teeth of the voter's will) State Senator Robert A. Antonioni, cochairman of the Legislature's education committee, predicted ''potentially significant change,'' although he stopped short of calling for a repeal.

''I think people just saw this as a quick fix, and I don't think they ever got into the details of this plan,'' said Antonioni, a Leominster Democrat. (webpage: http://www.state.ma.us/legis/member/raa0.htm; email: RAntonio@senate.state.ma.us. He is a freaking lawyer/politician!)

In Massachusetts, Unz galvanized a coalition of teachers, unions, immigrants' rights activists, and community groups to oppose him. The polarizing clash was often suffused with emotion, with bilingual proponents branding the measure racist, anti-immigrant, and educationally misguided. (the usual lies, half truths, omissions and misrepresentations) It ignited massive opposition from Latino voters, according to preliminary exit polls. (the polling results seem to refute that. How come we didn't see "massive oppositon" from Vietnamese, Koreans, Russians, etc?)

But Unz dismissed critics and stuck to his all-English message. Last night, about 25 supporters attended his party at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, eating fajitas and antipasti off a buffet table that sported two sombreros. Unz said he hopes a Massachusetts win will launch his crusade to a national level. ''I just wonder if there ever really was that much support for bilingual education in Massachusetts,'' Unz said.

Chart on results in 99 communities. B18.

Afterward, Lincoln Tamayo, chairman of Unz's local campaign, stood in a corner with supporters' arms around him and shed tears. ''We did what the politicians were not willing to do,'' said Tamayo, a Cuban immigrant and former principal of Chelsea High School. (Gee, both an educator and Latino, and he supports Unz!!)

Yesterday, opponents of Question 2 - who pounced on the measure's uncertain impact in California and its seizing of authority typically left to local schools - gathered at downtown bar Jose McIntyre's. The subdued crowd of about 20 ate beef and chicken skewers. (How apropos: their goal was similarly skewered!! LOL!) But with returns showing a huge loss, campaign volunteers and staff began putting on their coats just after 10 p.m.

''We're going to continue to fight for the education of immigrant children ...'' said Daniel Navisky, spokesman for the Committee for Fairness to Children and Teachers (How is this unfair to teachers?!?!?!?), the leading Unz opponents. ''Kids are not going to do as well as people expect (and we will do everything we can to ensure that via the teacher's union), and it's going to cost taxpayers money.''

In Massachusetts bilingual classes, non-English speakers take subjects such as math or science in their native tongues while easing into English over months or years. About 30,000 students, or 3 percent of the Bay State's total K-12 enrollment, are in such programs. Other bilingual initiatives include popular ''two-way'' classes in which English- and non-English speakers learn each other's languages simultaneously. (They can still do this, afterschool and on weekends)

Question 2 will probably eliminate most of these programs, placing bilingual students into immersion classes with all books, materials, and instruction in English (saving the taxpayer's money). Teachers can use a ''minimal'' amount of a student's native language. Students also can get waivers if they are 10 or older, or if they have other academic needs. Teachers can be sued for ''willfully and repeatedly'' violating Question 2. (Attack ads left out the "willingly and repeatedly" part, and kept the suing part as a scare tactic.)

The Unz measure also trumps a bill signed in August that tightens bilingual programs and increases state oversight. The bill was touted as a less draconian (less effective whitewash) alternative to the Unz measure.

Unz announced his plans to scrap bilingual education in Massachusetts in August 2001. At the same time he also launched a similar effort in Colorado, where voters yesterday were poised to defeat it.

In Massachusetts, Unz's opponents sponsored marches statewide and estimated immersion would cost the state (teachers, you mean) as much as $125 million.

Yet media polls showed that Unz's slogan - ''English for the children'' - resonated with voters. Many said yesterday they had not heard of the specifics of Question 2 or of the Legislature's new bill (The full text was mailed to every registered voter). Instead, they saw the initiative in terms of immigrants' assimilation, not just bilingual education.

''They get all the benefits of living in this country. They should learn the language,'' said Isabelle Swartz, 87, of Marlborough. (Go Isabelle!!)

Still, Question 2 also seemed to draw minority voters who had previously skipped elections - people like Luz Maria Lau, of Boston, a first-time voter opposed to Question 2.

''For some people it's really hard to study for all of their classes in English,'' said Lau, a native of Puerto Rico. ''It's unfair to force them.'' (Does this make any sense at all?)

Michele Kurtz and Megan Tench of the Globe Staff and Globe correspondent Bill Dedman contributed to this report.

I'm stunned. This is fantastic.

Actually, in NYC, non-English speaking parents have been protesting for years that their kids get plugged into classes where they never have to speak English, and consequently, never learn it.

I'm amazed that Boston dealt with this before NY.

Lest anyone believe the easterner's lies, the "uncertain results in California" they so eagerly pounced on consist of higher test scores at schools using immersion than at schools where most parents seek waivers in order to keep their children in bilingual programs.

Liberal Bay State voters want their kids to speak English.

There would be no bilingual programs if some people weren't stupid enough to allow their children into them. I know people whose children were automatically assigned to a Spanish classroom and the parents took their child out and placed them into an English classroom. The fact that these programs do exist is because there are enough stupid parents who allow it and many demand them because they don't want assimilation.

What’s difficult about it.

Nothing ---immersion is the easiest way to become fluent in another language. Even adults don't take a year. I think a year even is too long, I've seen non-English speaking kids placed in regular classrooms by their parents and the kids are almost fluent by the end of 3 months. Adults may need 6 months to learn a foreign language.

But Jovita Fontanez, of Boston, said it's too strict. The native Puerto Rican learned to speak English while attending Boston schools in the mid-1950s, before the state created bilingual programs....

"If I had English immersion in one year, I'd probably be out on Washington Street with a tin cup," Fontanez said, referring to a Boston thoroughfare.

The lady's full of crap -- she's speaking as if she learned though bilingual. She learned English straight-up, and unless she was already a teenager, probably learned it in less than a year.

If immersion can win in Massachussetts, it can win anywhere -- except Bush Country.

Oops, just remembered. My own, "conservative" governor, George Pataki, also supports everything Spanish, including Puerto Rican communists, as he showed in his embarrassing Election Night victory speech. So, you can strike New York, too, at least for the next four years.

Time to habla some ENGLISH!

Trajan88; TAMU Class of '88

Actually, in NYC, non-English speaking parents have been protesting for years that their kids get plugged into classes where they never have to speak English, and consequently, never learn it.

A few years ago, a group of Hispanic parents from Bushwick, Brooklyn, sued to get their kids removed from bilingual classes. The judge on the case ruled against them. He decided, in effect, that the parents had no right to see that their kids learn English.