For children's sake, teachers make the best of the situation
"When I heard Prop. 227 had passed, I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me," recalls Garden Grove Education Association member Teri Rocco. "I had been a bilingual teacher for 15 years and a bilingual aide for 12 years. I thought, 'Where does this leave me?'"
Instead of teaching a bilingual first-grade class, Rocco now has a structured English immersion first-grade class. "It's quite a change," she says. "But I have adapted. It's actually better than I thought it would be. Instruction has to be in English, but I can clarify, explain and check for understanding using Spanish for children who are very limited in proficiency. It's working out."
Alexandra Condon acts out words for English language learners at Ukiah High School.
At first she worried that Prop. 227 would make her obsolete, but her fear was unfounded. "I'm finding that it's quite the contrary. There is still a great need for people like me. I still need to communicate with parents in Spanish. I still get kids from Mexico who don't know one word of English and need someone to communicate with them. I make them comfortable in their own language and then teach them English."
Leslie Mayo, an Oceanside Teachers Association (OTA) member, also felt like her world was being torn apart when her district eliminated her bilingual class. "I was sad. When I got my bilingual credential, I studied all the statistics that said it takes seven years to become biliterate [able to read and write in two languages] and five years to become bilingual.I believed in this philosophy."
She too felt they had pulled the rug out from under her. "But it was law and they had to do it."
"When things changed, they took all our Spanish materials away," recalls Mayo. "A lot of times there was nothing to replace what they took. We had no math books that year in any language. Our district only had two months to get ready. We got caught with our pants down."
Two years later, things are somewhat better, says Mayo, who now teaches sheltered English immersion to fourth- and fifth-graders. "We still haven't got all the nuts and bolts in place. But the kids are learning English faster. They have to. Whatever the teacher asks them to do, they do, God love 'em. They buy into it, even if they don't understand."
Still, there are some challenges. "It's been really frustrating for me. I feel sorry for the children. When nobody's looking, I speak a little Spanish. I had one little boy crying because he couldn't speak English and didn't want to come to school. What if I couldn't speak to him about it?"
"Switching from bilingual education to immersion has been an adjustment," says Oceanside High School teacher Jim Stant. "But I'm coping and the kids are coping with it really well. I believe that it works in the favor of high school students. Our dropout rate hasn't increased; in fact, it has dropped."
"It's a whole different ballgame in high school," says Stant, also an OTA member. "We get kids ages 14, 15 and 16 direct from Mexico, and then they're gone - out of the system or into adult education. These kids need to be taught primarily in English because the biggest enemy kids have in high school is time. They are running out of time to learn English. Our job is to make sure they are proficient in English by teaching them in English - or else we're doing them a disservice."
"I don't like it," says El Monte Elementary Teachers Association member Tony Duarte, a former bilingual teacher who now has a third-grade immersion class. "It's difficult because the kids are at all different levels. Not only are they in all different levels of math and reading ability; they are also at all different levels of English ability."
Some of his third-grade students were in bilingual classrooms before Prop. 227 and some were already in immersion programs. Now, they are mixed together - and the transition has not been entirely smooth.
"I have one group of students who, until last year, were in a bilingual class. They are transitioning well. I have another group of students who were in bilingual kindergarten, then went into first- and second-grade English immersion classes. These kids are doing very poorly and having a hard time with everything. They have poor word skills and poor grammatical skills. I have another group of students who went into English immersion in kindergarten. Most of them are having problems, too."
Duarte, a bilingual education advocate, says that Prop. 227 was put into place too abruptly for students to adjust. "The students were taken out of bilingual classes and thrown in here. It could have been phased in gradually."
Alexandra Condon says that the adjustment and resulting fallout from Prop. 227 has been mostly negative in the Ukiah Unified School District, which has cut back on the number of bilingual classes available to students.
"Prop. 227 pitted staff against staff," says Condon, a United Teachers of Ukiah (UTU) member who is on special assignment for English language development through the district's bilingual education program. "That has died down somewhat, but it still exists. It's more subtle today than it was."
It has also divided families and made children less proud of their heritage, asserts Condon. "Some of the kids are losing communication skills with family members when they are in the first and second grade. They can't communicate with aunts, uncles and grandparents in Spanish anymore. Often, I have seen kids feel embarrassed to speak Spanish since 227. There is pressure in society for them to speak English. They feel stupid speaking Spanish - even when they are fluent."
Agustin Sandoval, a UTU member who teaches bilingual and sheltered English classes at Pololita Middle School, is unhappy with the results of Prop. 227, and believes that immersion English is "denying an education" to English language learners.
"If a kid doesn't understand what you're saying, it's not doing him any good to be in that class. I don't think they learn English any quicker if they are immersed. It's best if they learn in their own language and then learn English as a second language. If they can't understand what you're saying, you aren't really educating them."
Whether teachers support or oppose 227, most agree on one thing: they have to make the best of the situation for the sake of the children. And the students, they say, are mostly making the best of the situation, too.
"I am a proponent for bilingual education who campaigned against 227," says Pablo Garcia, who now teaches structured English immersion at Lincoln Middle School in Oceanside. "But if you can't use the bilingual approach, you must immerse them in English as quickly as possible."
He describes his English language learners as students who "give it their all" - in any language. "I can't brag enough about them," he says. "The majority of students come to school eager to learn. They attend summer school at the drop of a bucket. They are motivated. They are a pleasure to teach.
"Our job is to teach them. We must make it work. With good teachers and students who want to learn, we can be successful.
Alexandra Condon acts out words for English language learners at Ukiah High School.
