Question

San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, April 6, 1998

'Sink or Swim' Prop 227 hurts kids
By Lucy Tse

"I stared at the teacher as she moved about the room. She talked and wrote on the chalkboard, and the other students answered her questions, laughed at her comments, and talked among themselves. I sat and watched. That's all I could do. Nothing made sense. That night, I told my mother that I felt deaf in a hearing world."
In the days before bilingual education, every child placed into an all-English classroom had experiences such as this. Left to "sink-or-swim," some students survive

Answer 1

San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, April 6, 1998

'Sink or Swim' Prop 227 hurts kids
By Lucy Tse

"I stared at the teacher as she moved about the room. She talked and wrote on the chalkboard, and the other students answered her questions, laughed at her comments, and talked among themselves. I sat and watched. That's all I could do. Nothing made sense. That night, I told my mother that I felt deaf in a hearing world."
In the days before bilingual education, every child placed into an all-English classroom had experiences such as this. Left to "sink-or-swim," some students survived and graduated high school while many others dropped out.
This is the situation California schools will regress to if Proposition 227 passes in the June election. Practically overnight, nearly 1.4 million students not yet fluent in English will be given 180 days to learn the language.
Twelve-year-olds will be placed in the same classroom as 8-year-olds, and each will have to get what they can in those precious few days. Regardless of their readiness, these same students will then be placed into English-only classrooms with no help and no support. It doesn't take a vivid imagination to foresee the fate of these students. Many will do what their predecessors did a half century ago: Drown.
Why abandon a method which gives students help in their native language while they learn English? We shouldn't. Despite popular perception, in study after study, researchers have found that bilingual education students in good programs learn English rapidly and get a better education than those who get no help in the home language. In fact, these programs keep students in schools and provide them with the background needed to go to college or to get a job.
Of the 1.4 million limited-English students in California, only about 30 percent are in bilingual education programs. It is not difficult to find evidence of these programs' effectiveness. Across the state, students in good bilingual education programs outscore their counterparts on the state's own Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills in both math and reading, a test given in English. Beyond test scores, studies also show that students in bilingual education programs have higher self confidence and better attitudes toward school.
Leaving students to fend for themselves is irresponsible policy. If we want students to learn English quickly then we should stick with a program that has proven effective: bilingual education.

Lucy Tse is an assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

1. What does Tse mean by "sink or swim?"
Proposition 227 will hurt kids by not teaching them to swim.
Students who know English will succeed in school; students who don't know English will fail or drop out.
The students who learn to swim will live; the students who do not learn to swim will not.
Proposition 227 will help kids by teaching them to read in English.