The state has more English-language learners than any other and also some of the country's most restrictions on bilingual education. November could change that.
As research shows the benefits of a bilingual education, dual-language immersion programs are becoming more popular and not just for English-language learners. But in California -- which has the nation's highest rate of students who speak a non-English language at home -- getting a bilingual education is harder than in most states.
That could change in November, though, as voters have a chance to repeal a 1998 law that passed amid anti-immigrant fervor and severely limited access to bilingual education in the state. If approved, Prop. 58 would allow school districts to offer regular dual-language programs.
Under the 1998 law, Prop. 227, students whose first language isn't English can only take one year of intensive English instruction before transitioning to English-only classes. Parents who want bilingual classes for their kids beyond that have to sign a waiver each year.
But the waiver system creates a lot of inconsistency between school districts, said Santiago Wood, executive director of the National Association for Bilingual Education, which supports Prop. 58. For example, the San Diego Unified School District has dozens of dual-language programs in elementary schools, while Fresno Unified offers just a few.
Bilingual education, particularly for primary school children, has become increasingly popular among native English speakers over the past decade, said Wood. That's primarily because studies have shown that a multilingual brain is nimbler and better able to deal with ambiguities and resolve conflicts. Some research shows multilingual people are even able to resist Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia longer.
Currently, California is one of four states -- the others are Arizona, Massachusetts and New Hampshire -- with laws constraining the use of bilingual education programs, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Meanwhile, seven states -- Delaware, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington -- have launched major efforts to promote bilingual education in public schools in recent years.
Utah, for example, started a program in 2008 that offered instruction half in English and half in either Chinese, French or Spanish. It started with kindergarten, and the intention was to add one grade to the program each year. Two years later, the program expanded beyond elementary schools, and by 2014, more than 25,000 students were enrolled in dual-language programs at 118 schools.
If passed, Callifornia's proposal would immediately impact about 1.4 million students in public schools who are English learners. But given the increasing popularity for English-speaking students to enroll in dual-language immersion programs, the total number of students could be much higher.
Prop. 58 has the support of the entire education establishment, major business groups and many of the state’s top politicians, including Gov. Jerry Brown.
One of the most active campaigners against Prop. 58 is Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was a leading force behind the 1998 law. In numerous op-eds on the issue, Unz has said that the old system of sheltering non-English-speaking children in their own classes led to halted education development and frustrated parents. In fact, in 1996, a group of Latino immigrant parents in Los Angeles protested against their local elementary schools for ignoring their requests to teach their kids in only English.
But supporters of Prop. 58 argue that the new proposal wouldn’t doom California back to the days when non-English-speaking students were languishing in Spanish-only classes. Instead, they point to scores of research that shows that bilingual education -- when executed effectively -- has benefits for all students because it stimulates the learning center of the brain.
“For anyone today to not want to not recognize this as a fact of life and as a 21st Century pathway, it would be an act of folly,” said Wood. “Why not let your child be part of the larger world?”