Bilingual Education Jeopardized

Elias Duncan is only in first grade, but he can already speak Spanish at the second-grade level.

As a 7-year-old at the Amigos bilingual school in Cambridge, Elias can converse fluently in English with his family, which does not speak Spanish, and talk in Spanish with other children in his class. His father, Tim Duncan, says he has been consistently impressed with the level of care and education his son has received in the program.

However, Duncan, a lawyer now working on acting Gov. Jane Swift’s reelection committee, fears Amigos and other schools like it could close if a ballot initiative to eliminate bilingual education reaches Massachusetts voters in November.

Duncan headed a coalition of state legislators, religious leaders and educators in a conference at the State House yesterday, urging the public to oppose the mandate, which will be discussed today before the Education Committee. Speakers critiqued the morality and effectiveness of the proposal, arguing it forces children into English-only classrooms regardless of their parents’ wishes.

“Fundamentally, this initiative is about denying choice to parents,” said Jim Crawford, a Washington, D.C., writer with numerous works published about bilingual education.

The initiative was brought to Massachusetts by California software millionaire Ron Unz, who successfully passed similar mandates in California and Arizona. Under Unz’s initiative, bilingual education would be replaced with a one-year English-immersion program, in which children would be taught exclusively in English.

Elias Duncan, attending his first-ever conference at his father’s side, played with a miniature plastic dinosaur in his left hand, bandaged on two fingers, and laughed with his sister as the speakers and attendees settled into the conference room. Leaning into his father, Elias asked, “Daddy, is it true that we’re here because a man is trying to take over bilingual schools?”

Duncan told him it was true.

Under the state’s current bilingual education law, which dates back 30 years, school districts with 20 or more students who speak the same language and have a limited understanding of English must offer a transitional bilingual program for up to three years.

Speakers at the conference argued bilingual education must be reformed through legislation, rather than eliminated. Currently, there are three bills seeking to reform the state’s current bilingual law, including one sponsored by Swift.

Other bills include a proposal by Sen. Robert Antonioni (D-Worcester, Middlesex) and Rep. Peter Larkin (D-Berkshire) and another by Rep. Marc Pacheco (D-First Plymouth, Bristol) and Rep. Antonio Cabral (D-Bristol), who listened in on the conference.

Support for these bills varied among the coalition, which was split among Democrats and Republicans.

“Fighting the Unz mandate is a bipartisan effort,” said Rep. Alice Wolf (D-Cambridge). “Some of us have Ds after our names, and some of us have Rs after our names, but we’re here united.”

Though the speakers were not of a consensus about the three reform bills, they were unified in opposing Unz’s proposal.

“We’re not picking anybody in legislature, any reform, that we favor,” said Charles Glick, principal of Charles Group Consulting. “We’re basically saying, why go through the ballot initiative?”

Few social scientists have come out in support of Unz’s mandate. In Massachusetts, less than a handful of social scientists favor the initiative. One of the few supporters is Christine Rossell, a political science professor at Boston University.

Rossell, who referred to the mandate as the English for the Children initiative, said immigrants in the United States overwhelmingly oppose bilingual education. She expects the initiative to pass in Massachusetts by two-thirds.

“Despite the fact that the legislators are scared to death of the issue, voters are alone in a voting booth,” she said. “We have a secret ballot, so you get people alone in a voting booth and they will vote for English.”

Although she said the majority of social science research indicates English-immersion is the most preferable option, Rossell contends most legislators are poorly informed on the issue. She said she spoke to Antonioni and Larkin before the two released their reform bill but found their research inadequate.

“They’re politicians,” she said. “All they’re thinking about is responding to the squeaky wheel, and the squeaky wheel says we’ve got to keep a bilingual education option.”

Rossell will speak briefly at the hearing today, which will also hear from many figures at the conference.

Giovanna Negretti, executive director of Oiste?, Massachusetts’ Latino political organization, who was present at the conference yesterday, disagreed with Rossell’s ideas and said the anti-ballot initiative coalition will fight Unz as aggressively as is necessary.

“If he has a million dollars, we’ll have three,” Negretti said. “Ron Unz has no idea what he’s getting into.”