By Editorial
Is Clinton out of touch? Executive Order 13166 requires federal agencies to help those who don't speak English find government services. Given that more than 300 languages are spoken just in the U.S., vast resources will be needed to comply. Attempts to be bilingual have already proved costly. The government, for instance, printed Spanish versions of the tax Form 1040 in 1994 - at a cost of $ 157 for each copy, including instructions. (Only 718 of the 500,000 printed were filled out and returned.) How much more will be spent because of Clinton's order? Based on the costs of Canada's bilingual requirement, an official multilingual policy here could wring $ 10 billion out of U.S. taxpayers each year. The big question: Why this order now? In the last two years, test scores for non-English-speaking students have increased almost as much as the scores of students who are fluent in English. Proposition 227 opponents warned of disaster for non-English speakers when California voters threw out bilingual education in 1998. They feared the students would be left behind. But even some of them now realize they were wrong. Ken Noonan, who founded the California Association of Bilingual Educators, told The New York Times he thought the move "would hurt the kids." Yet "the exact reverse occurred." Asking non-English speakers to learn the language isn't a punishment. It helps them integrate into American society. Yet the president prefers a policy of patronization. Immigrants should know he's done them no favor. |
