MARY BUSTAMANTE
Citizen Staff Writer
Oct. 31, 2000

Pima County voters could hold the key to the success or failure of Proposition 203, the initiative to make English the only permissible language of instruction in the state's public schools.

The county is home to the school district with the largest bilingual education program in the state - Tucson Unified.

It is also home to some of Proposition 203's strongest supporters and staunchest opponents.

The initiative would require students not fluent in English to be placed into a one-year English-immersion program unless parents requested a waiver.

Opponents maintain that 203 would take away a parent's right to choose how his or her child should be taught. The one-year English-immersion time limit, they say, is not sufficient to learn the language.

Supporters say Arizona's current system of bilingual education takes too long to make students proficient in English. The result, they argue, is that more students drop out and some never learn English.

"Bilingual education has not helped the immigrant or Native American child learn English with enough proficiency to succeed academically," said Hector Ayala.

Ayala is a Cholla High School English teacher who is co-director of English for the Children-Arizona, the group spearheading passage of 203.

Bilingual education, Ayala said, concentrates more on teaching culture and Spanish than English.

"If we pass Proposition 203, we will have everyone learning in English from the very beginning, including the Hispanic and Native American children who have been discriminated against" by not getting that instruction sufficiently for over 30 years, he said.

Citing a survey that showed nearly 60 percent of Pima County voters favor the proposition, Ayala said it would be hard to determine whether local critics will affect the outcome.

But it is only in Pima County that voters are hearing "lies and deception" regarding the initiative, he said.

"Most militant Chicanos are in Pima County, not all over the state," he said.

Opponent Alejandra Sotomayor, a local bilingual educator, said she is positive Pima County and a few other counties are going to ensure the proposition does not pass.

Those who really read 203, Sotomayor said, are going to vote against it.

She noted that editorial boards of newspapers in Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff have also come out against the proposal.

Sotomayor said bilingual education not only helps students improve standardized test scores, but also is a great way for English-speaking students to learn a second language, a skill she believes is a necessity.

She pointed to TUSD's Davis Bilingual Magnet and Pueblo Gardens Elementary, which show through test scores and other measurements that bilingual education is working.

The state dropout rate for Hispanics is 17 percent, she said. Compare that to the 6.9 percent Hispanic dropout rate at TUSD, which has the most comprehensive bilingual education program in the state.

"So they are staying in school longer," Sotomayor said.

Ayala said that he disagrees with the reasons for the present system's success, but that it will be a "win-win" situation for 203 supporters, no matter the outcome Nov. 7.

"If it passes, we win. If it fails, the onus will be on the system that has never admitted any deficiency until this campaign. If we lose ... the public will make (the system) more accountable than ever. And they know this."

But bilingual education backers say if the program has problems, it is because of insufficient funding. Sal Galbaldon, a bilingual education teacher in TUSD, also criticized the proposition's key financial supporter - California software millionaire Ron Unz, who successfully backed a similar but weaker measure that passed in that state in 1998.

He said Unz, who helped draft 203, carelessly put things in the measure that even he didn't intend to. Galbaldon said Unz was quoted in a national education magazine saying he hadn't known he was putting in wording that would keep deaf students who communicate in American Sign Language from being able to use it in the first 30 days of each school year.

But the proposal would affect more than Spanish-speaking and deaf students.

Native American activist Sheila Nickolas said Native Americans are still trying to recover from decades of English-only classes that nearly wiped out some of their languages.

But Ayala, a product of English-immersion classrooms, said he has had many students who were the products of bilingual education, "and the indications were that it wasn't working."

Ayala, who has a bachelor of arts degree in English and a master's degree in language, reading and culture, said parents who want the choice of bilingual education are the ones who have English-speaking students.

"This is an issue for Spanish-speaking students and Native American students," he said. "This is patent segregation. Nobody cares about the Spanish-speaking kids, the immigrant kids, the Native American kids who must learn English to become economically successful."

Sotomayor counters that bilingual education is good for everyone.

She said the proposition is a platform to promote Unz and his politics, and an attempt to create a false scenario that the English language is at risk.

"But it is time for all Arizona children to have more than one language. The only thing wrong with bilingual education is, we haven't opened it up to everyone ... This is no longer the same little world that it was 30 or even 20 years ago," said Sotomayor, who hopes bilingual education will make Arizona the first state to offer dual language education for all students, whatever their first language.

Ayala, though, said one year of immersion should be enough for all but a small minority. He said the initiative provides for subsequent years of immersion, if needed.

"We don't foresee anyone going past two years. We want to change the attitude that they don't have to teach English. If the program is pinned to teaching English, then they'll succeed in teaching English. Help for non-English students is a federal decree. We're not taking that away."

But Sotomayor said, "If students can learn a language in two years, why do we require 14 years of English to the English-speaker? And when you go off to college, you still have to take English."