We are now seeing the results. Even if redesignation rates were a valid criteria for evaluating the effect of 227, California state-wide data does not provide support for 227. Many factors influence redesignation. The most important factor is poverty. It is also very interesting that some English-only districts had redesignation rates below the state average.
Fluency comes slowly for bilingual students in certain English-only programs.
The Orange County Register Orange County school districts that led the statewide push to end bilingual education saw a drop in the number of students who were reclassified as fluent in English this year, an Orange County Register analysis has found. The decline in those districts contrasts with a countywide increase in the so-called redesignation rate, which measures the number of students reclassified each year from limited English to fluent. That's up from 6 percent last year, according to an annual census of limited-Engish students. The new countywide figures come too soon to reflect the full effect of Proposition 227, last year's voter-approved initiative that requires almost all instruction in English, educators said. During last year's campaign, Prop. 227 proponents cited California's low redesignation rate as evidence of the failure of bilingual education.