Money and grants are involved, and to trigger funds a minimum number of students is required. There is a huge bureaucracy of administrators, bilingual teachers, psychologists, and textbook publishers at the funding trough. The most impressive opposition to date has been the ballot initiative in California English for the Children which was passed in June 1998 by a 60 to 40 percent vote. Instead a year of sheltered English immersion is to be required before placing them in English-only classrooms. The Unz group has been careful to spell out that English for the Children will not throw children with limited English proficiency into regular classes, where they would have to sink or swim, or cut special funding for children learning English, or bar all bilingual education programs.
Most Latino parents prefer their children to learn English as soon as possible.
They believe, correctly, that English literacy is the key to success in the United States. Most students in bilingual programs never really learn to read or write English very well, and Spanish speakers leave school at the highest rate of any ethnic group. Bilingual education also defeats efforts to assimilate children into U.S. society and keeps Spanish speakers from getting better-paying jobs. Most people seem to agree except bilingual teachers, administrators, and multiculturalists who want not only language training but cultural maintenance or, in other words, little Quebecs in states like California, New York, Texas, and Florida. A Critique , by Peter Duignan, is available from the Hoover Press.