Bilingual theorists ruined bilingual education. Reigning bilingual education theory holds that children need to master reading and writing in their native language before moving on to English. In practice, this means that children in California are purposefully held back from learning English as quickly as they can. For instance, a report last year by the Educational Research Cooperative at the University of California, Riverside, concluded that kids who do not speak English need 10 years to achieve native fluency in writing, reading and speaking English. This is absurd.
Young children can learn in a year or two.
Teenagers take longer, but to say they need ten years is saying that a child who comes to the United States as a freshman needs a decade to graduate from high school. No wonder Hispanic parents are upset. They want their kids to learn English fast. But the answer is to fix bilingual education, not throw it out altogether. In a more sensible world, one in which bilingual education was not politicized by opponents or proponents, there would not have been a need for Proposition 227.