(2007-03-08) California Bilingual Education

In California, voters [approved](http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read Article.asp?ID=2718) (in 1997?) an initiative to end traditional Bi Lingual education programs. Under the theory that non-English speakers require a "transition" into English fluency, educators assigned elementary students to bilingual education programs. The problem? After languishing in bilingual education for six to seven years - or even longer - only five percent of kids "transition" to mainstream English classes in any given year... Los Angeles school district bureaucrat ForrestRoss predicted catastrophe - the mass failure among Latino students. He even suggested that these kids might lose their ability to speak to their own parents... Two years after the initiative passed, the former "bilingual education" kids saw their second-grade test scores in English increase 9 percentage points, going from the 19th percentile to the 28th percentile in national rankings. In math, the second-graders saw an increase of 14 points, from the 27th percentile to the 41st. (Educating Kids)