Chicago
Bilingual-education advocates, stung by recent assaults from critics both inside and outside the Reagan Administration, are considering ways to mount a counterattack.
Leaders of the National Association of Bilingual Education said last week that they are preparing to expand their political activities—perhaps by forming a political-action committee—and to intensify their public-relations efforts to win support for bilingual education.
“We want to set the record straight on bilingual education,” Gene T. Chavez, president of NABE, told reporters prior to the opening of the association’s 15th annual conference here.
“Too often, bilingual programs are misunderstood and misrepresented,” he said. ''We want to show the American public what works and what is positive about bilingual programs.”
Diverse Approaches
Mr. Chavez introduced a panel of educators who described a diversity of bilingual approaches that have succeeded with limit- I ed-English-proficient children, as measured by pupils’ improved test scores, enhanced self-confidence, academic honors, and college scholarships. Some panelists read testimonial letters from students.
NABE plans to repeat the presentation for other groups, including potential corporate supporters of bilingual education, Mr. Chavez said.
The conference also featured a well-attended workshop on “The Demythification of Bilingual Education.” Led by Ramon L. Santiago of Georgetown University, the session focused on how to explain bilingual education to parents, school-district officials, corporations, and the media. “Ignorance of successful programs,” Mr. Chavez said, is one reason for the support Secretary of Education William J. Bennett has received in his efforts to increase federal funding for alternatives to bilingual instruction.
But “those who think this country can only tolerate one language” are motivated less by educational arguments than by politics, Mr. Chavez said. He was referring to organizations such as U.S. English, founded in 1983 by former U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa, which seeks to make English the official language at the national, state, and local levels.
Political Action
To counter such threats to bilingual education, Mr. Chavez said later in an interview, the NABE board is exploring a change in tax status that would allow the group to expand its lobbying and to sponsor a political-action committee as a way of funneling campaign contributions to its allies in the Congress. A decision on the proposal, while not imminent, will be made in the next year, he predicted.
NABE is currently a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization that may spend only a small percentage of its budget on efforts to influence legislation.
Although bilingual educators are often portrayed as a powerful special interest in Washington, NABE will spend less than $200,000 this year, according to Mr. Chavez, mostly on the annual conference, publications, and technical assistance.
Historically, NABE has resisted an active political role, Mr. Santiago said. “Many of us draw back and say, 1’m an educator, not a politician.’ But ultimately, the solution to this educational problem is political. .. . It’s a matter of empowerment.”
Mobilizing Grassroots Support
“There’s lots of grassroots support for bilingual education out there,” Mr. Chavez added. “We want to mobilize it and tell our story.”
Much of that story counters Mr. Bennett’s statements on bilingual education, he and others said.
Th rebut the criticism that school districts now lack flexibility in meeting the needs of LEP students, the bilingual educators’ panel stressed the diversity of programs they administer.
“You can’t put children in a box,” said Ligaya Avenida, director of bilingual programs that serve 20,000 of San Francisco’s 65,000 students. She described a variety of programs to which 60,000 LEP students are assigned each year by a “multilingual intake center,” based on students’ proficiency in both English and their native language.
Students who arrive with limited skills, for example, are placed in “newcomer centers,” where they receive intensive language instruction before entering transitional bilingual or English-as-a-second-language programs. Also, the district offers Spanish immersion and is considering an immersion program in Mandarin, Ms. Avenida said.
Secretary Bennett is wrong to claim “that we’re trying to impose on students one way of bilingual instruction,” said Josue M. Gonzalez, a Chicago administrator who will succeed Mr. Chavez as NABE president next year.
It is “hypocritical” of the Secretary, Mr. Gonzalez charged, to call for the funding of alternative methods under Title VII of the Bilingual Education Act, while advocating no such “flexibility” under Chapter 1 remedial services. The latter grants support no native-language instruction for LEP students.
Mr. Gonzalez, who headed the Education Department’s office of bilingual education and minority languages affairs under the Carter Administration, charged that the Secretary’s intent is to “phase out” the program. Funding ineffective programs is “a set-up” to provide a justification for doing so, he argued.
Mr. Bennett has repeatedly denied this charge. He has cited the Administration’s proposal to continue funding bilingual education next year at the 1986 level of $143 million, while proposing cuts averaging 14 percent for other education programs.
Invitations Declined
No Education Department representative, however, was on hand to join the debate.
In a letter to NABE officers, Mr. Bennett declined an invitation to speak, citing a scheduling conflict, and proposed that Carol Pendas Whitten, director of OBEMLA, address the conference in his stead. When NABE asked Ms. Whitten to attend but not to speak, she declined.
OBEMLA sent no other representatives to the conference, although an Education Department public-affairs official attended as an observer.
Mr. Gonzalez accused the department of entering into “an unholy alliance” with groups that oppose bilingual education, such as U.S. English, Save Our Schools, and The Heritage Foundation. Mr. Bennett and Ms. Whitten are eager to meet with these groups, but not with NABE, he charged.
