This week Education Week published a story examining California’s Proposition 58, a ballot proposal that would undo nearly two decades of restrictions on bilingual education in the state’s public schools.
The upcoming vote has reignited a passionate debate over how to best educate California’s 1.4 million English-learners. Residents head to the polls Tuesday, Nov. 8, to decide the issue.
Despite the ban on bilingual education in the state, biliteracy is on the rise there and, for years, educators have used loopholes to teach students in languages other than English. A ‘yes’ vote on Prop. 58 would essentially serve as a death knell for Prop. 227, a 1998 proposal that mandated English-only education for the states’ English-language learners.
Here’s a look at the arguments for and against Proposition 58 as outlined by proponents and opponents.
Photo Credit: Eriselda Hernandez, right, reads with Fernanda Arana, 6, before school begins at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, Calif. The school’s weekly Madre a Madre meetings help bring parents into the school regularly to support children’s literacy development. --Preston Gannaway/GRAIN for Education Week