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 hile
most Americans have been transfixed by the terrifying prospect of
massive deaths from anthrax or suicide bombers, a few in our society
fear an even greater horror: the fanatic defenders of Spanish-almost-always
instruction see their doom in an "English" initiative
heading toward the November 2002 Massachusetts ballot.
Although the
vote on "English" is over a year away and our signature
drive not even yet completed, well over 400 such fervent Boston
area bilingual partisans jammed themselves into Harvard University's
Askwith auditorium last week for a debate on the measure. The standing-room-only
crowd came to cheer their champion, Shattuck Professor of Education
Catherine Snow, one of America's foremost bilingual theorists, and
curse their personal bin Laden, yours truly.
For me, the
debate brought back many fond memories from our 1998 California
campaign for Proposition 227: the universally hostile intensity
of the large crowd, the assorted protest signs, the "No on
Unz" armbands, and the almost identical arguments made by Prof.
Snow against our Massachusetts initiative. This last point seemed
rather odd, since while consistency in public position might ordinarily
be considered praiseworthy, factual reality has changed enormously
over the past three years.
In particular,
the test scores of over one million immigrant students in California
have risen by more than 50% since 1998, with those school districts
most rigorously embracing Prop. 227 having actually doubled their
academic performance. And since these remarkable results had been
highlighted by a front-page lead story in the New York Times
and similar stories in the Boston Globe and almost every
other major media outlet in America, I had expected such facts to
have reached even the cloistered denizens of the Harvard Faculty
Club.
When I queried
my opponent on the matter of these test scores, she responded that,
while a 50% rise in test scores of over one million students after
less than two years was "interesting," she was uncertain
whether such results were statistically significant, and suggested
that a scientifically controlled fifteen-year longitudinal study
be undertaken to answer this question. The professor then pointed
to the five books on bilingual education that she had brought along
to the debate, claimed that they proved the success of the program,
and suggested that such books should carry far more weight than
anything that had recently happened to the test scores of a million
students in California.
Even more determinative
was her response to my accusation that bilingual education was largely
based on the bizarre theory that the older you are, the easier it
is to learn another language, with adults being best at new language
acquisition and small children having the most difficult time. Since
Professor Snow was in fact the originator of this unusual theory,
she courageously defended it, again citing her books as proof. At
these statements, a small hush of unhappy disbelief settled over
many of the most vigorous bilingual proponents in the audience.
Once upon a
time, a Harvard professor of Theoretical Reality developed an exciting
new theory that rocks fall upward. Although numerous illiterate
bricklayers and drunken carpenters disagreed with this conclusion,
their opinions counted for nothing in the academic world, where
PhD's and endowed chairs are the keepers of truth. And as the years
went on, that Harvard professor's students and disciples and colleagues
propagated her views on the upward falling of rocks far and wide
in their books, articles, and lectures.
Eventually,
congressional hearings were held and new federal safety ordinances
drafted. It was required that all houses be securely anchored in
solid bedrock to prevent them from flying into the sky, and that
all students in school learn their lessons while standing on their
heads lest they injure themselves while falling into the ceiling.
Over the past
30 years, many millions of young immigrant students in America have
been required to learn their lessons while standing on their heads,
and many of them have had their educations and their lives destroyed
as a consequence. History will not be kind to the individuals who
brought this policy about, nor to those whose cowardly and silent
acquiescence allowed it to continue.
A few weeks
ago, Americans witnessed the enormous devastation that a small handful
of fanatically committed individuals can wreak upon society. Perhaps
it is now time for ordinary Americans to be willing to take a stand
against those similarly tiny groups of educational terrorists in
our midst, whose disastrous policies are enforced upon us not by
bombs or even by knives, but simply by their high-pitched voices.
Americans must remain silent no longer.
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