There is an underlying believe in long held social liberal thought that holds a not-so-hidden insidious form of racism. They feel deeply inside that their paternalist attitude is required because Mexicans are inferior mentally. They cannot learn English.
The other side of bilingualism is a power and money struggle that demands political control over Mexicans in America, native or not. It segregates them from mainstream society to make them, in effect, helpless and dependent wards of the state.
Rising test scores vindicate English immersion in California—but Hispanics are still struggling.
In 1998, Californians voted to pass Proposition 227, the “English for the Children Act,” and dismantle the state’s bilingual-education industry. The results, according to California’s education establishment, were not supposed to look like this: button-cute Hispanic pupils at a Santa Ana elementary school boasting about their English skills to a visitor. Those same pupils cheerfully calling out to their principal on their way to lunch: “Hi, Miss Champion!” A statewide increase in English proficiency among all Hispanic students.
Instead, warned legions of educrats, eliminating bilingual education in California would demoralize Hispanic students and widen the achievement gap. Unless Hispanic children were taught in Spanish, the bilingual advocates moaned, they would be unable to learn English or to succeed in other academic subjects.
California’s electorate has been proved right: Hispanic test scores on a range of subjects have risen since Prop. 227 became law. But while the curtailment of California’s bilingual-education industry has removed a significant barrier to Hispanic assimilation, the persistence of a Hispanic academic underclass suggests the need for further reform.
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