thern California, where majority votes in San Francisco and Alameda Counties were against 227, Spanish-language instruction continued in many individual schools almost unabated, throughout 1998. In October of that year, a representative of Oakland's school district said that "we feel that bilingual education works" and that bilingual graduates were doing all right after leaving school (Terry, 1999). Well into 1999, that trend continued. in such subjects as reading, writing, mathematics, and science, supplemented by approximately one hour of English-language-specific instruction per day (Wildavsky, 1999). The sponsor of Proposition 227, Ron Unz, accused school districts in both San Francisco and Los Angeles of failing to comply with both letter and spirit of the new law.
Although the national debate over bilingual education has persisted since the passage of 227, the weight of evidence since 1998 seems very much on the side of the view that such large school districts as Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) have not suffered to an appreciable degree. Despite continued advocacy for bilingual education, not merely as originally envisioned by the 1968 Bilingual Education Act, which provided $7.5 million for bilingual education for poor immigrant children whose first language was not English, but in the shape of massive, schoolwide programs aimed accommodating LEP students, there is a widespread view among experts that the expanded programs have not been helpful to either school systems that implemented them or to students enrolled in them. To see why, it is important to understand the fundamental concept that drove the 1968 Act and that, presumably, continues to inform bilingual programs:
In simplest terms, bilingual education is a special effort to help immigrant children learn English so that they can do regular schoolwork with their English-speaking classmates and receive an equal educational opportunity. But what it is in t...