Page 37 - The Edge - Fall 2019
P. 37

ARIZONA CAPITOL TIMES CONTRIBUTING ARTICLE

               BY DILLON ROSENBLATT

               English immersion repeal priority of schools chief, Dems, GOP

              Reyna Montoya was a math whiz, but she didn’t speak English   it work with my schedule … so I felt discouraged that all that seemed
            when she was 13.                                       to matter about me wasn’t that I was good at math, but that I could
              Neither did the kid from Russia who sat beside her four hours a   not speak English,” Montoya said.
            day, nor the one from China nor the one from Afghanistan.      e days of English immersion may be numbered as Democratic
              She and her classmates were there together because of Proposition   Superintendent of Public Instruction Kathy Ho  man plans to make
            203, which banned bi-lingual education in favor of an “English  repealing the voter-approved law a legislative priority in 2020.    e
            immersion” approach.                                   Legislature’s Democratic Caucus has also made a repeal one of its top
              Republicans and civic groups backed the 2000 ballot measure,   priorities and Republicans are also on board.
            saying that by forcing non-English speakers to speak English – and   Ho  man came close last year to getting a full repeal of the English-
            only English – in school, would allow them to pick up the language   only education law referred to the 2020 ballot, but the measure
            faster.                                                sponsored by Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, fell short.
              It was an argument that many voters intuitively understood. But it      e House approved Fillmore’s HCR 2026 on a 59-1 vote, and it
            hasn’t been backed up by the data.                       ew through the Senate Education Committee unanimously. But in
              Montoya, the 28-year-old founder of Aliento, a community   the waning hours of the legislative session, the repeal was left to die,
            organization that helps undocumented kids, said being forced into  never receiving a full Senate vote.
            the four-hour English-immersion bloc kept her from moving into   Still, lawmakers backed serious reforms to the English-only policy.
            an honors math class at the suggestion of her teacher, and it put her   SB1014, sponsored by Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale, quickly made it
            behind in all her other studies.
              “I was really good at math, but because of the bloc I couldn’t make                CONTINUED ON PAGE 38











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            FALL 2019  |  THE EDGE                                                                                   37
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