Oregon Voters Reject Measure Limiting Bilingual Education

11/4/2008 PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Voters have rejected Ballot Measure 58 proposing a limit to how much time public school students can spend in English as a Second Language classes and prohibit teaching public school students in a language other than English.

The vote was failing by a margin of 54% No to 46% Yes.

If passed, the measure would have required non-English speaking students to learn English within two years.

The measure was sponsored by Bill Sizemore, who said limiting students time in English as a Second Language classes would encourage them to learn English faster. Sizemore, Oregon's most prolific initiative activist, had five measures on the Nov. 4 ballot. Opponents claimed the measure imposes a "one-size-fits-all" standard on students.

Supporters said the measure, which would have limited teaching English learners in their native language to one year in elementary school or two years in high school, would spur schools to work harder to teach students to read and write English as soon as they enter school.

Opponents argued that the measure was a crude, one-size-fits-all approach without any educators endorsements. Teaching students to read and write in their first language, an approach used with only 15 percent of Oregon's English learners, has proven to help students become stronger readers and writers in English in the long run.

There are more than 60,000 non-English speaking students in Oregon's public schools. Most speak Spanish.

Mary Ann Zehr, an assistant editor at Education Week, suggests that a favorable political climate for bilingual education programs could be coming, given the fact that the American people have chosen Sen. Barack Obama as president-elect. He has publicly endorsed transitional bilingual education, an education method where students are taught some subjects in their native language while learning English.

The Oregon Chapter of the Institute for Language and Education Policy was credited with leading the successful opposition to the initiative.