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Wednesday, June 6, 2001

At age 32, Unz, already founder of a Silicon Valley software firm, ran for the 1994 GOP nomination for governor and picked up a respectable one-third of the primary vote against well-entrenched incumbent Pete Wilson.

Unz then made his mark by originating Proposition 227, a 1998 California initiative calling for the outlawing of bilingual schooling and its replacement with a one-year "sheltered immersion" program to teach English to immigrant students. It passed with 61 percent of the vote.

Last year, he backed a similar initiative in Arizona, which was approved by 63 percent of the voters.

In a telephone interview, UPI discussed the educational basics underlying his movement and where it's headed next.

Q. Isn't your crusade anti-immigrant?

A. That's just silly. Nearly all the people involved in the effort have a strong pro-immigrant background. According to polls, it's overwhelmingly supported by immigrants themselves (and everyone else); and it clearly benefits immigrant education. If it helps immigrants and the immigrants want it, how can it be anti-immigrant?

Q. Won't immigrant kids fall behind in other subjects besides English if they aren't taught in their own language?

A. The vast majority of the students involved enter school when they're just 5 or 6, and at that age, it just takes a few months to learn English. Then, they can learn all their subjects along with all the other students.

Q. Do younger children learn English faster?

A. I think there's overwhelming evidence everywhere in the United States and all over the world. In fact, it seems to me that if you ask voters that question, I'd guess that probably about 98 percent would say that children learn faster than adults. The only people who would say otherwise are the ones who have read the bilingual textbooks, which argue exactly the opposite.

Q. Is this facility at learning a second language related to the fact that young children can so easily learn one language in the first place?

A. Yes, human brains at a young age are designed or wired up for language acquisition. And that's what all the neurological science indicates. It's also what every ordinary person in the world believes, but it's contrary to the theory of the bilingual academics.

In fact, the interesting thing about it is that even most of the supporters of bilingual education, like the politicians, are really very surprised when they find out that the theory they're supporting believes that the older you are, the easier it is to learn another language. They think that sounds very strange.

Q. Does bilingual education's dragging out of the number of years a student is being taught in Spanish, for example, have an impact on the student's eventual accent?

A. I haven't actually seen any direct scientific studies on that question, but, yes, there seems to be considerable evidence that children who learn another language before about puberty tend to learn it without an accent, while afterwards, removing your accent seems to be a lot more difficult.

Q. Is your educational innovation working out in California?

A. The first round of tests in California showed that, on average, the test scores of over 1 million immigrant students in California had gone up by 40 percent in mean percentile terms. And what's most interesting is that those school districts that generally tried to avoid or circumvent the initiative ended up showing little improvement in test scores.

While on the other hand, those school districts that most strictly and completely enforced the elimination of bilingual programs tended to double their test scores.

Q. Child psychologist Judith Rich Harris, author of "The Nurture Assumption," says that immigrant children only really want to want to learn English when it's the language spoken on the playground. Otherwise, it's just another boring thing to learn like all the state capitals. With the huge number of immigrants pouring into the country, aren't a large number of immigrant kids attending schools where almost all the kids on the playground were raised speaking Spanish?

A. I don't know about her research, but English is the language of most television shows, movies, music, and better jobs for their parents. This certainly provides a huge incentive to learn English, and children know this.

Politicians Fail to Give Support

Q. Are you getting much support from professional politicians?

A. Just about none so far. And it is sort of surprising since the polls seem to show it having about 80 percent support. And normally when something has 80 percent support you would think at least some politician somewhere would jump on board, but so far, I can't think of one anywhere.

And you know the other disappointing fact is that the Republican-controlled Senate apparently just voted to quadruple the budget for bilingual education. So, it seems they certainly feel strongly about it, but they're headed in the wrong direction as far as I can see.

Q. What was George W. Bush's stand when he was governor of Texas?

A. Oh, he's in favor of bilingual education. Texas has the largest remaining bilingual programs in the country now that the ones in California have pretty much disappeared.

Q. Following California and Arizona, where will you be involved next?

A. I'm moving forward very strongly in Colorado, and I'm making a major effort in New York City as well. And now it appears that Massachusetts seems to be heating up on the whole issue. And also, even though I haven't really talked with anybody there, there seems to be a big controversy going on in Oregon. So, it's really quite a few states.

Q. Do some white parents like bilingual education because it segregates immigrant kids in separate classrooms, away from their children?

A. Although this is a touchy point, there does seem to be some anecdotal evidence that it's sometimes true. Under this analysis, bilingual ed represents mandatory racial segregation, which makes it even stranger that it's become part of liberal orthodoxy.

Q. Will you operate through referendums?

A. Massachusetts does have the initiative process. New York state does not, so probably my main line of attack will be through the courts, putting together a legal challenge to a previous court order from about 30 years ago. It requires students in New York who are Hispanic to be taught in Spanish, so it's a fairly extreme measure, and it's never been fully enforced … because it's crazy. It's crazy to not teach children in English and teach them entirely in Spanish just because they're Hispanic.

Q. Does it take into account what their home language is?

A. That seems unclear. In other words, it's interpreted by different schools differently, but it certainly does seem to go a lot farther than bilingual programs anywhere else in the country.

Q. Where do want your movement to go after these next states?

A. New York is a political center and certainly the media center, so events there might help drive a national debate on the issue and nationalize the whole matter.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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