AZ Rep. Cites Funding, Bilingual Education As Top Concerns
Education issues, from school funding to bilingual education, figured prominently in 1998 and will be top policy priorities in 1999 state legislative sessions, notes Arizona State Representative and 1997-98 Flemming Fellow Ramon Valadez. Bilingual education programs, which ensure that students have the opportunity to learn in a variety of languages, have come under particularly heavy attack recently.
There is growing public and legislative interest in education, a trend borne out in recent CPA polls of legislators. Voters and legislators alike recognize the impact education has on a host of other community concerns — from crime and violence to economic development and the eradication of poverty.
Valadez played an integral role in the special session passage of Arizona’s Students FIRST bill (AZ SB 1001) as a member of the legislature’s Ways and Means Committee. The bill aims to assure funding for schools in low-income districts with typically low property taxes. Students FIRST obligates the state to provide a minimum standard of school infrastructure.
Arizona is not alone in tackling the question of how to fund schools. In New Hampshire, the House rejected a Constitutional Amendment that would undo the state Supreme Court’s ruling in the “Claremont” school funding lawsuit. The lawsuit struck down as unconstitutional the state’s overwhelming reliance on property taxes to fund education. In 1998, education reform was a ballot initiative in eight states, notes the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center; only the topics of political reform and tax reform received more attention in referenda.
Another hot education issue is bilingual education. Efforts to eliminate bilingual education programs are on the increase since California’s 1996 passage of such an initiatve.
A ballot initiative eliminating bilingual education will likely be introduced in Arizona, says Valadez. Valadez and other Hispanic legislators in Arizona plan to introduce a bill in the next legislative session that will improve rather than eliminate bilingual education programs. Valadez notes that there is a great deal of confusion in how bilingual education is defined and what it does.
“There’s not a parent in Arizona who doesn’t want his or her child to learn English. Bilingual education is about using cognitive abilities in one language to simultaneously learn a second or third language,” he says. “This isn’t about avoiding learning English, it’s about learning to compete globally.”
The alternative bilingual education bill that Valadez and others will propose seeks to ensure quality bilingual education by requiring certification and compensates bilingual instructors for the additional expertise they must acquire. Valadez notes that there is a popular misconception that bilingual education is tantamount to remedial education rather than language acquisition.
“The voting population is a smart population,” he says. “If they understand what a valuable tool language acquisition is, they’ll support bilingual education.”
