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The Language Rights for Children Coalition of Western
Massachusetts Presents
Donaldo Macedo
Speaking About
"Educating
Linguistic Minority Children: Language
Rights and Human Dignity"
WHEN: Thursday, October 24 at 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: UMASS Amherst, Campus Center, Room 174
This event is open to the public
This event was made possible
by a grant from the Solidago Foundation Inc. and is co-sponsored
by the Massachusetts National Association
of Multicultural Education, Region One
"The Massachusetts English-Only Initiative:
Politics vs. Pedagogy"
Presented by James Crawford
The Language Rights for Children Coalition of Western
Massachusetts welcomes
James Crawford who will be speaking about the upcoming initiative
that would
effectively do away with the state's existing bilingual education
system.
Crawford will be speaking Monday, September 23 at 7:00 p.m.
in the Marks Meadow Elementary School auditorium in Amherst.
This event is open to the public.
Similar to other initiatives in California, Arizona
and Colorado, Question 2,
also refered to as the "Unz initiative" threatens to dismantle
the nation's
oldest bilingual education system. If Question 2 passes, among other
things, it
would require bilingual students to be mainstreamed after one year
of sheltered
immersion classes and would include a provision that allows personal
lawsuits to
be brought against teachers, administrators, school committee members,
and other school district employees for any violation of the new
law.
A former editor of "Education Week,"
James Crawford has reported on the
English-Only movment, bilingual education, and language rights since
1985. A
specialist in language policy and the politics of language, Crawford
has written
and lectured extensively on these issues. For information on Crawford
and his
work, visit his "Language Policy Website & Emporium"
website at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD.
Kris Gutierrez (UCLA) talks on aftermath of the Unz initiative in
California.
One of the misconceptions
being spread around Massachusetts by well-funded supporters of the
Unz initiative is that the elimination of bilingual education has
resulted in an increase in the test scores of English Language Learners.
Analyses of these data by respected researchers in California, however,
refute the conclusion drawn by Unz' supporters. Kris will talk about
the various analyses of the test data as well as data she has collected
to find out what is actually going on in classrooms as a result
of this policy change.
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