US Presidential candidates divided on bilingual education

[Harold Schiffman]

Presidential candidates divided on bilingual education

By MARIO AGUIRRE
Hispanic Link
Friday, November 30, 2007

What is your candidate's position, if any, on bilingual education?

That's the question posed by Hispanic Link News Service to the 17
politicians competing in the presidential primaries that begin Jan. 5.
 So far the issue hasn't become as visible or volatile as in the past,
when major drives to make English this nation's "official" language
and to eliminate bilingual education in a number of states were
political hot buttons. But based on attacks on immigrant rights,
"amnesty" and in-state college tuition, it could emerge again as one
in 2008.  All five Democrats who have framed positions on the subject
- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and
Chris Dodd - responded to Hispanic Link with expressions of strong
support. Richardson saw it as an essential "equal education"
guarantee.

Republican candidates were either silent or negative on the subject.
Both who had positions on the pedagogy - Tom Tancredo and Mitt Romney
- opposed it. Tancredo stated unequivocally, "Classes should be in
English only."  Romney aide Alex Burgos couched his response, saying
Romney supports English immersion as the "best method."  At the same
time, the former Massachusetts governor was bragging to cheering
supporters in Iowa that in 2002, "I fought for and got a ballot
initiative passed ending bilingual education."
Former National Association for Bilingual Education chief James
Crawford, now president of the Institute for Language and Education
Policy, reacted, "You definitely have to put him down in the 'con'
column."  Crawford speculated that other Republican candidates may not
want to "alienate Latino voters any more than they have" as the reason
why only two of the nine GOP candidates responded to Hispanic Link's
inquiry.

"If they take a position favoring bilingual education, they'll get
hammered by the right-wingers and their own party," he said. "The
easiest thing to do is duck the issue." Univision TV news anchor Maria
Elena Salinas suggested to Hispanic Link that past controversies have
made some candidates wary - at least early on, until the campaigns
test the waters of public opinion and conduct further research.
"Anything you say can and will be used against you," she said. "You
have to be careful. The moment you give a different position later on,
you're called for flip-flopping."  Long-time political analyst Andy
Hernandez, based in Austin, Texas, added a warning to Republicans. So
long as they oppose or continue to avoid such issues that are
supported by Latinos, they will be "driving another nail in the
coffin," sending the message they "don't care enough about the Latino
vote."

Here are summaries of responses received on candidates' stances.

HILLARY CLINTON: "Senator Clinton supports the notion that children
will learn more efficiently by being taught in their native language
while learning English at the same time." - Fabiola
Rodrmguez-Ciampoli, Clinton campaign's Hispanic communications
director.

BILL RICHARDSON: "Bilingual education is a part of guaranteeing equal
education for all American students." - deputy communication director
Katie Roberts, quoting the candidate.

CHRIS DODD: "As a bilingual Spanish speaker himself, Sen. Dodd has
long been very supportive of bilingual education." - campaign
spokesperson Colleen Flanagan.

JOHN EDWARDS: "We're for bilingual education." - political director
David Medina.

BARACK OBAMA: "Obama believes the federal government should be doing
more to encourage transitional bilingual education." - e-mail reply
from his campaign.

MITT ROMNEY: "He believes immersion is the best method for learning
the English language." - spokesman Alex Burgos.

TOM TANCREDO: "He thinks that classes should be in English only. He
thinks English should be the official language in the U.S. and
everything should be printed in English." - press secretary Alan
Moore.

Campaign staffers of Democrats Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and Mike
Gravel and Republicans Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Ron
Paul and Duncan Hunter said they would respond but even after a week
of prompting, none did so. Attempts to obtain responses from the
campaigns of other GOP candidates were also unsuccessful.

(Mario Aguirre is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in
Washington, D.C. Reach him at Mario(at)hispaniclink.org.)

http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/28720

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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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