Six Years After It Was "Abolished" In California, Fighting Over Bilingual Education Continues

Six years after California voters overwhelmingly passed (by a margin of 61%-39%) an initiative to abolish bilingual education, the fight over bilingual education continues. The somewhat right-leaning San Diego Union Tribune has an excellent piece in yesterday's edition that gives an excellent overview regarding a discredited (and rejected) notion that the educational bureaucracy just won't allow to die. There are simply too many administrative "make-work" jobs at stake.

In the EdWonk's own medium-sized school district, nearly all of the teachers that once taught in bilingual classrooms have either retired, or been transferred to English-only assignments.

The district's bureaucracy, on the other hand, is a different story. Not only is there still a well-paid district-level "Bilingual Coordinator" (salary: $98,000) the coordinator's staff has actually increased in size. Since there are only one or two bilingual classrooms (out of 346 teaching assignments) left in the district, what this coordinator does on a day-to-day basis is a mystery to many.

It is known that the coordinator goes on a lot of "overnight travel" on district business to various conventions and retreats.