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From http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/education/eye-on-education/article35342145.html

Support growing for bilingual classrooms
By Mackenzie Mays
September 18, 2015

Fresno State professor Laura Alamillo’s office is filled with … bilingual books – tools she says encompass the best way to teach English learners – but you won’t find them in most classrooms.

That’s because Proposition 227, passed in 1998, changed the way public schools in California teach English learners. The law requires that those students be taught primarily in English – eliminating most bilingual classrooms and intensifying an urgency to make students “English proficient” as soon as possible.

The English-only requirement can be waived at a parent’s request. But there is no guarantee that a district would have room in its bilingual program for every student. Meanwhile, districts have been criticized over the years for downplaying the exemption instead of promoting it.

But the California Multilingual Education Act, on the 2016 ballot, could change that. The proposed measure would repeal parts of Prop. 227, expanding classes where teachers use languages other than English to promote biliteracy.

Read the full article here: http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/education/eye-on-education/article35342145.html