When the Proposition 227 "English Only" initiative was put to California voters in 1998, proponents said the goals of the measure were to teach English to language-minority students as quickly as possible, to reduce drop-out rates among immigrant children and to increase literacy and economic and social advancement.

But a team of University of California researchers says that almost two years after its passage (61% to 39%) in June 1998 and introduction on Aug. 3, 1998 at the expense of bilingual education, the initiative has contributed little to California classrooms but confusion, inconsistency and frustration over its implementation.

"There’s just tremendous confusion out there," said Patricia Gandara, a UC Davis education professor, who said the ultimate victims of such disorder are the state’s language minority students. ‘The worst thing one could say about bilingual education was that it provided inconsistent education for children. I think what we’ve done is made it five times worse than it used to be. When you have this kind of inconsistency, it makes it real hard to learn."

Gandara and her team studied the implementation of Prop. 227 in 16 school districts and 25 schools throughout the state. Their report, "The Initial Impact of Proposition 227 on the Instruction of English Learners," was produced by the Education Policy Center at UC Davis and the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute based at UC Santa Barbara.

Several factors contribute to the confusion and inconsistency, Gandara said.

First of all, the policies of Proposition 227 leave much open to interpretation and are not well understood by administrators, teachers or parents, the report said. Yet the measure leaves educators who willfully and repeatedly refuse to follow the law open to be individually sued. Teachers told researchers again and again of their fear of such action. In light of the vague policies, what would happen if they used forbidden practices or materials? What would happen if they failed to meet some expectation of the new policy? Some parents told researchers they worried they might be in violation of the law if they spoke to their children’s teachers in a language other than English.

Another reason policy regarding implementation of Proposition 227 varied widely, the report noted, is because policy was developed and administered at different levels in different districts and schools. In some, the district office developed a district-wide policy. In others, school principals developed the policy. In yet other cases, each teacher in the school was left to develop a policy all their own.

Such inconsistency and confusion could have been predicted, Gandara said, since they follow closely behavior predicted by the "top-down" style of administration where policy is forced upon unimpressed layers of workers and middle management by top-level bosses. In their report, Gandara et al write that, "Many researchers contend that, at least so far, top-down policy such as that prescribed by Proposition 227 has proven to be an extremely flawed instrument for constructing new policy."

Under the new policy mandated by Proposition 227, the number of English learners getting instruction in a primary language has fallen from 29 percent to 12 percent, the report found.

Taking effect at about the same time as Proposition 227 were regulations requiring standardized testing of all California students who have been in school for at least 12 months. These regulations and the sanctions they require against schools whose students do poorly on the tests, have played a major role in shaping the way minority language students are taught English, the report says. Emphasis in many schools has switched from teaching such children English to teaching them vocabulary words and pronunciation skills necessary to pass statewide tests without teaching them to read, write and speak English. Some teachers told researchers they felt great pressure to follow this course.

Researchers noted that another effect of Proposition 227 was a decreased value placed on bilingual teachers. Some districts said they would no longer recruit credentialed bilingual teachers, the report said. This seems a step in the wrong direction to the researchers, who noted in their report that "in the schools we observed, large percentages of teachers were under-equipped to teach in any classroom, let alone in a classroom of students whose knowledge of English was extremely limited."

The report expressed confidence that California educators would continue to try to adapt to Proposition 227 and make it work. Researchers were less confident the result would help language minority children learn English and obtain an education that is the equal of English-speaking children.

"People and systems will adapt over time to practices that are workable within their contexts," the report said. "It remains to be seen whether these adaptations will better serve English learners."

"The Initial Impact of Proposition 227 on the Instruction of English Learners" is available in its entirety at the UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute website http://lmrinet.ucsb.edu.