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Radical Official Tries to Thwart Prop.
227 Test results show that California's kids are learning better in English than they did in old bilingual education programs that were banned by Proposition 227. But you wouldn't know it from the actions of a federal Department of Education official in California. The federal agency, under heavy pressure from the Washington-based Center for Equal Opportunity (headed by former Reagan White House official and U.S.English President Linda Chavez), sent out a national letter in late 1998 explaining that Prop. 227 did not violate any federal civil rights or education laws. The letter from the agency's Washington headquarters was supposed to go to all California school districts; after all, it responded to a California initiative. Instead, Stefan Rosenzweig, the director of the department's West Coast regional office of the Office for Civil Rights, ignored this order and sent out his own instructions. Rosenzweig's letter to California school districts was intended to mislead the schools into thinking that the federal Department of Education would not let them comply with Prop. 227. It's not surprising that Rosenzweig would attempt to undercut the voters' initiative. Before joining the federal agency, Rosenzweig was Executive Director for Public Advocates, Inc., a radical bilingual education litigation organization. Linda Chavez said "clearly, Rosenzweig is pursuing his own agenda. He is a federal official but is behaving more like an advocate for the anti-227 cause." Chavez's organization then sent the original federal agency memorandum to every California school district. Copies of the memo are available from the Center for Equal Opportunity, 815 15th St., N.W., Suite 928, Washington, DC 20005. |
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The
ELPAC Report 