It seems like just yesterday, but are we really celebrating the 10th anniversary of the successful campaign to pass the Proposition 227 to end bilingual education in California in favor of English immersion programs? The campaign we called English for the Children.
It seems like just yesterday when I got a phone call from my friend and political mentor at the time Lorelei Kinder. Lorelei, who is passionate about the education issue (I can still her rolling quotes from her friend and senior education official in the latter part of the Reagan Administration, Chester “Checker” Finn, off of her tongue). Lorelei asked me if I would be interested leaving my position (at the time I was a special assistant to then State Senator John Lewis) and go to work as the Campaign Coordinator for the fledgling Prop. 227 effort. I took her up on the idea, and soon found myself having a meeting with the impressive genius (literally) of this ballot measure campaign – successful Silicon Valley Entrepreneur Ron Unz. It was amazing to hear him tell the story about how so many children in California were unable to learn fluent English because of a bilingual education bureaucracy that thrived on keeping these kids speaking Spanish. I was hooked.
In short order, I found myself commuting from Orange County to the Garment District just off of Downtown Los Angeles where I shared a store-front office with a new friend, Sheri Annis, the only other full time employee of the effort – Sheri’s job was coordinating all of the media and public relations for the campaign – ultimately her role, working closely with Ron Unz, was critical as Proposition 227 by and large received a tremendous amount of positive ink which lead to its overwhelming victory, 61% in favor to 39% against. We did have an several interns – Leah, Alicia, and Ben, who were in the office a lot (he still owes me my Frank Sinatra Greatest Hits CD), and Ron was down quite a bit himself (he lives in Palo Alto).
Ron provided some amazing leadership on that campaign, as well as access to his very deep pockets as he personally financed most of the effort. And I certainly can’t mention Ron without also giving due recognition to Gloria Matta Tuchman, the articulate ESL teacher from the Santa Ana Unified School District who had been waging the battle against bilingual education for a long, long time, and who was immensely helpful. Gloria was the Co-Chairman of the campaign, and she went on to be the Republican candidate against incumbent State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin in 1998. Lorelei Kinder’s role with the campaign, and for my part, her very patient work with me, was quite invaluable. She continues to play a key role in various good works, from her place in the country.
There are so many people and moments I recall from the campaign. One of the highlights was the chance to meet and spend some time with famed math teacher Jaime Escalante, who was courted by Ron and agreed to serve as Honorary Chairman of the English for the Children campaign. Also it a lot of fun to work on this effort with Sister Alice Callaghan, Callaghan who founded Las Familias del Pueblo as a community center for garment workers and their children. I remember thinking that I probably don’t agree with Alice, politically, on anything — except this. But, there we were!
It was a small campaign team (as far as I know, that year anyways, we were the only statewide initiative campaign to shut down our offices for the Jewish High Holidays so Sheri and I could both get to our respective synagogues) — but it was a worthwhile effort. Knowing that we all made a difference for hundreds of thousands of children is a big deal. Ron, Gloria, Sheri, Lorelei, Sister Alice, Alicia, Leah, Ben, Escalante, pollster Arnie Steinberg, TV spot producer Don Dornan, printer Vince Monaco, Angelo Paparella and Eric Hacopian with Progressive Campaigns (they coordinated the paid signature gathering effort), Bay Area activist Fernando Vega, Doug Lasken from Los Angeles, Rosie Avila from Santa Ana, and education policy expert Lanci Izumi with the Pacific Research Institute who pens an accompanying column that appears in the FlashReport today.. Also, we got a lot of legal assistant from Manny Klausner, the Skadden Arps firm, and the Pacific Legal Foundation. My apologies to those I am missing — a decade fades the memory just a bit.
I will close by, years later, heaping once again much praise on Ron Unz. He, in every way, was the English for the Children campaign. It was his vision, his idea, his passion, his energy, his resources, and his dedication to helping children be a part of the melting-pot that is America that ensured our success from the very outset. Ron kept out campaign on message, about how the campaign was about the children. This proved to be critical, especially since our opponents (the bilingual education industry on the left, and, to my chagrin, most of the political establishment — including 1998 GOP Gubernatorial nominee Dan Lungren and then-President Bill Clinton) wanted to paint the measure as somehow being anti-latino. They were ultimately unsuccessful. Ron went on to bring the English for the Children effort to other states…
Happy Anniversary Proposition 227!
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