Children's groups are praising Gov. Gavin Newsom after his administration added $10 million for English Learner programs to the state budget. Supporters say the issue affects 25% of the state’s public-school students. KVCR’s Benjamin Purper has more.
One in four public-school students in California is an English learner – and now programs to help them become more fluent will be funded to the tune of 10 million dollars.
The Newsom administration has agreed to add those funds to the current budget – and lawmakers will then hold until next year a bill that would fund bilingual programs going forward.
Efrain Mercado with the nonprofit Children Now, says the money would be used to implement Prop 58 – the Global Education Initiative – which was a reversal of the Prop 227 English-only approach from the nineties.
| "We used to think that students had to have English-only instruction in their main classrooms and then they would be pulled out for special sheltered classes. Today, it's much more integrated." |
Mercado hopes the program will improve the graduation rate for English learners, which stands at just under 71 percent, compared with 85-point-one percent in the general student population.
Benjamin Purper, Empire KVCR News.