The Detrimental Effect of an Education in a Foreign Language California passed a proposition in 1997 that ended funding for teaching children solely in their native language. Instead of these programs, opulent citizens will provide funding for the Englishas a Second Language (ESL) program in California's public schools. These ESL classes will have non-native speakers learnsubjects in English and their native language simultaneously. Even though the proposition passed, the issue of which plan is morebeneficial continues to spark debate. On the one hand, ethnic groups say the law is unjust because their children cannotunderstand English. They argue that their children need to be taught in their native tongue. Most tax-paying residents ofCalifornia endorse the new standard because their tax money is being used for their child's education, and not being used forteaching children in another language. Results are evident even though the ESL program has been used for only two years. TheESL method is more effective because of the removal of flaws such as unnecessary costs to the taxpayer, slower advancementin grade level, and the detrimental effect to education in California. The primary fault of the old system was that Californiataxpayers were not receiving fair representation. In general, most taxpayers were English speaking, and Heda 2 consequentlywanted English to be the language that was used in their schools. Most of the immigrant parents were in California legally butnot paying taxes. Even though they were not paying for services such as a police force or fire protection, they still felt entitled tosend their children to public school. Since their children did not speak English, they wanted school to be taught only in theirnative language. However, it remains unjust that people who do not pay taxes have any say in how the educational system isconducted. Fortunately, the ESL plan eliminated all forms of public funding for teaching non-n...
