Factors influencing implementation of mandated policy change: Proposition 227 in seven northern California school districts

Bilingual Research Journal, Winter 2000 by Maxwell-Jolly, Julie

Influences on District Response

Community influence on district response

How and why districts decided to pursue particular policies depended on a variety of factors. Tyack & Cuban (1995) identify local political and social climate as important factors influencing local program implementation. McLaughlin cites "local capacity and will" (1987, p. 172). Among the influences we observed and discussed with our informants was the current degree of community support or opposition for certain approaches, the extent to which community members expressed these attitudes, and the history of community attitudes and relations in regard to this issue. We discuss each of these areas separately although they are, of course, inextricably intertwined.

Despite disparate local characteristics, in all three school systems in which district policy unequivocally and actively supported providing parents with the option of a waiver, the communities were strongly supportive of bilingual programs. The mostly white middle class parents in the Elm school district community were vocal proponents of the bilingual dual immersion program. Although their children, whose primary language was English, did not require a waiver to stay in the program, these parents mobilized as soon as the proposition passed. They informed the parents of ELL students at the school about the waiver option and how to pursue it. In this school district, virtually every parent of an ELL student who had been in the bilingual immersion program opted for their child to remain. Maple was an urban district with a history of strong support for bilingual approaches in a few of its school communities. All parents at these schools opted for waivers, thus the primary language programs that existed in the district before the proposition continued after its passage. The multi-ethnic Pine school district had a long history of strong community advocacy for bilingual programs, and Pine also continued its programs for ELL students much as before the proposition. In addition, the district implemented a multi-age structured English immersion program including primary language support for students who spoke a first language in which there were few trained bilingual teachers.

Both of the districts with "mixed" outcomes also had mixed community support. In one district, families were from a variety of ethnic groups. Within these groups there were immigrant families who were fairly new to the country as well as families who had been in the area for generations. Some local school communities had been strongly supportive of bilingual approaches for decades while others were more equivocal. This was reflected in the outcomes in which some schools continued programs while others did not. The families of ELL students in the other "mixed results" community were virtually all from the same ethnic group and had traditionally supported primary language programs. In this district informants said that Proposition 227 created strong discord within local school communities. Some parents thought that primary language programs should be eliminated altogether while others continued to support bilingual approaches. In the end most, but not all, parents of ELL students sought waivers. Thus, all these schools continued their bilingual programs although some reduced the number of bilingual classrooms.