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

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

Finally, two districts discontinued primary language program components altogether, despite substantial support for such programs from the parents of ELL students. These parents did not traditionally have a voice in school decisions, nor did they in this case. Informants said this was due to factors such as the dependence of these parents for jobs on community members who supported Proposition 227, reluctance to draw attention to themselves because of uncertain immigrant status, and lack of English proficiency.

Influence of school board and district personnel on district response to 227

Another factor determining district response to Proposition 227 was the prevailing disposition toward primary language programs among district staff and the school board. In the three districts where these programs remained viable after the initiative, district staff and school board members generally supported primary language programs. In fact, in one of these districts the school board took a public stand against the proposition during the election campaign.

The school level response to Proposition 227 varied across individual schools in the two districts where the support of district staff and the school board was equivocal. In both of these cases, the decisions about whether or not and how rigorously to pursue parental waivers were relegated to the local school. In these instances where district policy was not prescriptive, the local principal was much more influential in determining the character of programs for ELL students. Researchers learned that some principals who had not strongly supported the primary language programs at their schools before Proposition 227 did not inform parents of the waiver at all. Others, who had a pedagogical, philosophical, and/or moral commitment to these programs, actively backed efforts to pursue the waiver option.

Finally, in one of the two districts that discontinued bilingual programs completely, district decision makers chose to avoid the waiver option altogether. The study's district level informant professed a belief that primary language instruction methods promised better academic and social outcomes for ELL students. However, the district had always struggled to find enough appropriately certified teachers because of its relatively remote location. District administrators therefore saw the policy change as a reprieve from restrictions and requirements that they frequently had trouble meeting. As a result, after Proposition 227 passed they no longer attempted to hire bilingual (BCLAD) teachers or provide professional development toward this goal. There was very little district level support for primary language approaches in the other school system that discontinued these programs. Their Proposition 227 policy and procedures so strongly discouraged the waivers that only a handful of parents opted for an alternative approach-too few to trigger a program under the conditions of the new law. Although there was never a strong preference for hiring BCLAD teachers in the district, post-227 there was no preference at all.