Local News and Educational Reform. Both Grani and Gorod chronicle the proposed educational reform’s impact on Daugavpils. I’ll examine two articles that Grani published on the educational reform, one before the reform was passed and one after it was passed. “We need signatures for saving bilingual education!”, published on December 1st, 2017, and “An example for the 215 Saeima, “Amendments to the Education Law”; Saeima, “Amendments to the Law on General Education.” 216 Sorokin, “Latvian government endorses reform of Russian-language schools.” whole of Latvia”, published on February 2nd, 2018, display the controversy regarding the reform and contrast the content/discontent with the Saeima’s decision to amend the General Education Law. The first article, written before the law's passage, keys in on a petition to block the law. It highlights an online initiative to collect signatures against the amendments and explains that the petition collected more than 10,000 signatures, thus meeting the threshold for the Saeima's consideration.217 The article also references that over two thousand of the collected signatures were rejected, as the signatures were from non-citizens who “have no right to express their attitude to what is happening”.218 Due to the non-citizen signatures, the Saeima petition was suspended. The author suggests that this refocused people away from the initiative yet is still hopeful that the activists’ opinions would be heard by the Saeima before signing off on the reform. The second article discusses local reactions to the new law, most of which are positive. After passage of the reform, Grani published “An example for the whole of Latvia”, reporting that while many politicians opposed the law, schoolchildren embraced the law. The article begins by interviewing the director of a secondary school in Daugavpils which had already implemented language reforms by primarily utilizing Latvian in class with young students and solely teaching in Latvian to older students.219 The article's interviews with two upper level students showed virtually no concern with the educational reform law, as the students expressed that they had been brought up in a bilingual environment.220 Other students from other institutions expressed that while it 217 Xxxxx.xx, “Нужны Подписи За Сохранение Билингвального Образования!” 218 Xxxxx.xx, “Нужны Подписи За Сохранение Билингвального Образования!” 219 Петкевич, “Пример Для Всей Латвии.” 220 Петкевич, “Пример Для Всей Латвии.” is more difficult for them to l...
