COMMENTARY : Let’s Skip the Frills and Teach Students

The recent report that the state Department of Education has found the bilingual program out of compliance in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District is only the tip of the iceberg.

The instructional program for all our students is deficient. For example, many of my monolingual, American-born students have not been trained to write the first letter of the first word of a sentence with a capital letter, and their punctuation is nonexistent.

Although our high school students are so far behind academically, non-required frills are worse than ever. In the past, pep rallies were held after school so that attendance could be optional. This year, they are held in the morning, and attendance is mandatory.

The disruption of our classes and the circus atmosphere in a pep rally make students so hyperactive that their concentration on their studies is destroyed for the rest of the day.

While millions are out of work, school budgets are near bankruptcy and taxpayers are signing an initiative for school choice vouchers, La Puente High School will sponsor a carnival in April during an hourlong lunch period. How can teachers maintain discipline and teach anything after students return to class from a carnival where they have thrown baseballs at teachers in order to dunk them into a water tank?

Considering that we have asked our soldiers to sacrifice their lives in previous wars, is it unreasonable to ask our students to sacrifice frivolous frills in order that their abysmally deficient academic skills may improve?