Better Ways to Choose Teachers

In reference to “Group Urges More Latino Teachers” (April 8): The aim for recruiting bilingual teachers is to teach academic subjects such as math and social studies in a foreign language to minority students and to be a role model for them. To do this, they do not need to be fully fluent and proficient in English as well as their foreign language.

Therefore, why must bilingual teacher candidates have to pass the CBEST (California Basic Education Skills Test)? This exam is biased toward non-native English-speaking candidates.

By using the CBEST, the selection is based on the premise that bilingual teachers have to be native English speakers and in addition fluent and proficient in another language.

This premise excludes the members of minority groups who are native foreign language speakers and toward whom the recruitment is intended.

In the school where I work, there is a Mexican room father who helps the first- and second-graders with math. He was a teacher in Mexico, and he is great, but because of his limited English, he cannot be a teacher in California.

There are many foreigners who would be willing to be teachers, including credentialed teachers in their original country, who would make excellent bilingual teachers, but who are not fluent enough in English to pass the CBEST.

If recruiting is sincere, which I personally doubt, the CBEST should not be used to assess foreign native language speakers. Other alternatives of assessment should be urgently found to select bilingual teachers, of whom we are in such desperate need.

SUSAN MERCER

Orange