Bilingual Programs in Orange County Schools

Re “More Schools Shunning Bilingual Methods,” April 14: In their headlong rush to secure English immersion classes for students whose primary language is Spanish, Orange County school districts have decided they’re willing to gamble with the educational future of thousands of our youths. What is equally distressing is that these school boards have chosen this course despite an “outcry from parents” who support bilingual education programs.

The children will learn survival English; that is all. But it takes more than survival English for students to succeed in their academic studies. How do you describe specialized concepts in science and math to someone who doesn’t understand the language you’re speaking? Orange County school officials have only to look to nearby Long Beach at Patrick Henry Elementary School, or to Mains Elementary School in Calexico, to see outstanding bilingual education programs that are highly successful.

The focus of policymakers should be to promote and support educational excellence for all in California; to support programs that provide language-minority students with access to effective education. The Orange County school districts appear determined to silence the voices of children in their primary languages. In doing so, they take away a basic human right.

ROSALIA SALINAS, President

California Assn. for Bilingual

Education, Los Angeles

* California’s bilingual education program has failed an entire generation of Hispanic children. Primary language instruction delays the learning of English. California’s English learners have a “civil right” to have the public schools help them to learn English according to the (1974) Equal Education Opportunities Act.

Lau vs. Nichols (1974), the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, declared that the schools must take affirmative action to help the children learn English, rather than just place them in a classroom with no special help. No special instructional approach was mandated. It did not mandate primary language instruction. Parents should have a right to accept or reject services.

Teachers are brainwashed and forced to subscribe to primary language instruction as the ultimate solution for teaching English learners, or they will not pass the credentialing tests. How do I know this? I have taken the classes and I was also a test reviewer for the state.

GLORIA MATTA TUCHMAN

Chair, REBILLED, Committee

to Reform Bilingual

Education, Santa Ana