English-Only Leader to Run for State Schools Chief

Gloria Matta Tuchman, the Orange County schoolteacher crusading against bilingual education, is expected today to announce a run against incumbent Delaine Eastin for state superintendent of public instruction.

Matta Tuchman, 56, a Republican from Lemon Heights, said in a news release Monday that she will name famed math teacher Jaime Escalante as her honorary campaign chairman in an announcement in Sacramento.

Escalante and Matta Tuchman are leaders in another campaign for an initiative on the June 2 ballot that would require all-English instruction in classrooms with students who have limited English skills.

Matta Tuchman is a first-grade teacher in Santa Ana and a longtime critic of bilingual education. Escalante’s work as a calculus teacher in East Los Angeles was dramatized in the movie “Stand and Deliver.” In September, he declined an offer by Eastin foes who wanted to draft him as a challenger to the superintendent.

The overlap between the two campaigns raised questions for one organizer of the ballot initiative.

Alice Callaghan, who spearheaded a parent boycott of bilingual programs at a Los Angeles school two years ago, said Monday that she does not want Matta Tuchman’s new candidacy to drive pro-Eastin voters away from the June 2 measure. “I’m concerned that [the initiative] might get dragged into a partisan fight, and I’m hoping those are not Gloria’s intentions,” Callaghan said.

Matta Tuchman could not be reached for comment Monday. She ran for state superintendent in 1994, finishing fifth in a field of 12.

Eastin, a Democrat, is seeking her second four-year term. She opposes the ballot measure.