Prop. 227 and LAUSD
LAUSD School Board President Victoria Castro claims that the Model B English immersion programs that LAUSD is establishing comply with our Prop. 227 requirement that they be “overwhelmingly” in English (letter, Sept. 6). The actual Prop. 227 requirement (as anyone can easily verify in the text) is that such classes be “nearly all” in English, with virtually no use of any other language. Yet according to published accounts, LAUSD plans for these classes to be taught by a bilingual education teacher with up to 30% of daily instruction in Spanish, indicating that “English Immersion Model B” is just bilingual education under a new name.
Our initiative reasonably allows parents who wish to place or keep their children in a bilingual education program to receive waivers if they can demonstrate that such a program will benefit their child’s education. In L.A. alone, hundreds of such waiver requests are already being considered. However, all other children must be placed in English-only immersion programs, with Castro and her fellow board members subject to personal legal liability if they disobey this law.
RON UNZ, Chairman
English for the Children
Palo Alto
* Re “Waivers OKd for Bilingual Programs,” Sept. 4: The state educational establishment continues to rub our collective noses in its arrogance. The latest episode is the state Department of Education’s approval of “two-way language immersion” programs in two elementary schools in the Saddleback Unified School District in Orange County.
If this is a foreign language program rather than merely cover for failed bilingual programs, where are the “two-way immersion” programs for French-English, German-English, Latin-English, etc.?
These dual-language programs are blatant, transparent efforts to circumvent the law approved by 61% of the voters in Prop. 227 and must be challenged in the courts. If the liberal judicial system allows this attack on the rule of law to prevail, roll out another initiative petition, I’m ready to try again.
DONALD HIRT
Paso Robles
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