Bilingual Education

* Re “No Habla Espanol,” Sept. 6.

I was dismayed by the statement attributed to Sheri Annis of the organization English For The Children that some schools or districts have even gone as far as to hold back core academic instruction in English-immersion classes as a way of strong-arming parents into signing waivers returning their children to bilingual classes.

If basic academic instruction is being withheld from children with limited English-language skills, it is only because children cannot grasp concepts in a language they do not understand.

What nonsense to imply that schools and teachers have some devious motivation for keeping children in programs of bilingual education! Surely Ms. Annis realizes that basic classroom lessons will not be successful if the child does not understand the language of instruction.

DENNIS R. LEWIS

Ocean View School District

Oxnard

* Re “Proposition 227 Implementation,” letters, Sept. 6.

Proposition 227 is not a bad law. Without a stand by a majority of voters, where would bilingual stop? There are many ethnic groups--Vietnamese, Korean and Hmong, to name a few--who would consider themselves equally entitled to similar opportunities offered Spanish speakers if we believe in equal protection under the law. Bilingual education is not a protected right under the Constitution. I would ask the writer of this letter to document what other countries offer bilingual education in a public school system. Mexico doesn’t.

As for the difficulties of learning English, how did the immigrants of earlier years manage? They knew they would have to learn English to survive and prosper. And learn it they did--night schools, church groups and other sources offered English instruction, and I don’t recall that they were subsidized by the taxpayer.

As for the protesting student marchers leaving campus to demonstrate displeasure with the voters, they might better have spent the time in school learning about the legislative processes that govern the country. (I admit it might have been a waste of time, because every initiative passed by the people lately has been immediately challenged in the courts. Poor old Abe Lincoln and his dumb phrase, “Government of the people, by the people . . . “).

Liberal ideologies are wonderful when somebody else’s money is being spent, but why does the American taxpayer always get stuck with the bill?

GEORGE MARSHALL

Ojai