Quit stalling Educator is good choice for state board
Nancy Ichinaga was appointed to the state Board of Education last March by Gov. Gray Davis. State law requires that she be confirmed by the Senate within 365 days of her appointment in order to continue in the post. The Senate Rules Committee has unanimously recommended her confirmation and the full Senate is expected to heed the panel's advice. The question is why something that should have been a slam dunk was delayed almost a year because of some isolated sniping. Ichinaga, who retired after compiling an impressive 25 years as principal of Bennett-Kew Elementary in Inglewood, is the only educator among the nine board members. Nearly all of Bennett-Kew's kids qualify for free and reduced-price lunches because they come from low-income families. Nearly all of the students are black or Hispanic. Demographically speaking, these economically disadvantaged children should be scoring poorly on standardized tests. Yet they routinely finish within the top-third, statewide. The school has attracted national attention for its uncanny ability to defy the academic odds. But Bennett-Kew's staff doesn't buy into the depressing refrain that poor kids cannot be expected to compete with their more affluent counterparts. The first-graders scored in the 80th percentile in reading on the state's standardized math and reading tests. The average Bennet-Kew third-grader scored in the 83rd percentile in math on the most recent Stanford Achievement Test. That's double the average score for the Los Angeles Unified School District. These and other achievements are even more impressive in light of the fact that when Ichinaga took over as principal in 1974, 95 percent of the students were illiterate. Within four years, the school's reading performance rocketed from the third to the 50th percentile among state schools. The scores kept on climbing until the school consistently ranked among the academic elite in Los Angeles County. Why, then, would anyone question Ichinaga's qualifications to serve on the state school board? Because she had the temerity to buck the bilingual education lobby and do what was in the best interests of her kids. During her tenure, Bennet-Kew's Spanish-speaking children were taught in English, emphasizing a phonics-based reading program. Long before the passage of Proposition 227, she persuaded the state Education Department to grant her waivers to immerse kindergartners and first-graders in English, using bilingual aides to assist them. Never mind that Bennett-Kew's rate of transitioning kids to English fluency is more than twice the state's rate. Ichinaga's critics suggest she is insensitive to immigrant children. Such a charge is about as absurd as questioning Ichinaga's fitness to serve on the state school board. |