Letter Submitted to the New York Times by Ron Unz

March 10, 1998

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036


Dear Sirs:

Don Terry's article (3/10/98) on our "English for the Children" initiative against bilingual education in California emphasized personalities, but completely ignored the crucial statistics about the current system.

For example, Los Angeles---where Mr. Terry is based and which contains nearly half of the state's bilingual students---just a few weeks ago proudly released a major internal study purporting to show the effectiveness of its bilingual programs. Instead, reporters quickly noted that the review actually revealed that among all Los Angeles students who had started in a kindergarten bilingual program, less than 40% had learned enough English by the 5th grade even to be tested in that language.

Statewide, the numbers are equally dreadful. Today in California, 1.4 million children---a quarter of total public school enrollment---are classified as not knowing English, and of these, only a tiny fraction---generally 5 or 6%---successfully learn English each year. These official statistics from California's Office of Bilingual Education thus demonstrate an annual failure rate of about 95% in teaching English to limited-English students, a devastating result.

I'm sure that Mr. Terry enjoyed his many conversations with various bilingual administrators, bilingual advocates, and bilingual academics, and his visits to "showplace" bilingual classrooms. But for him to utterly ignore the actual statistics on the program he is covering is like writing a history of World War II which leaves out mention of Germany and Japan.

Yours Sincerely,

Ron K. Unz, Chairman
English for the Children