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Comments from a substitute teacher re. bilingual ed and education in general

Name Withheld
Monday, October 5, 1998

Mr. Unz:

I saw you in the Prop. 227 debates on TV and was impressed by your intelligence and dedication to educational issues. I am writing to give you some information which may be of interest, and would appreciate any comments you may have.

As a recently credentialed substitute teacher in the elementary grades, I am greatly concerned with the educational system which shortchanges both language minority and language majority children.

As you know, Prop. 227 addressed existing bilingual programs but does not mandate any particular type of instruction for LEP children who are NOT in bilingual programs (approximately 2/3 of the total LEP population).

I do not have exact statistics, but suspect the majority of these children are NOT in structured immersion programs as advocated by your campaign, but rather in mainstream classrooms with ESL pull-out programs (typically 1/2 hour to 1 hour per week). This is completely inadequate!

These schools need to be forced to provide full-day sheltered immersion programs where students are grouped with others functioning at similar levels of English proficiency.

I recently substituted in a 5th grade class where the majority of students were native Spanish speakers. This school uses only an ESL pull-out program. Although most children had been in English classrooms since kindergarten, the level of literacy (or perhaps I should say illiteracy) in the 5th grade classroom was appalling.

Here is the really scary part: The California Dept. of Education believes teachers are being effectively trained to teach these LEP children (whether in mainstream classrooms along with native speakers or in sheltered classrooms) by CLAD certification programs. I have recently read "The Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development Handbook" by Lynne Diaz-Rico and Kathryn Weed. This book was published in response to the CLAD examinations which can be taken as an alternative to coursework in fullfilling the requirements for CLAD certification.

Mr. Unz, if you have not read this book, I urge you to do so. The content parallels what is being taught to pre-service and early-service teachers in teacher credentialing programs throughout the state. As you will see, the content of the book is a combination of unproven theories, biased statements, "multicultural philosophies", useless trivia, reference to "whole language" philosopies which have finally been discredited and thus should no longer be advocated, and "child centered" teaching methods which basically put the children in charge of the classroom and de-value the experience, wisdom and judgement of adults/teachers.

Proponents of CLAD methods (in particular, SDAIE methods, which are a subset of CLAD) constantly emphasize that the modified curriculum they suggest is not "watered-down content" but that special teaching techniques enable the teaching of just as much content to LEP students. Based on my classroom experience and on common sense, this is complete baloney!

EVEN WORSE: These "CLAD teaching methods" are being advocated as "just plain good teaching techniques" and teachers are urged to use them with ALL STUDENTS, not just those with limited English. I have substituted in classrooms where these CLAD methods/philosophies are implemented and have seen classrooms with little or no structure, lax discipline, no value placed on achievement or hard work, excessive praise for little or no effort, etc.

I have seen the result of this; for example, fifth graders who are native English speakers in a middle class school and yet cannot write a grammatically correct or coherent sentence, let alone a paragraph or essay.

Teachers and teachers-in-training are being BRAINWASHED by education professors into thinking that these ineffective methods and unproven theories constitute sound educational practice. The sad fact is, most teacher candidates are not intelligent enough or independent-minded enough to realize that they are being brainwashed. I saw my classmates in the credential program react enthusiastically to ideas that were senseless and harmful. Many elementary teachers are not particularly intellectually inclined and have chosen teaching as a profession because they love working with children, not because they believe in the importance of a substantive education.

Someone with a properly functioning brain AND an inside knowledge of what is really going on in the schools needs to step in and expose to both the educational bureaucrats and the hapless teachers the illogic that is being spread.

Please reply with any comments you may have.

Sincerely,
(Name Withheld)