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Why Only Spanish-Speaking Children
Los Angeles Daily News (Letters)
This is in response to "LAUSD training under fire," July 28, where school board officials are predicting chaos if Proposition 227 is implemented. It appears that the majority of the LAUSD educators and school board members are self-fulfilling their prophesies of the "failure of Proposition 227" with their public doomsday statements and negative attitudes. What these educators are not telling the public is that almost all the LAUSD's limited English proficient students who's native language is one of about 80 languages other than Spanish, have all along been learning English with immersion. On several visits I have made to Los Angeles and Burbank Unified School District elementary schools to observe bilingual education, I have asked bilingual teachers and coordinators why there are no primary language bilingual classes for children who speak languages other than Spanish. Without exception, I was told that Latino kids have a cultural learning disability compared to Asian and European children. This belief was exemplified by LAUSD Superintendent Ruben Zacarias when he was interviewed on channel 34 Spanish language television on July 8, 1997, and said that he approved of bilingual education and gave the TV viewers this example of why: He asked to imagine how American children would fare if they were put in schools in China not knowing anything about the Chinese language -- drawing a parallel to Spanish speaking children entering American schools without knowing the English language. But Mr. Zacarias failed to explain how Mandarin Chinese immigrant children manage to learn English in quick order without bilingual education when they enter LAUSD's schools (LAUSD does not have Mandarin Chinese bilingual education). LAUSD educators will have no problem implementing Proposition 227 if they will start to accept the belief that American children from all languages and cultures, basically have the same learning potential. Hal Netkin |