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RE: visit of 12/10/97 Joan Baca, Principal
Dear Mrs. Baca: Thank you and your teachers for the warm reception extended to me during my recent visit to your school. Was I impressed? You bet I was! I was impressed when I found out that the sparkling walls of the school were painted on the weekend by you and your husband, and teacher and parent volunteers. I was impressed when during the recess, smartly dressed children in uniforms came running from all directions to exchange hugs with you. I was impressed with the discipline you and your staff maintain. I was impressed to find that you personally recruit the best qualified monolingual and bilingual teachers available -- and I can go on and on. The children are indeed lucky to be in your school (George Washington School is the best argument for school choice that I can think of). My observation of the fourth and fifth grade Latino children who had made transition to all English in the latter part of the third grade was positive. Their written essays in both English and Spanish were well written, but I did notice, what in my opinion were excessive spelling mistakes in both languages. It appears also, that the use of accent marks called for in Spanish spelling, are not required of the children. In Ms. Marston's class, I only heard one or two fourth graders read. They read very well. I assume that the rest of the students in that class read as well as they. Is bilingual education working in your school? Maybe, but from what I have seen at your school, I can only conclude that if the positive attitude of you and your staff were extended to an ESL or immersion teaching method for immigrant children, you would succeed as well. As I mentioned to you, the day before my visit to your school, I had visited Gloria Matta Tuchman's first grade class at Taft Elementary school in Santa Ana. I also observed from a distance, a fourth grade class. As you may know, Taft has a parentally approved waiver to teach with English immersion -- primary language BE is non-existent at Taft. I can say the same for their Latino children -- from my observation, their English reading and writing skills are as good if not better than that of the children at your school -- and their math and science skills were on par with the native English speaking children at the school. I have also visited Valerio Primary in Van Nuys. Valerio ranks above LAUSD's 100 worst schools so they are pretty much representative of LAUSD'S "norm." They present quite a different picture than does your school or Taft. Although LAUSD's Latino students need much more than BE to get them up in academic performance and from dead last on SAT scores, I believe that the elimination of primary language BE would be a good start. Very troubling to me, is the belief you share with most BE educators who insist that only Latino children do not come with the proper foundation to immerse into English as European children do -- that Mexican families do not communicate well in the home. I believe that this unproven conjecture is more of a self-fulfilling prophesy to use Latino students as a giant excuse to justify bilingual education -- almost exclusively in Spanish. But if it were true that Mexican children were so culturally disadvantaged, it seems to me that it would make good sense to immerse them in English with an American cultural base. Recently, LAUSD students were tested with the Stanford 9 exam. The "Below Average" results were generally not encouraging. But what was remarkable, is that the children were tested with two national exam versions: the "Stanford 9" in English and the majority of Latino children in bilingual programs and those up to the 10th grade who had long before already redesignated to all English, were tested with the "Aprenda" exam in Spanish. In taking the national test in Spanish, the very idea that bilingual education is supposed to get Latino children proficient in English is totally defeated. Now why didn't they have versions of the test in other languages? I'm told that by placing Latino children into BE classes, they do not get behind in other subjects. Well Aprenda test results tell a different story -- Latino students who took the Aprenda test fell far below the average in "ALL" subjects except reading in Spanish, but generally a whopping 61% of Latino students tested in Spanish scored below the national average in all subjects. These figures do not support the contention that Latino children in BE programs are "keeping up" in the other subjects (I hope you will share with me the results of your redesignated sixth grade Latino students when they take the Stanford 9 test in April). If in fact, you believe that primary language BE is better for your Latino children, under the Unz initiative, the parents can choose to keep it for their children. But based on what some lawyer you heard say, you do not believe this to be possible. In my opinion, what you heard, is the scare tactics being disseminated by those opposed to the initiative. What the initiative's waiver will accomplish, is the reversal of the burden -- parents and/or school principals will have to request that the child be shifted from English classes to BE classes instead of the other way around as it is now. The majority of BE proponents say that sparsely educated parents who cannot communicate in English will be too intimidated to request a waiver. It is ironic that the majority of BE opponents have been saying the same thing about getting waivers under the present system to remove and place a child from BE to all English. It is also ironic that the staunch anti-immigrant extremists are calling for defeat of the Unz initiative because of the said waiver that gives parents the right to continue their children in BE if they choose (they also oppose the initiative because it calls for $50 million / year for 10 years to teach English to immigrant parents). Following is the exact wording from the initiative:
Yes, it will require red-tape and perseverance by the school principal to switch students to BE -- but if you believe that your Latino students will do better under BE, than you could petition for waivers by presenting the same case in favor of BE that you presented to me. As witnessed by me, you already have the very best Spanish speaking BE teachers in place and you appear to be getting good results. I hope you don't buy LAUSD's belief that Latino parents are not sophisticated enough to bear the burden of having to meet with school officials annually to keep the waiver going. With the support of the parents and your school board, you should have no trouble getting waivers. Certainly, it will be easier to get waivers for your kids to switch to BE, than it was for the Latino parents who pulled 80 of their children out of the Ninth Street Primary School in protest before the school finally approved switching their children to all English study. Let's stay in touch. Sincerely, Hal Netkin |