A parent complained, Corona-Norco school officials looked into it, and the state has now conducted its own inquiry. But there is no dispute here – not really. All parties agree that the bilingual education process at Corona-Norco schools is inadequate to the need.

Corona-Norco Union School District officials have estimated they need 50 more bilingual teachers. Two state inspectors visited 20 classrooms in the district last month and decided the need is closer to 75 bilingual teachers. Some 3,600 pupils in the district are described as speaking little or no English.

Either way, that’s a significant shortage – a significant problem. School board member Bill Hedrick says hundreds of Spanish-speaking children are limited to about an hour a week with a Spanish-speaking classroom aide. The original complainant in this case, meanwhile, is a woman who felt her English-speaking children were receiving inadequate attention while teachers struggled to bridge the language gaps with Spanish-speakers. Everyone is shortchanged in a situation like this.

This isn’t just a problem in this district. It’s all over Southern California. The problem has arrived on a wave of Spanish-speaking immigration, legal and illegal, and virtually all districts have had difficulty adjusting. In Riverside County in 1989, 11.4 percent of respondents (down to age 5) told Census takers they spoke little or no English. San Diego County estimates that fully 17 percent of its 406,000 school children – that’s 70,000 youngsters – now speak little or no English. Last month an Escondido school district warned an elementary school Teacher of the Year she might lose her job because she couldn’t speak Spanish.

This kind of reaction to a new imperative only looks like a solution in extremity. It isn’t likely to improve the educational process.

The immediate shortage of bilingual teachers is exacerbated by reluctance to cluster non-English speakers in a few classes. The anxiety is to avoid the appearance of segregation. But this process begins from a position of segregation – separate cultures, separate societies. Moving as efficiently as possible toward functional integration, even with short-term specialized education, should not be socially impermissible.

Beyond that, the schools really can’t afford to wait around for a windfall of cash to finance special programs and the formality of credentialing. No such windfall is foreseeable. An alternative is volunteers. Volunteers, in the tradition of PTAs, have always been a part of the educational process. Other institutions – public hospitals like Riverside General, for example – carry this to a high level. They have a regular lifeline of volunteers who donate thousands of hours of effort to their cause.

A rich bilingual resource exists in most Southern California communities. The schools ought to be able to use it. Certainly, the cause is worthy.

Finally, the process must have a boost in the home. The decision to pursue functional acculturation is a personal one.

Parents have to give help as they can. As they can: That may not be a small proviso. But even those parents with a limited command of English can give determined encouragement to their children.

Waiting for this takes longer than pursuing it. And no one – not the children, not the schools, not the parents, not society at large – has much stake in dragging this process out.



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