She fights to stop bilingual education

When Gloria Matta Tuchman was elected to the Tustin School Board in 1985, she brought with her an agenda: English literacy for all children. She calls it her “magnificent obsession. “

Last May, Matta Tuchman, a 33-year teaching veteran who now teaches first grade in the Santa Ana Unified School District, teamed up with Silicon Valley businessman and former gubernatorial candidate Ron Unz in writing an initiative that would require that all California students be taught in English.

Called English for the Children, it needs some 600,000 signatures to be placed on the June, 1998, ballot. “We have about 350,000 now,” she said.

“Bilingual education is not fair,” she said. “It delays the learning of English and is has failed a whole generation of Hispanic children. “

Assemblyman Tom McClintock, R-Simi Valley, agrees. He says it has a 95 percent failure rate and that it has racially segregated classrooms accross California.

According to Matta Tuchman, the California School Boards’ Association and the California Teachers’ Association are opposed to English-only education because it would cost jobs.

“If this initiative passes, it will turn the course of bilingual education in the state and the nation. This is the finish of what I started in Tustin. I know I’m right. The world of politics is a bizarre place, and children don’t belong in it. “

In 1987, she helped to spearhead a federal grant that funded alternative approaches to bilingual education. That initial $ 750,000 was used to pay for teacher training in sheltered and immersion education techniques for Tustin’s then 200 non-English speakers. “Tustin’s program was and is a showcase in the state. We were the leaders,” she said. “We were successful. “

Today there are 4,139 Limited English Proficient students in Tustin from all over the world, and they are immersed in English.

No classes in Tustin are taught in Spanish or any other foreign tongue except in the foreign language departments of the middle and high schools.

It was while she still was on the Tustin board that she decided she wanted English immersion for all California students, so she founded the Campaign for California’s Kids in 1992 which lobbies still to end mandated bilingual education. In 1993, she was summoned as an expert witness for the Little Hoover Commission hearing on bilingual education. And, in 1994, she was invited to the State Education Summit meeting to participate as a panelist for the session of Children and Learning. She also was a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Along the way, she was appointed by former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett to serve on the Advisory Counti for Bilingual Education and later served on two other national committees in Washington, D.C. “English literacy is its own reward for the children, and I want this for all children to be able to achieve their American dream,” she said. “I am a teacher, and I touch their futures. I believe every child has the potential to learn English no matter where they come from. “

English for the Children can be reached by calling (888) 778-6439.



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