California always beats Colorado to the punch. It seems they’re first in everything.

They had the Hula-Hoop before we did. Then came freeways and urban sprawl. Then surfer music. Then congestion and smog. Then the environmental movement. Then election ballots crowded with referendums. Then those annoying skateboards.

We would have been better off if California hadn’t exported any of that stuff, except for the Hula-Hoop. But it is inevitable that all trendy fads eventually creep eastward from the beaches of Malibu, and there seems no end to the Californication of Colorado.

Now it’s happened again. This time, though, we ought to be grateful.

California has determined that bilingual education doesn’t work very well, disproving the politically correct theory that Spanish-speaking students can best achieve in school if they are isolated in Spanish-speaking classrooms as long as possible.

Educrats have argued for several years, with little evidence to make their case, that a Spanish-speaking child ought to be coddled in classrooms where – only over an agonizingly long period – English eventually might rub off.

Others have argued that the best way to educate kids and prepare them for a future is to immerse them in English classes, putting them on a fast-track course to learn this nation’s dominant language.

The debate has long raged in California, and citizens there voted two years ago to end bilingual education.

Since then, student-achievement scores have improved dramatically.

The evidence is impressive. Before the bilingual ban, Spanish-speaking California second-graders were ranked in the 19th percentile in national rankings for reading. Just two years later, California second-graders classified as limited in English have leapt forward in the national rankings to the 28th percentile.

Even more impressive results have been shown in the measurement of math skills among the same category of second-grade students, who moved from the 27th percentile up to the 41st.

Colorado educators need to examine these results carefully, and there is no better time than now – especially in the Denver Public Schools.

Before a new superintendent is chosen to lead Denver classrooms into the new millennium, the Denver school board needs to devote an intensive public hearing to learn of the California trends – although the bilingual-education bureaucracy can be counted on to oppose such enlightenment.

The DPS board should invite a handful of California educators to present their findings at a public meeting here, and people like Ken Noonan ought to be first on the invitation list.

Noonan, superintendent of a school district in suburban San Diego, was a strong advocate of bilingual education for 30 years and predicted that a bilingual ban would be disastrous for Spanish-speaking pupils.

‘The exact reverse occurred, totally unexpected by me,’ Noonan admits.

Denver shouldn’t shortchange its Spanish-speaking youngsters by ignoring the dynamics that changed Noonan’s mind.

Chuck Green’s commentaries appear on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He discusses current events on KNUS 710 at 5:15 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. His telephone is 303-820-1771; his e-mail address is [email protected].



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