Bilingual Education

A FEW years after retiring to this Pacific resort city, David Bender was bored with golf. His new hobby, the American decided, would be tackling Mexico's income inequality. He would do it by teaching English to Mexican children. Never mind that Mexico didn't ask for his help. Or that the former advertising executive knew nothing about running a school. Bender saw working families hungry for affordable English-language instruction and a shot at upward mobility for their kids.

Re "The pursuit of happiness -- in English," Opinion, April 7 Newt Gingrich thinks that replacing bilingual education with intensive English instruction will help minority-language children acquire English. It won't. Studies show that bilingual education does a better job of helping children acquire English than English "immersion." In the last two years, four major reviews have been published confirming that children in bilingual programs do better on tests of English reading than those in all-English programs, including one report from the U.S. government.

Several politicians and educators called on the governor Thursday to support legislation that would allow school districts to include extra reading and writing lessons for elementary students struggling to learn English, in a debate that has rekindled California's dormant language wars. The bill, SB 1769, sponsored by state Sen. Martha Escutia (D-Whittier), additionally would restore about $1.

CALIFORNIA WAS SUPPOSED TO have learned a sad but important lesson from its years of experimenting with bilingual education: When you isolate a group of largely poor, minority students and give them different instruction from what other students receive, they tend to get a dumbed-down, second-rate education. Unfortunately, that lesson hasn't fully sunk in. Nor has the idea that playground politics and retribution are not in the best interests of schoolchildren. This spring, the Assn.

As a member of the State Board of Education, and before that as a private advocate for better public schools, Reed Hastings found ways to bring more money to schools, raised standards and kept them high when it would have been much easier to lower them. Hastings -- who has a day job as chief executive of Netflix -- supported the high school exit exam but pushed to delay its implementation when it became clear that students hadn't been adequately prepared for it.

A senior member of the state Board of Education who has advocated English-language reading instruction for immigrant children could lose his position on Wednesday amid a furor raised by bilingual education advocates. Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Democratic political donor Reed Hastings was appointed to the state education board by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2000. He was reappointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last January, but must be confirmed this week by the state Senate.

Re "Democrats Reject Gov.'s Nominee," Jan. 13: Most children quickly integrated into English-only classrooms when parents chose these after seeing the lack of progress in the bilingual programs of the past. Positive results are evident when seeing children serving as interpreters for parents at clinics, hospitals and businesses. The rejection of well-respected community leader Reed Hastings to the State Board of Education is most unfortunate. He dared support English-language reading for immigrant children.

PRESIDENT BUSH'S love affair with the scientific community is awkward at best. The White House science advisor, John H. Marburger III, is on record as saying that "in this administration, science strongly informs policy." But where's the romance for scientists if Bush casts a blind eye over evidence of a human role in global warming or the difference between evolution and intelligent design?

The way Denis O'Leary saw it, California's Reading First program was leaving too many children behind -- mostly poor and immigrant students, those who would benefit most from the federally funded literacy campaign. So the Oxnard-area teacher and school board trustee lent his name last year to a lawsuit that has helped reshape the reading program, ensuring that children in some of the state's poorest districts have access to millions of dollars once largely cut off from bilingual classrooms.

Alejandra Casado doesn't fit any old stereotypes of a welder. She is in her 40s, a mother of three, and an immigrant from Guadalajara, Mexico. Her voice is even and soft. Leaning against a metal gate she helped piece together at Cerritos College, Casado pulled up the sleeves of a purple sweater recently to proudly reveal an impressive collection of scars from welding sparks. "Look at my ladies' hands!" she said in Spanish, laughing, showing off a fresh scab. "Look at my horrible nails."