English

The state Education Department has ignored its obligation to make sure that thousands of students learning English receive adequate and legally required assistance, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. State officials said they had not studied the lawsuit, but insisted they are meeting their legal obligations. The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and others, focuses on an estimated 20,000 students who are receiving no help or inadequate services as they work to learn English and keep up academically at the same time.

An upstate New York school district has become the latest to learn that some educational approaches create special sensitivity problems, as in this case in which a high school teacher asked students to make a written argument good enough to “convince me you are loyal to the Nazis" by exhibiting a belief "that Jews are evil. " The assignment, sent to some students in English classes at the Albany High School called on the children to research Nazi propaganda and then assume the teacher was a German official who needed to be convinced of their loyalty.

LONDON - The editor of Opera is worried. The March editorial of Britain's leading opera monthly describes this city's opera scene as being in crisis. The city's major companies - Royal Opera and English National Opera - are in a state of flux, administratively, artistically, musically and, in the case of ENO, financially. Opera everywhere should suffer such crises. On a recent Saturday in the British capital, I couldn't imagine a better place for opera, crises or no crises.

Rock 'n' roll autobiographies and memoirs have become a growth industry lately, with the likes of Keith Richards, Patti Smith, Rod Stewart et al. spilling their tales of vinyl glory in print. But none of these former enfants terrible turned belle lettrists managed to accomplish what Juanes will do when the Colombian pop-rock superstar issues his own first-person life's account, simultaneously in Spanish and English, on April 2. PHOTOS: Iconic rock guitars and their owners Juanes' tome, titled "Persiguiendo el sol" or "Chasing the Sun," promises to chronicle "the challenges of his youth" and his entry into the music world.

For movie musical lovers in general and gay men of a certain age in particular, Judy Garland represents the alpha and omega of stardom. So it was with some trepidation that I knocked on the apartment door of Tracie Bennett, the English actress who has been uncannily transforming herself into Garland in "End of the Rainbow," Peter Quilter's musical drama about the final chapter of Garland's life. Garland died tragically in 1969 at age 47. Bennett, just over the half-century mark yet still vibrating with pixieish vitality, is the next best thing to a fantasy meeting with the icon.

Even though so many of our traditional farmers market signals of spring have been converted to year-round production, there's one that has resisted all attempts -- the pea. Called English peas to differentiate them from snow peas or sugar snap peas, they are around only in the cool part of the spring. When the weather turns warm, they wilt away to nothing. Here's my favorite way to eat them, learned from my old friend, cookbook writer Sylvia Thompson: Simmer the peas in their pods in a skillet with about 1 inch of water and a nice chunk of butter.

The boisterous applause of hundreds of admirers echoed through Palisades Charter High School's newly refurbished drama classroom on Saturday as Rose Gilbert steadied herself in a walker and made her way to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at its entrance. The diminutive English teacher of 63 years smiled at the crush of people around her, many of them former students from 18 to 66 years of age, and said: "Gilbert Hall is now open. " In recent years, Gilbert, who retired three weeks ago at age 94, achieved celebrity status for being the oldest full-time teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and one of the oldest in the nation.

Stephanie Silva is just five years older than the Manual Arts High School students she teaches, but she is passionate about making a difference in their lives. The Cal State Northridge political science graduate joined Teach for America last year, underwent five weeks of training and attends night school for her full credential while teaching science to students who are struggling with English and learning disabilities. But interns like Silva will be allowed to teach students struggling with English only under stricter state controls over their training and supervision, the state Commission on Teacher Credentialing unanimously decided Thursday.

In California, teachers whose students include English learners are required by state law to have special certification. That's sensible, given the special challenges that come with running a classroom in which not all children are equally proficient in the language being spoken. There are two ways to secure that certification: by graduating from a college or university that grants such a certificate, or by attending a program that educates would-be teachers in that specialty. The teachers certified by the latter route receive what is called an "intern credential.

Re "Kerry gets to let his Europhilia loose," March 2 I am continuously astounded by the ignorance and, yes, the stupidity of conservatives who "consider it unpatriotic and vaguely unmanly" to speak languages other than English. Not only are they holding the country hostage with their economic demands, now they are critical of educated Americans, one of whom is Secretary of State John F. Kerry. I do wish these destructive people would crawl back into the woodwork. Lynne Okon Scholnick Long Beach I think it is wonderful that Kerry speaks several languages and uses them in diplomacy.