Controversy Over Bilingual Education in L.A. Schools

As a member of the Learning English Advocates Drive and U.S. English, I take offense to several misstatements in The Times article about a pending vote before the teachers union which would reject LAUSD’s offer to pay bonuses to the district’s 4,000 bilingual teachers.

LEAD is seeking to eliminate such bonuses because the school board is using them to entice teachers to support the district’s flawed bilingual master plan.

The article’s opening sentence, “A group of teachers opposed to bilingual education . . .” is incorrect. LEAD members seek to reform bilingual education, not eliminate it. Several advances have been made in bilingual teaching techniques and methodologies in recent years, and the Los Angeles chapter of LEAD is working to incorporate those methods into the district’s bilingual plan.

The article states that LEAD has received financial support from “two ultra-conservative English-only organizations.” LEAD’s primary financial benefactor, San Francisco-based U.S. English, is chaired by former U.S. Sen. S.I. Hayakawa and is neither “ultra-conservative” nor “English-only.”

The article also reports that a 1987 LEAD referendum challenging the UTLA’s position on bilingual education “made no mention of compensation for bilingual teachers.” In fact, 78% of the UTLA respondents voted to adopt an “immersion” program in English, while 58%--on the same ballot--voted against receiving a “cash stipend/bonus” for completing bilingual certificates of competency. When teachers vote to cut their own salaries, they are making a statement.

Most of the research conducted in the last five years points to the superiority of alternative bilingual teaching methods, such as “sheltered English” and ESL, over native language instruction.

School board member Leticia Quezada is playing a political game by “confusing” those who support “immersion” techniques with those who would do nothing for students of limited English proficiency (aka “submersion”). To take a position against the bilingual plan is not to “take a position against bilingual students,” as she states; it is to take a position against a school board which has fallen prey to a high-paying bilingual establishment.

LEON WORDEN

Santa Clarita