Controversy Over Bilingual Teaching

* In this continuing controversy over bilingual education, let’s face one indisputable fact: It is being demanded by and provided primarily to lower income and poorly educated Mexican immigrants--not to the vast cross-section of European and Asian immigrants.

And this demand is prompted not by a desire for the “best education for the kids” (which it isn’t) as much as to selfishly preserve the Spanish culture and continued ease of communication within the home.

For more than 200 years, poor immigrants from all over the world came to America, were educated by traditional methods, dealt with the same cultural and language problem as the current immigrant children and went on to become successful English-speaking citizens. Many retained their heritage and language through education in the home or outside tutoring, but this was the responsibility of the family, not the school system.

In California, too much of our tax dollar is being directed away from the vital necessity of upgrading our educational system and serving the majority of our children, in order to fund the wrongfully motivated demands of a minority, whose children will pay the price when they are not able to compete in our English-speaking society.

Why do we stand for it?

CHARLES H. SCHWAB

San Juan Capistrano