BILINGUAL ED TRANSFER RATE FAILS TO GAIN; ZACARIAS SEES SIGNS OF PROGRESS.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

Only eight out of every 100 bilingual children in Los Angeles schools were fluent enough in English to move to traditional classrooms during 1997, a slight decline over the previous year, district officials said Tuesday.

The transition rate in 1996 was 8.2 percent.

In the face of a June ballot initiative that would abolish bilingual education,Superintendent Ruben Zacarias - who had pledged to improve English fluency - put a positive spin on the downturn by saying the number of children transiting rose despite the percentage decline.

``It's a step in the right direction,'' Zacarias said in an interview. ``We're accelerating the movement of kids out of bilingual and into English classes.''

Zacarias noted the numbers reflect performance in the 1997 calendar year, and that he had been superintendent only since July.

In 1996, there were 24,737 bilingual students who made the transition to regular classes. In 1997 there were 24,851.

With the future of bilingual education to be decided in June, the LAUSD also Tuesday confirmed the results of a pilot study that gauged the success non-English-speaking students in mainstream classes.

Of 74 children who were taken out of traditional Spanish-language bilingual classes and put into regular classes taught in English, only two were fluent after one year.

Board of Education President Julie Korenstein said she thought the pilot study involved too small a group to draw any conclusions. But she said the district's students in bilingual classes were ``moving ahead,'' saying the drop of .2 percent was insignificant.

``We've redesignated just under 75,000 children over the last three years - it's great,'' she said.

But Ron Unz, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who authored Proposition 227, the initiative that would dismantle the state's bilingual program, said the LAUSD's latest figures show a broken system.

``They're devastating numbers,'' he said. ``If only 8 percent each year learn enough English to transition, it would take the average kid over 12 years to be mainstreamed.''

Proposition 227 would require children to be placed in intensive one-year programs to learn English.

Unz, a former candidate for governor, said he became interested in the issue of bilingual education when he learned that frustrated LAUSD parents at 9th Street Elementary School staged a boycott in 1996 to get their children out of bilingual classes taught mostly in Spanish.

Because of that, the political debate swirling around bilingual education often focused on 9th Street, and on Tuesday, it was once again the center of controversy.

Campaign officials from ``No on 227'' held a news conference in Los Angeles, announcing that the newest transition figures showed dismal rates for the children involved in the 9th Street boycott.

They pointed to the results of the pilot study as proof that Proposition 227 would not work well.

``Children don't learn English in 180 days,'' said Holli Thier, spokeswoman for the No on 227 campaign. ``This is definitive proof that Proposition 227, with a one year, sink-or-swim program . . . won't work.''

Unz, however, countered that the traditional English classes at 9th Street are nothing like the classes his proposition mandates.

``Under the initiative, children would be placed in sheltered immersion classes with trained teachers,'' Unz said.

The Rev. Alice Callaghan, who led the 9th Street boycott and is a critic of bilingual education, said the redesignation numbers from the study are misleading.

``To use the kids that way, to call them a failure, is unfair,'' she said. ``The younger children, who started school in English, have a superior grasp of the language. The older children are still thinking in Spanish and translating.''

Also, Callaghan pointed out that critics had not addressed the fact that the older children previously had received years of bilingual education in Spanish.

LAUSD spokesman Brad Sales said the district staff had been asked to do a study on the 9th Street students' progress as part of an overall review of the system's bilingual program. That information was obtained by the No on 227 campaign before it was distributed to the board Tuesday.

Thier would not elaborate on how the group obtained the information about 9th Street. However, Thier said they had coordinated the release of the data with Sales.

But Sales refuted that claim.

He said No on 227 officials had contacted him earlier for the information, but that he refused to release the data until a board memo was issued.

``I have no idea how these people got the information,'' Sales said.

Zacarias adamantly denied any collaboration with the No on 227 group.

``Absolutely not,'' Zacarias said. ``I have made it very, very clear that we are to stay out of political issues.''

Unz called it ``a clear violation of campaign laws.''