PUBLIC FORUM : LAUSD TRAPS ENGLISH-SPEAKING LATINOS.

As the Sebastian Jimenez case (Daily News, April 3) illustrates, the Los Angeles Unified School District is labeling children as ``limited English proficient'' even when their English is better than their Spanish. How many other kids in the district are being kept in bilingual classes when they should have already been mainstreamed?

Nationwide studies have revealed that two-thirds of the kids in bilingual programs are already functional in English. It just might turn out that most of the so-called Spanish-speaking kids would score better on the Stanford 9 than on the Aprenda.

What terrifies the LAUSD is the possibility of the taxpayers, voters and parents finding out as many as 200,000 of our kids are being used as pawns by an administration that cares more for state funding, and union campaign donations, than it does for the future of our children.

- Gene Hudson

Reseda

I teach the third grade in a modified bilingual program.

While my colleagues and administrators were abhorring and dreading the administration of the Stanford 9 test, I secretly was curious how my students could fare on the test. They are model students of an excellent bilingual program, almost ready to formally transition to English reading.

The scores won't be in for a few months, but just walking around during the proctoring, I was very excited about how well they did.

These students all have been in our bilingual program since kindergarten without any interruptions in their studies. Four of them also are being tracked into the gifted and talented program next year, when students are first identified in our district.

I know that none of these things could have happened had these students been sitting in the back of an ``English-only'' classroom as second-class citizens and English remedial readers. I challenged other bilingual teachers with success stories to come forward and tell the truth about our programs.

- Jackie Pinson

Peach Hill School

Moorpark

Proposition 227, also known as the Ron Unz initiative and ``English for the Children,'' sounds at first blush like an idea whose time has finally arrived. After all, everyone seems to agree with the premise that bilingual education has failed.

Well, now for the really bad news. Much of the current debate centers on those students who speak only Spanish. In California, hundreds of thousands of these children are here illegally. That is why we passed Proposition 187.

What does the Unz initiative do to our Proposition 187? Part of it says that ``the public schools of California have a moral obligation and a constitutional duty to provide all of California's children, regardless of their ethnicity or national origins, with the skills necessary to become productive members of our society.'' The word ``all'' directly cancels the spirit, as well as the meaning, of Proposition 187.

Finally, the initiative creates a 10-year, taxpayer-funded, $500 million program to teach immigrants, legal or not, English.

Well, most of the high schools already have free adult English courses.

Anyway, the state Board of Education has just ruled that school districts can eliminate bilingual education programs and replace them with English immersion.

Well, folks, don't wait for some flawed initiative to do it for you. All over the state, let us get down to our school boards and demand English immersion. And if, as Unz says, most Latino parents want English only, they will be right there, too.

- John N. Grindas

Woodland Hills

Leonard Auslender, in his April 4 letter, seems to have lost his perspective regarding giving Gov. Pete Wilson a test in Spanish.

If Wilson were suddenly to find himself in Mexico as an immigrant who was seeking to live in Mexico and make that country his home, it would be completely proper to expect him to speak and read Spanish in the Mexican school. That is what these people have done.

Immigrants and their American-born children are attending American schools in search of the better life. In that case it is certainly proper that they be tested in English. Only in that way can the school district and the state of California know what progress they are making toward becoming successfully functioning members of the population.

That is totally different from giving Wilson some test in Spanish to be governor of California.

- Richard J. Warren

Van Nuys

Soka project

It is clear that the Daily News didn't take the time to get its facts straight before viciously attacking state Sen. John Burton (``Back off, Burton; Senate president disrupts the orderly planning process,'' April 5).

You correctly noted that the Coastal Commission approved a zoning and land-use plan for the Soka University project at its February meeting. However, you failed to mention that the accompanying building permit considered at the March meeting did not conform to that land-use plan.

Burton's letter simply pointed out this fact and urged the commission not to approve any building permits that violated the land-use plan, and thereby the Coastal Act. If, in fact, the commission had approved the permit application as presented, the resulting Coastal Act violation could be considered grounds for legal action, ultimately costing taxpayers even more money.

If that constitutes ``political interference,'' then by all means interfere away.

- Robert Fera

Calabasas

Feds killed rail

It should be acknowledged that the true heroes behind the admission that rail is dead (``Dead end for rail; Burke calls for halt of new projects,'' Daily News, April 4) were the officials in the Federal Transit Administration, whose refusal to accept any more smoke-and-mirrors financial plans forced the truth finally to be told.

How bittersweet it is for us Metropolitan Transportation Authority critics to be vindicated after years of open scorn from board members and agency upper management. But instead of dwelling on past mistreatment, my thoughts are on the task ahead.

The death of the rail plan is an opportunity to finally address the complex transportation and land-use issues that the region faces in the next 25 years. Let us begin a public dialogue on where we should go from here.

- Dana Gabbard

president

Southern California Transit Advocates

Los Angeles 

HMO executives' pay

Regarding the Daily News' April 2 Business section article, ``Top HMO executives paid millions in 1996,'' or an average of $20 million in salary and stock options:

That news is enough to turn your stomach when you consider that the same health maintenance organizations are limiting hospital stays and specialty medical services for the patients they insure - and are currently raising premiums between 9 percent and 12 percent this year alone.

Think of how many specialist visits, surgery and needed extra days in the hospital $20 million could buy.

It took an act of Congress to force the HMOs to allow a second day in the hospital for women after delivery of their newborns. HMOs have clearly demonstrated that profits come before patient care, and to reward their executives with money that should have been used for patients' medical services is adding insult to injury.

There is a new health-care bill known as Cal Care being prepared by some members of the state Legislature. It will assure all Californians of health care and will virtually eliminate the for-profit health insurance industry.

The insurance companies will undoubtedly throw millions of dollars into a campaign of lies against it, because it will eliminate their cash cow and use those dollars for patient care. When the time comes, ask your Legislature to vote for it.

- Melvin H. Kirschner, M.D.

Van Nuys

Those of us who are subscribers to HMOs find these incredible salaries and stock options an abomination.

There is no other solution but to pass legislation to curb these excesses. It is not difficult to conclude that in order to pay those salaries and profits from stock, the patients have to get the short end of the stick.

- Haydee Pavia

West Hills

Pricey prescriptions

I'm writing because I'm upset about pharmacy prices.

My wife and I are in our middle 70s. Last week we went to the doctor because my wife had a terrible cough. She was given a prescription. We are on Medicare, and it does not pay for prescriptions.

When we heard these prices, my wife nearly became sicker.

When is someone going to regulate the prices so we can afford them?

- Philip A. Tabbi

Reseda

`Deceitful' union practice

The Daily News does a great job covering economic factors influencing job opportunities in our region. But there is a subtle and deceitful practice that threatens the very survival of many small businesses in this area that needs to be covered.

This treat comes in the form of a labor union abuse known as ``salting.'' Labor unions use this innovative, albeit unethical, tactic to attack their open-shop competition.

Here's how salting works: Workers are sent by their unions to infiltrate or ``salt'' open-shop companies. Instead of working productively, union salts abuse the process by filing costly and frivolous charges against the employer with the National Labor Relations Board, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other federal agencies, which initiate a lengthy investigation of the employer.

Congress will soon consider HR 3246, ``The Fairness for Small Business and Employees Act.'' This bill will stop salting abuse and restore fair treatment of small businesses and their employees. Our representatives and senators should stand up for hard-working taxpayers of this state and support this common-sense legislation.

- James A. Amato

Van Nuys

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Photo

Photo: Sebastian Jimenez, 7, reads to his younger brother Mark and mother, Hilde Jimenez. Sebastian has a learning disability and speaks little Spanish, but is treated as a pupil with limited proficiency in English.

Tom Mendoza/Daily News