Immersion Works

In response to the bilingual education conference (“Beleaguered Bilingual Educators Regroup,” Feb. 6) and (author-journalist Ruben) Martinez who said, “We cannot remain silent while children are being attacked”: I believe he either missed the point or is trying to shift the blame. There is no attack on minority children; in fact, to the contrary, there is a great deal of sympathy.

I feel both sorrow and anger that a non-English-speaking student stands little chance of ever matching English-speaking students because he has no choice about being taught in a system (taught in his native language) that does not work. My 20 years’ experience teaching has shown that non-English-speaking students who had to learn English through immersion (because their language fortunately was not offered at the school) were able to match the English-speaking students.

MIKE HAAS, Cypress