I wanted to follow up on my post yesterday regarding, the Press-Enterprise story from Tuesday, Coachella Valley School District warned of state takeover. 

As I look through the list of the 98 low performing schools in the state, and especially the ones here in the Inland Empire, I realize that many were in areas of high illegal immigration, like Coachella Valley.  Coachella Valley Unified School District Superintendent Foch "Tut" Pensis has solution for the language problems this creates, but first let's look at which schools are low performing or outright failing.

Failing School Districts   -  Source: California Department of Education
Riverside County: Banning, Coachella Valley, Hemet, Jurupa, Lake Elsinore, Moreno Valley, Palm Springs, Perris Elementary, Romoland and San Jacinto. San Bernardino County: Chaffey, Colton, Ontario-Montclair, Rialto, San Bernardino City and Victor Valley Union. 

Of course the Press-Enterprise can't just come out and say that this is an area of almost entirely illegal immigrants, so they put it in liberal press code speak:

The district serves Coachella and the small communities of Mecca and Thermal, a rural area with a high number of migrant workers. Ninety-seven percent of the district's students are Latino, 92 percent are living in poverty and 77 percent are learning English as a second language.

It is time we acknowledged that having millions of kids in our education system who struggle with Basic English is having a destructive effect on our public schools.  As these failing public schools become charter schools and the yoke of the education bureaucracy is lifted, we should also take the opportunity to strengthen and encourage math and science education.

India and China are not waiting for us to solve our immigration mess.  They are hungry and motivated and smart and there are a lot of them.  We need to prepare our schools for excellence.

Instead, this is Superintendent Pensis' response:

Pensis said that by definition, English-language learners cannot be proficient in English. Coachella Valley and nine other districts sued the state in 2005, arguing that these students should be tested in Spanish.

Even Hispanic parents acknowledge, in high numbers, that learning English is the way to prosperity for their children.  Isn't that what every parent wants for their kids?

For our kids to be prosperous and America to remain competitive, we need to be demanding excellence from our education system - not lowering the bar to deal with our failed federal immigration policy.

I will give they guy credit for one thing, he has a photo of President Bush on his "Message From the Superintendent" webpage.