bk, it really is sad for everyone involved, especially the kids themselves. These failing Costa Mesa schools are part of the superb Newport Mesa USD, and have the resources to make a difference. Since this APPEARS to be a forum for actual discussion and not politically correct horsepoop, hopefully the real issues can be discussed. From discussions with elementary teachers who know the score and are close friends, the problems can be summed up as follows:
1. Illegal populations are transient populations, often at the mercy of tenuous housing and employment. This dramatically impacts school-age kids, who can never gain traction at one school.
2. Many illegal parents treat school as free daycare. They do not attend parent teacher conferences and do not respond to extensive outreach efforts by school staff and counselors. They are often working multiple jobs and have little time for such things.
3. When English is not spoken at home, the kids get no help with homework and no help with English-language proficiency.
4. Whn kids cannot speak English, they are frustrated with school and socially ostracized from English-proficient kids. This promotes bonding with kids who also do not speak English, thus perpetuating the lack of English proficiency.
5. Education is not a culturally important issue to many in rural Latin America, and does not magically become so when they move here illegally.
The above are generalizations that have a great deal of truth behind them. My friends teach elementary school in Santa Barbara, where the demographic disparities are as severe as Newport-Mesa's. No matter how you feel about illegal immigration, the issue is literally irrelevant in the context of schools - schools are prohibited by law from asking about citizenship status and must educate all comers. Costa Mesa is getting battered because all the PC a-holes refuse to TALK ABOUT THE REAL UNDERLYING PROBLEMS. Meanwhile, the kids suffer. Kids who do not speak English are not dumb, they just need help and support, and that starts at home.
All these activists who fight English-only and promote retention of the native language are only doing themselves and their kids a huge disservice. Assimilation is critical to immigrant's success, if you want to live in Latin America - STAY THERE.