Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 41

The Arizona Republic SATURDAY, NOVKMHKR 16, 2002 Bll ANOTHER VIEW SH mm Bilingual-ed issue turns on money The facts don't matter a whole lot. Money and a carefully tailored message do. The issue is bilingual education generally but, specifically, the first election to stop the Ron Unz "English-for-the-Children" juggernaut. Measures to ban bilingual education and replace it.with one-year English immersion have made it to the ballot in four states. Only one, Colorado, has had the wisdom or inclination to reject such 0.

Ricardo Pimentel Republic columnist an initiative, doing so by a 12-point margin in last week's election. On the same day, voted over whelmingly to dismantle its bilingual education program. Arizona voters did We didn't get him, dead or alive Ever since the Pentagon blew the battle at Tora Bora last year and apparently allowed Osama bin Laden to slip the noose, the administration has been busy downplaying his importance. "We've tried hard not to personalize it," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said of bin Laden and his Taliban sidekick, Mullah Omar. "This is a lot more than bin Laden and Omar," she Foes lost in Colorado when a billionaire trumped a millionaire and got a message out.

the deed two years ago, California voters in 1998. No, it isn't a great revelation that facts don't necessarily matter in politics. If they did, we probably would have seen very different election results last week. And there's a rea time in your standard campaign to educate folks on the complexities of language acquisition. Simplicity is on the side of "English for the children," a slogan that is evocative, ripe in imagery and just so easy to demagogue.

OK, obviously, future campaigns need to do better jobs of unmasking Unz and his backers, right? Not exactly. A demonization campaign will likely turn off fence-strad-dlers folks who might feel strongly about English, by God, being the language of this country but who also might be swayed by such issues as parental choice and basic fairness. Base a campaign on calling Unz a racist, an outsiderinterloper or as they did in Massachusetts, likening him to a Nazi and the shrillness will drown out the intended message. So, under these circumstances, what's the "right" message? Fairness? Cost? Not entirely. Efficiency? Nope.

In Colorado, a big part of the message was, essentially, that Spanish-speaking children would be main-streamed too soon. The implicit message: Your own kids will suffer because they will be in classes with kids who don't speak, read or write English well. Unz promptly accused the anti-initiative folks of scare tactics and race-baiting. (Which strikes me a lot like the pot calling the kettle black). But truth is a defense here.

Kids in English immersion are more likely to be pushed into the mainstream before they're ready. It's why so many educators oppose efforts to dismantle bilingual ed. Yes, "chaos in the classroom," as the commercials were tagged, probably wasn't intended to appeal to Colorado voters' sense of fairness. They had the effect, however, of broadening the issue. Bilingual education was no longer just a "Latino problem." And it also helped to broaden this issue that important opinion leaders in Colorado opposed the initiative because of the facts.

But what good is a message if you can't get it out? Money is another big reason anti-Unz folks prevailed in Colorado. In Arizona, bilingual education supporters spent a bit more than $100,000 in their failed attempt to stop Unz. English for the Children about double that. But the English Plus coalition in Colorado had a guardian angel in billionaire heiress Pat Stryker. She contributed $3 million, used in a late-breaking campaign.

Simply, a billionaire trumps a millionaire. Not fair? Probably. But neither have been English-for-the-Children campaigns that relied on simplistic, coded and well-funded messages to elicit knee-jerk reactions. Reach Pimentel at ricardo.pimentelarizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8210. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

said. Yes, it's about failure. The decision to de-emphasize the hunt for the two, especially bin Lad- Richard Cohen Washington Post Writers Group en, seems linked 4 1 that all-purpose Since the Bush administration cannot show that bin Laden is dead, he will continue to live whether in fact, tape or myth the Pentagon spokeswoman. She and her bosses may now choose not to "personalize" the search for bin Laden, but I and countless others feel differently. The man is a mass murderer who took more than 3,000 lives on Sept.

11, 2001, alone. He is responsible for other terrorist attacks as well, including the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen. Those of us who were in New York when the twin towers of the World Trade Center were hit, who were downtown when the buildings collapsed, can never forget that day. The sound of buildings snapping and then collapsing, people plummeting to their deaths or tumbling into an inferno of jet fuel, firefighters and cops rushing up stairs that would soon be pulverized, widows, orphans, a gash in the city that endures all this make Sept. 11 very personal indeed.

To this day, every iretruck rushing by the names of the dead embossed on the sides is a reminder of what happened, a blur of a memorial. Osama bin Laden laughed at all this, his cackle caught on an earlier videotape. Now, in effect, he laughs some more. The murder of innocents in Bali, in Jordan, in Tunisia, in that Moscow theater the terrorism he applauds, if not supports, and which was mentioned on that tape, makes it imperative that he be captured or killed, and that we know for sure. That would be good policy and satisfying as hell.

Reach Richard Cohen at cohenrwashpost.com. al-Qaida itself not its leader. "We don't have to find him, because we're going to shut down his terrorist apparatus," he said. Now an audiotape purportedly from bin Laden has surfaced in the usual outlet for such things, the Arab satellite channel, Al-Jazeera. Since the voice mentions such recent events as the bombing in Bali and the murder of a U.S.

diplomat in Jordan, it had to be made fairly recently. And since the Bush administration cannot show that bin Laden is dead, he will continue to live whether in fact, tape or myth in the imagination and yearnings of his followers, larger than life because he cannot be proved dead. The obvious attempt to downplay bin Laden's importance has the quality of whistling past the graveyard. In the first place, the existence of the new tape is a form of nose-thumbing. It shows the world particularly the Islamic world that the United States is not as all-powerful as some people might suppose.

It may be able to pound Afghanistan into rubble and possibly do the same to Iraq, but it is far weaker when facing terrorism the ol' asymmetrical warfare business. This is a lesson Israel learns on almost a daily basis. Second, there was no al-Qaida before bin Laden and while it might continue to exist without him, it would certainly be far less formidable. He bankrolled the organization with his personal fortune, but more important, he is a rare charismatic leader. There's no point in calling him names evil, for instance when no matter what we may think of him (and evil he surely is) he's a hero in parts of the world.

For many reasons, he's become the personification of extreme Islam's war against the West, modernity and a rational person would suggest the welfare of its own people. Last, I have to go back to Clarke, Washington word to the fact that the United States has been unable to find him, either "dead or alive," in George Bush's unforgettable phrase. Specifically, it seems that bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora where, U.S. intelligence now believes, he was present. It was a spectacular fias Hunt for al-Qaida's leader still very personal matter for those who saw the towers fall.

son why the 97.1 percent of the folks who spent more money than their opponents in last week's congressional races ended up winning. But there's a lesson to be learned here nonetheless on the specific issue of bilingual education. That's because Unz, the software millionaire who has spearheaded these initiatives, isn't likely to go away despite the Colorado loss. More initiatives in other states are probably in the offing. So, here's the lesson.

The facts are on the side of bilingual education. Properly resourced, this program works. Its goal is to transition non-English speakers to English while maintaining their competencies in core topics by teaching them in their own language. It simply works better than English immersion, say the language-acquisition experts. And none of this matters.

Campaigns, unfortunately, are often not about who has the facts, but about who has the most effective message. There's a difference. John Britz is one of the consultants who crafted the strategy to defeat the Unz initiative in Colorado. He tells me that the campaign researched what happened in California and Arizona. They also did extensive baseline surveys and focus groups.

One conclusion, difficult for activists on this matter to fathom: You don't win this kind of election on the facts. There won't ever be enough co. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld set the administration's tone when he implied it didn't matter all that much if bin Laden were dead or alive since, in either case, his days as a master terrorist were surely over. "Wherever he is, if he is, you can be certain he is having one dickens of a time operating his apparatus," Rumsfeld said. The commander of U.S.

ground forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Dan McNeil, struck a similar note. He said the really important target was LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Maybe Wildcats need players, too president in George W. Bush.

Does he switch parties and run as a Democrat? This is not likely to happen. As evidenced by the midterm election, the Democrats are in a weakened state, devoid of any meaningful platform from which to launch a strong national candidate. Besides, Democrat leaders will only of er the VP slot on their ticket to McCain. What is his answer then? Take the ball and run up the middle, as a "centrist." The maverick senator will look for any excuse in the next year to "philosophically disagree" with Bush. I predict McCain will announce his "painful" but "reasoned and principled" decision to leave the Republican Party and become the first "true independent" since Teddy Roosevelt.

(Teddy lost that race, by the way). He will declare that he will once and for all end "partisan bickering." My call to Arizonans is to not be suckered by the coming McCain spin of "having the honor of someone from our home state in the White House." His move could have the same pathetic effect in regards to the leadership of the U.S. Senate, as jumpin' Jim Jeffords' leap did last year. Jim Estrada Gilbert the people who lined up for a small quantity of safe water had a tank heater in their house in working condition. along with most scuba divers, go to remote parts of the world where there are primitive living quarters.

I have been diving in waters on the coast of every nation in Central America, not near cities, but the remote coastlines. I formerly took chlorine tablets to put in a pitcher of water for safe drinking, but I never used them. Even with meager accommodations, they always had a hot water pipe. We take a pot of the hottest water to our rooms, let it set till cool, and we never had digestive or other diseases, over a 25-year period. Once the water has passed through any high temperature, though now cool, it is perfectly safe.

Dr. Cyril D. Fouti Phoenix Just shows he can't swim A letter to the editor Thursday stated: "OK George you convinced me. Now walk on water." If the president complied with this request, the Democrats would immediately scream, "Look, W. can't swim." David Shapiro Scottsdale 'Excelling' at bargain rates The Viewpoints section featuring two of the state's three "excelling" public schools provided insight into the components of a successful school gold schools," Nov.

3). Both schools, Tempe Preparatory Academy and University High School, challenge students to achieve, express high expectations for students, employ qualified teachers and focus on the teacher-student relation ship. Both school leaders attribute exceptional student achievement to these school qualities. Students everywhere would be better served if public school leaders took note. However, the differences between these two schools also deserve attention.

Tempe Preparatory Academy is a public charter school and may not exercise admission preferences, use admission exams, or require previous levels of achievement for prospective students, unlike University High. Two of the state's three "excelling" schools are public charter schools (CASY Country Day is the third "excelling" school) and their students may not be "tested for entry into" a program, nor can charter schools require that their students "demonstrate a desire to learn by maintaining a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher in their previous academic program." University High is a special-function high school in the Tucson Unified School District, and as such, it has been implementing these practices when admitting students for the last 25 years. In addition to an uneven playing field because of selective admission standards, Tucson Unified School District spends about 25 percent more per student than the average public charter school. Tucson Unified School District collects an additional $62 million per year under the desegregation order that allows for selective admissions and above average per-pupil spending. University High's principal described the goal of Arizona's public schools as the "education of all citizens." The undemocratic legal authority to exclude hundreds of Arizona public school students and tax local homeowners for this privilege is reserved for district schools, includ ing University High.

It is a tribute to the fledgling public charter school movement that two of the three "excelling" schools have earned this distinction while educating all students at a bargain rate. Mary Gifford Chandler The writer is an educational consultant and former vice president of the State Board for Charter Schools. Duck the cigarette tax Well, I see it took our legislators less than one week to take money from the new tobacco tax to begin making up the budget shortfall. Weren't we told that this tax was going to pay for education and health care? I refuse to pay this tax to make up for the ineptitude of our Republican-controlled Legislature, which still thinks that supply side economics works. It failed in the Reagan administration, when we tripled our national debt in eight years trying it, and won't work for Arizona now.

There are several sites on the Internet which offer tax-free cigarettes. I encourage all Arizona smokers to take advantage of these. We smokers should not be unfairly taxed to balance the state budget and should refuse to pay this additional tax until everyone is taxed accordingly. Jack Knudson Phoenix Don't buy McCain's spin Can we all agree that Sen. John McCain wants to be president? The question for McCain is how to make his run in 2004.

(Not 2008; he can't risk losing his Senate seat in '04). There is no chance that he can take the Republican nomination from a verv popular and effective sitting Regarding Thursday's sports story, "Wildcats need a University of Arizona Coach John Mackovic probably stepped over the line by berating his players. Unfortunately for Mackovic and the Arizona football team, many of his players don't seem willing to step over the yard lines. They seem to be spending too much time in a huddle, whining about his style of coaching. Mackovic needs to go, but so do the players who are not willing to give 100 percent.

After all, it's these prima donnas who take the snap and win or lose the game. They need to "bear down" and give it their best. If they won't board the charter for the California game, they should lose their scholarships. With only three wins this season, they look like perfect material for the Arizona Cardinals team. The Cardinals have a grand tradition of dumping coaches and of players without commitment to winning through determination.

It should be a match made in heaven. Ken Mooney Phoenix Heat water for safety I was disappointed that no leader came forward to calm the fears of the people of Glendale and Peoria. It may be that we will have many terrorist threats, but bacterial infection is not one of them, and we cannot expect the government to cart in fresh water every time there is a bacterial presence. I would wager that 100 percent of Report well done Congratulations to The Republic and to reporter Joseph A. Reaves and staff for the follow-up report on recent events associated with the Catholic Church.

Aside from it being unbiased, well-researched and well-structured, Reaves shows rare and excellent use of grammar and vocabulary not always consistent with your newspaper. Charlene LaCrolx Scottsdale.