The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 157

LOS ANGELES TIMES NATHURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1998 All THE SOUTHLAND ra rls! 00 iT'-M STUFFED GERMAN SHEPHERD Dog. Keeps burglars away, $25. 10 Teenage dresses, $3 each. STEVE HARVEY Just in time to decorate yard for Halloween. A Driving Need to Avoid Ticket KAREN SATZMAN For The Times 10 years ago, he overheard a student in the pub tell an interesting story.

It seems the student went to a final with two blue books. In one, he wrote a letter to his grandmother. That blue book he purposely put in the pile of exams. He walked out with the exam questions, went home and wrote the exam in the second blue book benefit of notes and books, of course," Cavanaugh noted). That exam he mailed to his grandmother.

Some days later, Grandma called and asked why he'd sent her an exam. "OMIGOd! I'm dead," the student lied to her. "I finished my exam early and thought it would be nice to write you in the spare blue book. But I must have turned the letter in instead of the Grandma, charmed, called the away" even if it has gone to the Great Doghouse in the Sky (see accompanying). As for the second sale item, "teenage dresses," Lee wonders if those are "good for keeping the teenage boys away." AT LEAST THE OWNER'S NO BRAGGART: Hype and overstatement are common among eateries in the Southland, so it was refreshing for Larry Kantor of Woodland Hills to find a restaurant that doesn't claim to have a spot in the Michelin guide (see photo).

OR SPARKING AN IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY: A billboard for the United Way charity on the San Diego Freeway says: "How to love thy neighbor without ending up on 'Jerry URBAN FOLK TALES (COLLEGE DIVISION): When Michael Cavanaugh taught at Cal State Northridge Perhaps because they drive so much, Southern Californians have a knack for making creative excuses when they're pulled over by traffic cops. Take the San Fernando Valley motorist who tried to get out of a ticket by explaining: "I have diarrhea and my muffler is giving me trouble." To his credit, the officer didn't back off. YOU BE THE JUDGE: The above gem can be found on the World Wide Web site of the LAPD's Valley Traffic Division at: http:www.cityofla.orgLAPD trafficvtdexcuse.htm Here are some other lines that have floated out the driver's window to officers: "I had to get home to feed my cats." "Officer, do you have any idea who you're talking to?" "I'm late for a funeral." "There was a really dangerous driver behind me and I was trying to get away from him." "You liar, you know I stopped at the stop sign!" "Officer, there's no way you could have seen me cut those people off." And then there's the excuse peculiar to this region: "It's an emergency. I'm an actress and a whole production company is waiting for me." JUST DON'T EXPECT IT TO HEEL: Georgia Lee of San Gabriel came upon an ad in a weekly for a pooch who "keeps burglars Humble beginnings. prof to explain.

The prof agreed to accept the blue book. Concluded Cavanaugn: "Talk about walking over your own grandmother. miscelLAny: Belmont High, the L.A. school on 2nd Street, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this weekend. Its alumni include comic Mort Sahl, actors Jack Webb and Richard Crenna, Times column- ist Jack Smith, TV correspondent Murray Fromson, L.A.

school Supt. Sid Thompson and Milo Speriglio of Nick Harris Detectives. On a personal note, I should mention another Belmont alumnus who played a formative role in my growth (at least the growth of my waistline) Tommy Koulax, the founder of Tommy's Hamburgers. PROP. 227: Bilingual Education Still Thrives in School OBITUARIES r.

If -TO A K'- I i' shbv ai fit VV, rrn Elementary School recently, Rosa Valencia buttonholed a campus bilingual coordinator and asked, "Did I get it? Did I get the waiver?" Valencia feared that she had not filled out the application correctly for her 7-year-old daughter, Karina. She smiled broadly when the coordinator told her that the request had been granted. In all, the school issued 883 waivers. Later, with her second-grader at her side, Valencia, a native of Mexico, said: "I believe in the bilingual program and all of my six children speak Spanish. We all support the first language in our home, as well as the second language spoken in our school community." Added Karina, "I like speaking two languages." let favnnje (oo(J vj) KjrnCh'i VC irr pop I Lottery Result SUPER LOTTO Tonight's Jackpot: ft $8 million Time: Sales close at 7:40 p.m.

For Monday, Oct. 19 GARY FRIEDMAN Los Angeles Times Helen Pak, 5, gets some assistance from her teacher, Sandy Burnam, in Korean basic kindergarten, which teaches Korean and English at Cahuenga Elementary. FANTASY 5 Winning Numbers: 3-21-25-29-31 Bilingual Vote, Take 2 DAILY 3 0-7-4 Winning Numbers: DAILY DERBY Parents in California are choosing this fall whether to put their children with limited English skills into English-intensive classes, required by Proposition 227, or to seek permission for them to continue in bilingual education. Here are the 20 districts with the most students in bilingual classes before the initiative passed in June, and the number of waiver applications each had received as of mid-October. Few applicants have been turned down.

Some districts provided partial tallies or estimates. Students In School district Waiver requests Continued from Al School administrators, most of whom opposed the ballot measure, say the return to bilingual classrooms is entirely consistent with the new law. While the proposition requires schools to teach students in English, it also allows parents to pull children out of English immersion classrooms after 30 days under certain circumstances. As often happens when the broad strokes of politics give way to the ambiguities of law and administration, the aftermath of Proposition 227 has proved complex. Bilingual education has certainly not ended in California, interviews and records show, nor will it any time soon.

"There is room in our schools for bilingual education programs and English language acquisition programs," said Forrest Ross, a Los Angeles school official. "And we're seeing this happen. They're side by side in schools." Statewide, 1.4 million students in public schools are not fluent in English. Of those, about three in 10 were taught last school year in their native languages, often for as much as 70, 80 or even 90 of the school day. Many had gone for years without becoming fluent in English.

Those were the programs that Republican businessman Ron Unz targeted when he wrote the initiative. Data provided to The Times by several key school districts show that Unz has accomplished his goal in many areas. Given the choice between keeping children in the English-based classes in which they began the school year or seeking permission to put them back into bilingual education, many parents choose English. For many, it was simply a matter of not wanting to change teachers in midterm. In Fresno and Santa Ana, bilingual programs have shrunk considerably.

In Paramount Unified, Mountain View Elementary and Long Beach Unified three Los Angeles County districts that had large bilingual programsfew parents have expressed interest in so-called "waivers" to keep their children in those programs. Even in Los Angeles Unified, which Unz has criticized for allegedly failing to move vigorously to stamp out native language instruction, scores of schools report that few or no parents have filed petitions to put their children back into bilingual classes. District officials predict that the tally will grow in coming months, as the law takes hold. "If we've reduced the number of students in bilingual education in Los Angeles by 90 in the first year, in the face of massive resistance, that's a pretty good start," Unz said. However, Unz charged that tens of thousands more Los Angeles students are getting a watered-down form of bilingual education under the table.

He complained that some classes created to comply with the initiative are English immersion in name only. The data released Wednesday show more than 96,000 limited-English students are now in a program that the Los Angeles district says gives students instruction "primarily" in English, along with "support" in their native language from bilingual teachers. Bilingual education enjoys sub- Eleanor Norris Keaton; Widow of Buster Keaton Eleanor Norris Keaton, 80, widow of legendary silent screen comedian Buster Keaton. The daughter of a studio electrician, she started dancing in MGM musicals as a teenager. The young Eleanor Norris was formally introduced to Keaton in 1938 by friends who suggested he could teach her to play bridge.

Despite his two failed marriages and her relative youth, the couple were married July 28, 1940, when she was 21. They worked together in stage shows and traveled to film festivals where he was honored. The marriage remained strong until his death of lung cancer on Feb. 1, 1966. She later raised championship St.

Bernard dogs, descended from her husband's pet Junior, including several that appeared in the Beethoven series of family films. Eleanor Keaton was a docent for the Greater Los Angeles Zoo, a consultant on gags for filmmakers including Mel Brooks, and a popular speaker at showings of silent films including the Los Angeles Conservancy's Last Seats on Broadway series each June. She was an honorary member of both the Sons of the Desert and the International Buster Keaton Society known as the Damfinos. On Monday in the Motion Picture Relief Fund Hospital, Woodland Hills, of emphysema and lung cancer. Arnold M.

Auerbach; Radio, TV Comedy Writer Arnold M. Auerbach, 86, versatile comedy writer for radio, television, film, magazines and Broadway who penned gags for such luminaries as Milton Berle and Jackie Gleason. Born in New York City and educated at Columbia University, Auerbach began his writing career in 1932 with a script for a college revue. He later contributed sketches for the Broadway revues "Call Me Mister," "Inside USA" and "Bless You All." Auerbach worked for comedian Fred Allen in the late 1930s and was under contract to motion picture studios Paramount and Warner Bros, in the early 1940s. He served in the Army during World War II, writing skits for the musical comedy "About Face" for Special Services.

The prolific gag writer wrote for Al Jolson, Frank Sinatra, Phil Silvers and many others. He also wrote articles for such magazines as Harper's and Saturday Review and published the books "Funny Men Don't Laugh" and "Is That Your Best Offer?" On Monday in New York. Collins Seitz; Opened White School to Blacks Collins Seitz, 84, the first judge in the United States to order an all-white school to admit blacks. Seitz was a Chancery Court judge in Delaware when he made the ruling in 1952, commenting: "The cold hard fact is that the state in this situation discriminates against Negro children." That case was one of four combined into Brown vs. Board of Education in which the U.S.

Supreme Court made its 1954 ruling striking down racial segregation in schools. Seitz was the only trial court judge of the four who condemned the concept of separate but equal facilities for black students. After 20 years on the Chancery Court, Seitz served on the federal appellate court and retired in 1984 as chief justice of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. On Friday in Wilmington, Del.

i Winning Horses: (10) Solid Gold (9) Winning Spirit (7) Eureka Race Time: 1:42.53 To win the grand prize, ticket-holders must match, In exact order, the first-, second- and third-place horses and the winning raw time. Lesser prizes are given to ticket-holders who match horses or the race time. ON THE WEB For current and past Lottery numbers, winners and other information, go to The Times' Web site at: http:www.latlmes.com Click on News, then cUck on CaKfomia Lottery. Los Angeles Unified 107,226 11,809 San Diego City Unified 12,704 NA Long Beach Unified (Los Angeles County) 12,093 No plans for waivers Santa Ana Unified (Orange County) 11,029 2,037 Montebello Unified (Los Angeles County) 10,896 NA San Francisco Unified 8,210 Nearly all Oxnard Elementary (Ventura County) 5,773 4,650 Pajaro Valley Joint Unified (Santa Cruz County) 5,471 3,049 Pomona Unified (Los Angeles County) 5,461 3,500 Mountain View Elementary 5,330 400 (Los Angeles County) San Bernardino City Unified 4,888 Many expected (San Bernardino County) San Jose Unified (Santa Clara County) 4,560 2,635 Alum Rock Union Elementary 4,326 2,840 (Santa Clara County) Paramount Unified (Los Angeles County) 4,283 Few expected Fresno Unified (Fresno County) 4,215 1,200 Compton Unified (Los Angeles County) 3,996 200 Alisal Union Elementary (Monterey County) 3,915 Nearly all Vista Unified (San Diego County) 3,582 Half expected Hueneme Elementary (Ventura County) 3,532 Nearly all Coachella Valley Unified (Riverside County) 3,529 Many sought Note: San Francisco Unified contends that it is required to offer bilingual classes under a federal court order. Sources: California Department of Education, school districts pro-bilingual teachers complain that they have been gagged by school administrators.

Some anti-bilingual education critics allege that teachers and principals have done everything for parents to get a waiver except sign the forms. But perhaps a greater problem for parents seeking to make an informed decision is the impenetrability of education jargon. The Los Angeles district produced a videotape in an attempt to clarify the choices between what it calls "Model English immersion, "Model English immersion, "regular" English-language classes, "basic" bilingual education and "dual" bilingual education. At the end of a 23-minute segment in Spanish, administrator Forrest Ross told viewers, "Thank you, goodbye and good luck." Many of the parent responses defied easy analysis. At Belvedere Elementary School in East Los Angeles, where 826 children were in bilingual programs before the election, just 19 petitions had been filed to put them back into those programs and three were later withdrawn.

The numbers could rise as the year-round school continues to put the new law into effect. Still, Principal Robert G. Quihuis said: "I'll be honest with you. I'm really surprised." Mothers picking up their children after school weren't surprised. One said she chose an English track because her 9-year-old daughter liked it more.

Others said they had nothing against bilingual education in theory, but preferred English for their own children. "I was considering a waiver, but I decided not to because I feel she should just learn English. I think she will be better off," said Myra Camarillo, whose 6-year-old daughter, Bernice, is now in first grade after spending a year in a bilingual kindergarten. "It was a tough decision. I do want her to know Spanish.

But at school she can learn English, at home Spanish." Sentiment was reversed at another campus barely a mile away. Waiting at the counter in the front office at Eastman Avenue Los Angeles Times Looking for a good home. Driven wantedT stantial backing in some areas outside Los Angeles. In San Jose Unified and Alum Rock Union Elementary districts in Santa Clara County, the number of students returning to bilingual education this year will be more than half of last year's total. In Oxnard and Hueneme elementary districts in Ventura County, officials report a return rate exceeding 80 and 90, respectively.

San Francisco schools report almost no students dropping out of bilingual classes. "Our parents and our community have faith in our school district efforts and programs," said Cassandra George, an assistant superintendent in Pomona Unified, where at least 3,500 students are projected to return to bilingual education, compared to 5,461 before the election. The emerging data on parent response to Proposition 227 is significant because many parents now have a voice in the debate for the first time. The initiative was approved by 61 of a spring primary electorate tilted toward white, middle-class, older voters. This time, Latino parents, many of whom could not or did not vote, dominate the "electorate." They can "vote" by applying for a waiver at any time in the school year.

Virtually all applications get approved, although the law says that younger students must have "special" educational needs to qualify for a bilingual program. Predictably, each side of the bilingual debate charges that parents are being misled by propaganda from the other side. Some See your Southern California Volkswagen dealer.