10/04/06  ... are not educating Dallas kids.

There is so much going on, and it was very bad timing for me to come down with an ear ailment.  Talk about a humbling experience.  Still, things just will not settle down in this town. 

Sarah Dodd has an incredible story, Some DISD teachers don't speak English, and it ought to make you furious.  Did you ever think we would have classrooms in Dallas schools where English is not spoken? 

This is all a terrible experiment that continues to fail.   Children learn languages most easily at their youngest.  What about all the Asian children that have come into DISD classes and not only learned English for the first time, but went on to excel in academics?  Are you going to tell me that Spanish-speaking children cannot learn as easily as Asian children?  I'm not buying it!

Worse, we have children now being taught by adults who have not learned English.   What kind of example is that for young children?  Why should they try to speak English if their teachers can't? 

We have gone so far a field from trying to accommodate Spanish-speaking immigrants (legal and illegal) that we rare actually hurting their education.  We are treating these children as if they are not as smart as the children of previous immigrants, and that is just not true. 

I know three elementary students who are learning English at school.  They were born here in Dallas, but their mother doesn't speak English.  Since they have no need to learn English until it is forced on them at school, they don't.   Now, with their teachers not speaking English either, they won't.

I am not the least impressed with Supt. Hinojosa.  Look at the chaos that has been happening under his watch.  Secretaries using credit cards to the tune of $300,000, and he is blissfully unaware.  They guy makes more than the City Manager of Dallas.  I guarantee you that Mary Suhm would know there was $300,000 being spent.  More, if the first level of corruption slipped past the managers who should have caught it, she would have demanded they create their own system to fix the problem.  She would insist that those who stole taxpayer money be fired. 

Dr. Hinojosa's innovative way to fix a huge problem is to create a new layer of bureaucracy.  None of the DISD supervisors who were not supervising lost their jobs.  As far as I know from the news reports, none of them even got demoted.  No, they got duplicated!

You can understand how Dr. Hinojosa thinks this can all be swept away.  Nothing is real in this town anymore.

Attorney Domingo Garcia is now suing (on behalf of his illegal alien clients) local municipalities for having non-Spanish speaking cops arrest his clients.

Irving police officer Dan Miller Alan Robinson 09:17 AM CDT on Friday, May 5, 2006

It didn't take a not-guilty verdict from a jury to show me Irving police officer Dan Miller acted properly in his use of force against an illegal Mexican immigrant, Jose Palomino. Thanks very much to DallasNews.com for posting the dashcam video of the arrest because, unlike most videos that are televised or reported in similar circumstances, this video clearly shows the behavior of Mr. Palomino as well as the actions and audio of Mr. Miller.    The travesty in all of this is that Mr. Miller had to go through it in the first place. The harm to his reputation, his legal fees, loss of income and the Irving Police Department's public relations fiasco are damages that won't be quickly undone. Charging officers who act professionally and with restraint and branding them as racists or brutes discourages people from becoming police officers, kills the morale of good officers and, most important, trivializes the meaning of brutality. We become tired of hearing people cry "racist wolf!"    The "victim's" attorney, Domingo Garcia, and the rest of the police-hate-minorities crowd, paint Mr. Palomino as a harmless, mentally challenged man who doesn't understand English. On the contrary, he responded to Mr. Miller's commands when it suited him (he got out of the car and got down on the ground after being commanded to do so), and he is a large man who acted aggressively in response to the traffic stop. At least twice before being pepper sprayed, Mr. Palomino walked aggressively with clenched fists toward Mr. Miller and only stopped walking toward the officer when he drew his weapon and proclaimed, "I'll shoot you." ... Domingo Garcia should be ashamed of himself. Jose Palomino should be deported. Dan Miller should be immediately reinstated and reimbursed for his legal fees, and his back pay paid with interest. Finally, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd should be fired for scapegoating Mr. Miller, pandering to ethnic politicians and letting this become anything more than a "routine" arrest.

and

	INVASION USA Posted: September 30, 2006
City sued: Didn't teach cop Spanish Attorney seeking over $1 million says officer who assaulted Hispanic couldn't communicate
An attorney for a Hispanic man who was allegedly knocked to the ground and kicked by a police officer is seeking over $1 million dollars for his client, arguing that the city's failure to teach law enforcement officers "fundamental Spanish" is the reason excessive force was used.    According to the suit filed in a Hunt County, Texas, district court on Wednesday, Jose Lopez was assaulted at a football game in 2004 by a Royse City police officer who allegedly knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the knee and face while wearing steel-toed boots. Domingo Garcia Dallas attorney Domingo Garcia argues in his filing that the city was negligent for not monitoring and training the unnamed officer ? specifically, for not training him to speak Spanish "in order to properly communicate with Spanish-speaking persons."    Chief Tom Shelton told the Greenville Herald-Banner he was unable to discuss the specifics of the alleged incident but that the lawsuit was without merit and that he was standing behind the officer.    "There's really not going to be much to it," he said. "To me, it is pretty much a frivolous lawsuit." ... Garcia, ...  has filed a similar suit against the city of Irving, Texas.    In that suit, Domingo charges that an Irving police officer, who was cleared of all charged associated with the pepper-spraying and baton beating of Jose Palomino, an illegal alien who refused his orders to lay on the ground, was forced to use such tactics because he could not communicate in Spanish.    The plaintiff in the suit said he had been coming to the U.S. to work for 23 years but did not understand what the officer meant when he repeatedly said, "Down! Down! Down!" ... Garcia told KILF radio talk-show host Greg Knapp. "  ...  Garcia called Knapp's use of the term "illegal alien" in reference to his client a "racial slur," likening it to "calling people nigger!" ...

Thanks to Adam McGill of DMagazine's FrontBurner (October 2, 2006) for finding these two stories.

As a State Rep, Garcia. Texas Monthly selected him as one of the 10 Worst Legislators of 2001.
Texas Monthly: Best and Worst Legislators.

Garcia and his ilk want to keep immigrants (legal and illegal) dependent on them by discouraging the immigrants from becoming fluent in English.  So long as an immigrant cannot speak English, he is dependent on intercessors like Garcia, et al.  Would that strike terror in your heart?  To be dependent on someone like Domingo Garcia?

It's bad enough that adults are in that situation, but to put children in a permanent second place because they are not being taught in English is so wrong it borders on criminal.

No one who cannot speak English should be teaching any child of any ethnicity or language preference.  How can a teaching process be called "bi-lingual" when the teacher only speaks one language, and it's not English?

Since Dr. Hinojosa is running things at DISD, he is responsible for holding back Spanish-speaking children from learning English.  His experiments are hurting our children, and ultimately our entire community.

Betty Culbreath says its for some management at DISD.   She's right, but it's also time for some reality at DISD. 

sb