ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A New Snapshot for Our Public Schools

The diverse portrait that the 1990 census paints of Orange County offers both opportunities and challenges as the century winds to a close. Nowhere are the promises and the problems more apparent than in our schools.

The latest ethnic survey issued by the County Department of Education tells part of this important story, and how it’s changed even in the past year. Nearly all the county’s 27 school districts have shown marked increases in Latino and Asian student populations, and minority students now make up 48% of the entire student population in Orange County. Minority student population is climbing in South County, once regarded primarily as an all-white enclave. In the Capistrano Unified School District, for example, Latino and Asian student enrollment has nearly doubled in the past five years.

The success or failure at meeting the educational needs of these newest young residents of Orange County will be profound and long-lasting. The triumphs or shortcomings of the county’s public education system inevitably will touch the lives of all who live and work here.

It may be useful, in approaching this educational challenge, to keep a larger thought in mind: “The great hope of America is education.” That’s how Meliton (Mel) Lopez puts it, and he should know. He came to the United States from Mexico at the age of 15, and now labors at the very center of this educational battleground. As superintendent of the Anaheim City School District for the past five years, he presides over a system of elementary schools in which 59% of the students are Latino, and where, in one school, 19 languages are spoken.

Surveying the rapid ethnic diversification of his city, Lopez has identified a common theme: a “culture of poverty” that transcends many nationalities. But despite mounting budget woes, he asserts that the way to tackle the vexing educational problems associated with poverty, illiteracy and broken families is to regard them less as a headache and more as a starting point for building a diverse and interesting society.

This approach is as realistic as it is buoyant. If that kind of thinking were to take root in homes and schools, in city halls and local businesses, the weighty educational challenges lurking in these latest data might seem less burdensome.

There can be no illusions that positive thinking alone will educate children for whom English may not be a native language, and for whom 21st-Century technology may be at odds with the culture of an earlier time. The task of accomplishing that will have to be carried forward in small steps.

Some of these initiatives are under way and include finding and motivating bilingual teachers and instructional assistants, and improving students’ English proficiency at the same time transitional instruction is offered in native languages. This will take more money and commitment, though, and can be facilitated through the further countywide efforts of the Department of Education, which is in a prime position to advance the larger view in the county and in Sacramento.

Perhaps the greatest challenge will be in fostering improved communication among persons of different cultures within the school systems, a task proving difficult enough for the larger society. It can be done; Capistrano Unified School District, for example, is making a special effort to foster good relations between non-Anglo and Anglo students.

All this may at times seem like a high-wire act--that is, making the melting pot work while the money is tight. But the alternative is frightening. And as one Latino educator reminds us, this is a noble pursuit, indeed--the pursuit of America’s bright hope.