My children are a lot smarter than a lot of kids that are learning both Spanish and English. Taft Principal Bill Hart said the immersion program is so popular that parents are lining up to send their children to the school. If I threw open the school, we'd probably double the population. Tuchman had to fight the Santa Ana Unified school board a decade ago to allow her to teach with the immersion method. It's now the only method at Taft.
Good teachers are important.
But the program also works. We all share in the glory. By contrast, only about 4 percent of all Santa Ana students were redesignated as fluent. Test scores are also higher than in most Santa Ana schools. Taft students scored in the 63rd percentile nationally on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, while elementary students in most Santa Ana schools scored in the 30th percentile.