The high court on April 17 let stand a ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowing California's Downey Unified School District to refuse to display an ad listing the Ten Commandments on a ballfield fence. The case began in 1995 when the school district solicited ads to pay for new team uniforms. The school district refused the ad and DiLoreto sued, citing his First Amendment right of free speech. The 9th Circuit Court held that, because the ballfield is a limited public forum, the school acted reasonably in barring religious content from the ads, and claimed concern about a possible violation of the Establishment Clause. The state attorney general had told the school that posting the ad would not violate the Constitution.
Studies show that California's English immersion programs are working.
In conducting a study for the Santa Cruz Sentinel , reporter Jondi Gumz analyzed test scores and interviewed teachers in school districts with significantly different approaches to Proposition 227. In districts that failed to improve, Gumz found teacher union efforts to undermine the English immersion initiative along with low morale among bilingual teachers. A San Jose Mercury News study, for example, found that 2nd graders learning English in mainstream classrooms averaged at the 35th national percentile on the Stanford 9 test, while bilingual learners averaged in the 20th percentile. A third study by the READ Institute yielded similar results. Survey shows colleges are accepting more homeschooled students.