There can be no doubt that the most important factor in creating an excellent school district is excellent teachers. In fact this is more important than all other factors (level of funding, choice of curriculum, skill of administrators, etc.) combined. We are fortunate in Plano to have many outstanding teachers, but I would like to call attention to one in particular that has not received the recognition she deserves. Diane Elkins is an ESOL teacher currently at Thomas Elementary. She is so good at what she does that foreign professionals moving to the metroplex have sought homes in the Thomas attendance zone just so their children could have the benefits of her services.

When I heard about her last year, I visited her class to observe her techniques and was very impressed with how quickly she makes children with no English background proficient in English. But Diane is far more than just an outstanding ESOL teacher. In her 25 years of teaching experience she has become an expert not only in ESOL and Bilingual Education, but also in reading instruction and reading recovery techniques. She has taught these subjects, and Spanish, at every level from Kindergarten to college. At the same time she completed two Master's degrees at SMU and the course work for a PhD in Educational Administration.

Her expertise is recognized far beyond the boundaries of the district. She was named the Outstanding North Texas ESOL Teacher in 1990, went on to serve on the board of TexTESOL the next year and rose to president of the organization in 1994. This year she was selected by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Moses as one of fifteen on the State Textbook Language Arts Committee to choose the ESOL texts that will be used for the next six years.

For a year the position of Bilingual/ESOL Coordinator for the school district has remained vacant although an obviously excellent choice exists within the district. On June 4 that position was filled by an outside candidate with only seven years of teaching experience (none in the last four years or at the high school level). This was a blatant slap at our two better qualified internal candidates. One of them (not Diane) has resigned the district in disgust. The ESOL program feels demoralized. Dr. Otto claims he had to appoint the recommendation of an interview committee, but that is a shameless attempt to pass the buck. He has the final authority on appointments and does not have to accept the recommendation of any committee he set up himself.

So why did we bypass an obvious choice for a year and finally select a less qualified outsider? Could it be that the outsider is named Robles and our Multi-Ethnic Committee has been pushing for several years to increase the number of minority administrators to 10%? If this sort of consideration continues to take priority over academic excellence, then the Plano Independent School District will indeed be politically correct as it watches its student performance decline.