On the August 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly wondered whether children of legal and illegal immigrants from Mexico who are attending school in the United States “have any kind of traditional value system at all, vis-à-vis what America used to be,” or whether they are “taking their Mexican values, because most of them are Mexicans, and, you know, basically setting up Acapulco North,” referring to the beach resort on the Mexican Pacific coastline. O'Reilly's question came in response to a caller who had pointed to the presence of illegal and legal immigrant children in Los Angeles schools as cause for concern about accountability for the allocation of money earmarked for public schools through bond measures.
O'Reilly also told the caller that “the future of L.A., particularly, and probably America, lies in your school district,” and noted, “I have friends in L.A. Almost all of them send their kids to private school.”
From the August 15 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:
O'REILLY: Let's go to [caller] in West L.A. What's going on, [caller]?
CALLER: Hey, Bill, how are ya?
O'REILLY: Good.
CALLER: You know, I just, real quick -- I'll try to make this quick. I'll tell you what the future is. Your previous guest mentioned, you were trying to get the heart of what the future holds?
O'REILLY: Right.
CALLER: There's 750,000 students at the Los Angeles Unified School District. 330,000 of them are what they call English-learners --
O'REILLY: Right.
CALLER: -- 150,000 they estimate to be illegal citizens.
O'REILLY: Um-hmm.
CALLER: Or more than that if they're considered children of illegals. We just passed, in the last five or six years, $19 billion in bond measures, billion with a B. And if you look at the front of the L.A. Times, you can read all the details, and I'm sure you've been following it. The mayor right now is, is slugging it out with the school district over the -- over the $19 billion in the control of the, the schools. Everybody's talking about accountability, but what -- what no one's really talking about as far as accountability is who's accountable for the money that's going in the bond measures to build the schools for the citizens and -- and for the non-citizen.
O'REILLY: Well, it's supposed to be the city council and the mayor. I mean, they're the ones that are -- should be overseeing the $19 billion. But I think you -- the point that I found most interesting about what you said, [caller], was the future of L.A. particularly, and probably America, lies in your school district. To see how well those kids are educated, what their attitudes are. Are they trying to learn English? Do they have any kind of traditional value system at all, vis-à-vis what America used to be? Or are they taking their Mexican values, because most of them are Mexicans, and, you know, basically setting up Acapulco North? I don't know. I don't know. I have friends in L.A. Almost all of them send their kids to private school. And almost all of them say the same thing: The public schools are chaos. I know the public school superintendent, Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado, former DNC [Democratic National Committee] chief. Way out of his league. Way out of his league in that school district. So it's an interesting thing. You go down to the school, you'll see the future.
