DC Hebrew approved!!
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Anonymous
I'm desperate for a decent school, you must live in Ward 3 and have no idea what you are talking about. |
Anonymous
Because everybody knows that us Jews value a good education!!! 
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Anonymous
Yup, I've lived there...I'm sure you know exactly what you're talking about wikipedia. |
Anonymous
I follow the Center City threads pretty regularly, and NO ONE raises the church/state issue. I just don't understand why posters are up in arms about the religous angle for this school and not for other schools whose ties to a religious institution are clearly much stronger. If you care that much about the establishment clause, I'm really surprised that you have the time to watch one not-yet-opened school that teaches Hebrew but haven't studied eight schools that taught Catholicism for decades, closed for summer break, and then reopened as 100% secular charter schools. |
Anonymous
I'm not Jewish, but I love how your fear of Jews is making you crazy. My fear of bad schools makes it so that I would have my kid learn Hebrew, Danish, or pig-fucking-latin rather then go to DCPS. Enjoy your private or whatever wonderful DCPS in your fancy neighborhood. Leave the charterschool conversation to people who need it. Grownups talking now. Bye bye! |
Anonymous
Right! How else have we been able to rule the world for so many years? |
Anonymous
Umm.....google "Jewish penicillin" and come back when you get the joke. |
Anonymous
If only we could produce a few decent athletes we would have (what would come to be known as) the trifecta! |
Anonymous
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Slick poster back. For the record, I was equally outraged at how the ADW was able to dump their crappy schools by converting them to charters on an accelerated approval track. That was slicker than slick.
By the way, I love the poster who said, "Shalom Bitches!" Too funny. Maybe I'm just overly worried about equity for DC's children. No religious intolerance meant at all. |
Anonymous
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At this point, I think it's time to quote the immortal Lauryn Hill who named her daughter "Sela(h)" the name given to the DC Hebrew Charter:
"Selah" The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill 1999 "Nothing can be done against the truth No matter how we remain in denial, yeah Wasting time Replacing time With each empty excuse But that'll only work a little while" The school is happening. The Board will be overseeing the school to see it lives up to its mission. Perhaps we should channel this negativity into helping this school, and other approved charters, prosper and educate our children? Peace. |
Anonymous
lmao!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
Anonymous
Can you talk more about that concern? I do think that the idea of charter schools filling particular educational niches is entirely perverted by the poor quality of many DCPS schools.* However, I also think that is what will save Washington Hebrew from being a "Jewish school." Right now we have kids learning Chinese whose parents wanted them to learn Spanish, kids in year-round school whose parents wanted them to learn French, kids in expeditionary learning programs whose parents just want them to be at a school without metal detectors--the list goes on. And that's why I believe that Washington Hebrew won't be a threat to church-state separation. The founders' kids will get in preferentially, and I'd expect them to have a connection to Israel, but the classrooms will still be dominated by kids whose parents would have preferred something else, but are so grateful to have anything at all. * I really don't mean to engage in gratuitous DCPS bashing. There are some great DCPS schools--including East of the Park schools, Title I schools & East of the River schools. I mean only to represent the sense of desparation--justified or not--that so many EoP parents feel. |
Anonymous
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Even if the school were to become MOST appealing to "Jews" (given the way this conversation has gone, I think the scare quotes are warranted), it's a leap from that to the accusation that there will be religious educational content. So no church/state conflict there, but we can talk about the decades of discomfort non-Christian students have endured singing Silent Night. In fact, my family found some of Oyster's Spanish-speaking world immersion uncomfortable because of the frequent occurrence of explicitly religious themes in holiday celebrations and craft projects. But it would be a gross misstatement to say that Oyster offers a religious program just because it offers experience of a culture in which religion has been a prominent influence.
I also think narrowly focusing a whole city's language education options on best bets for "success in the global economy" shows a real... poverty of the spirit. As it happens, Hebrew was my first language, but Italian is by far my favorite language. The fact that there is no broader interest in an Italian immersion school and that it's even hard to find Italian offered in DCPS high schools is tragic as far as I'm concerned, given the sheer beauty of the Italian musical, artistic, and literary traditions. Bread alone, and all that. I guess a city of lawyers and lobbyists is bound to have a limited view of what makes an educated person and why we educate people in the first place, but that's a damn shame. I wish the school would consider offering Arabic in addition because it's the most marketable Semitic language, because knowledge of one should help with acquisition of the other, and because it would open up interesting cross-cultural possibilities. But mostly, I wish my own kid were younger so we could take advantage of the opportunity, and also so that I could be entitled to say "Shalom, Bitches!" like PP. Love that. |
Anonymous
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Not claiming to be comprehensive, but here's what I'm aware of;
Italian: Offered at Duke Ellington High School for the Performing Arts (DCPS, selective admission). Anywhere else? Hebrew: Anywhere currently offered? Arabic: Washington Latin (charter) has an after school not for credit Arabic option. Anywhere else? |
Anonymous
awesome post! |