SO: How do you fit into a poor or primarily minority public school
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Anonymous
But with all due respect, the parent of a nonminority student who speaks English at home would want her child to focus on English literacy at the typical age appropriate level for English speakers. |
Anonymous
? Most kindergarteners are illiterate in any language. |
Anonymous
Yeah, typical liberal hypocrisy here! My Pappy always used to tell me that you were better off in the South where you knew people were comin' from than in the North where they were all two-faced! |
Anonymous
You're so right! The racism and classism in this area is so disheartening. |
Anonymous
No, clearly not These kids have limited vocabulary, cannot fully form a sentence (orally), have syntax issues (orally), and little word recognition. Yes, it can happen in K! And when you compare white kids (who have had all the advantages in the world) to those from Spanish-speaking countries where neither parent is educated, there's a gap from the start. Don't even comment if you have no experience in this area. Just stop now before you make an ass of yourself. |
Anonymous
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Hmmmm. My white grand-parents came from Poland, didn't speak English and my mother didn't speak English until she hit kindergarten! Is there a similar experience here to tell me that those little brown Hispanic kids are going to ruin it for precious WASP snowflake?
And, again, what are "red zone' and "green zone" references? Is MoCo Baghdad or something. Y'all are just weird people! |
Anonymous
Something about "red zones" and "green zones": http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/leadingforequity/pdf/HarvardCase-DifferientiatedTreatment.pdf MCPS now refers to "focus schools" instead of "red zone schools" -- I assume that the criteria are the same, but I don't know that. |
Anonymous
| First of all, don't feed your kids breakfast. Send them to school unwashed (preferably for several days) and in old, unlaundered clothes. In the winter, send them out without a oat, hat and gloves. Make sure they are sho on school supplies. For dinne, processed foods only. No computer for homework, or they have to share it among the kids and adults. That should help them fit in. |
Anonymous
I assume you're at Timber Lane, which splits between Longfellow/McLean and Jackson/Falls Church and has very different demographics than the rest of the Longfellow/McLean feeders. It's unfortunate that terms like that get bandied about, but Longfellow/McLean students are encouraged to help out more at Timber Lane than at any other Longfellow/McLean feeder school, and at least the Longfellow/McLean boundaries seem to reflect a conscious effort to diversify the enrollment at Longfellow/McLean. If you just looked at the boundary maps, you'd think the Timber Lane neighborhoods assigned to Longfellow/McLean would be at Kilmer/Marshall or Jackson/Falls Church instead. But sending half of the school to Longfellow/McLean, including some of low-income apartments off Lee Highway, is consistent with the concept that lower-income students fare better if they have the opportunity to attend schools with kids who also come from more affluent families. I've actually thought FCPS could do the same thing with Cooper/Langley, and send some of the lower and moderate-income areas of Reston now assigned to Hughes/South Lakes to Cooper/Langley, while moving some of the neighborhoods in Great Falls to Herndon MS/Herndon HS, and some of the neighborhoods in the Herndon area to Hughes/South Lakes. |
Anonymous
We now have kids who were born here, whose great great great grandparents were born here, yet now these kids are barely literate, and the mangle the language and can't even seem to master basic grammar. Their own grandparents spoke better English and valued education more than they do. That's a problem. While the march of time, technology and progress keeps moving forward, some of us are moving backwards. |
Anonymous
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The good news is that it's becoming less and less of an issue in DC with all of the emergent charters. If you "worry" about kids not fitting in, then pick a charter. Plenty of diversity means less worries about fitting in to the culture.
Start here: http://greatergreatereducation.org/post/19691/dcs-most-diverse-charter-schools/ |
Anonymous
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My daughter attended Pine Spring ES in Falls Church (Fairfax County). The school is 43 % Hispanic, 28% White and 46 % FARMS. We loved the school. The teachers and principal were excellent, the PTA active - all around a great school community. My daughter had friends she has kept through Middle School at Luther Jackson - another underrated school.
I encourage you to visit the school with and without your child, meet the principal and teachers and then decide. |
Anonymous
' I can echo that situation with my own mother who also learned English in K. But your point is still stupid - and I say that as an educator! When Mom hit K, the teachers had no idea what to do with her. She was, however, the ONLY one in her white class (segregation, people) who didn't know English. So she sat and absorbed the language - and yes, learned. It can happen, especially when you have parents who are pushing you to learn and there are NO behavior issues in the classroom. But when you have 10 out of 20 in that boat, the 10 - in this age - are the ones receiving the attention for several reasons - the most important one being the county mandate that we close the achievement gap. In another instance, my friend's son was placed in a K class that was majority Hispanic. The teacher spoke to the class in Spanish more often than not, and at Back to School Night, they had to use a translator. And he's bilingual - but not in Spanish. So she switched him b/c he was acting up. And guess what? problem solved, no more behavior issues, report card improved I fail to see how your outdated situation applies to today. And blame Weast and society for red zone schools. Money finds money, honey! Areas with high rates of poverty are the ones housing the red zone schools. So a high concentration of poverty is found in parts of Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, Wheaton, etc. Look up Schools at a Glance and you'll see the FARMs rate per school. And yes, it affects instruction, sadly, as there aren't enough resources, classes can sometimes be too large or too demanding, teacher burnout is high, as is transience. Again, I love hearing how everyone is an expert on education simply b/c everyone on these boards has attended school. |
Anonymous
| My mother's town was predominantly immigrants from Poland, Italy and Quebec. Native English speakers were a minority. I see no difference between the immigrants of yesteryear and those of today. |
Anonymous
And obviously you're an educator who teaches in one of the schools impacted by high FARMs and language barriers, right? b/c you appear to know it all as you see "no difference" btw the two groups |