Oyster- Adams in US News...thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A better idea is to continue to open dual language schools, both charter and DCPS. The demand isn't going away. There's no reason to mess with programs that are successful, just keep trying to copy them.

No such thing as charter dual language schools in DC if you're talking about two-way immersion, aka dual immersion. DC's charter "immersion" schools run single lotteries for admission, and don't track how many bilingual kids they attract and retain. As a result, the most popular charter "immersion" schools mostly admit mono-lingual high SES AA and white kids, e.g. Washington YuYing, where only 1-2% of the students are thought to speak Chinese at home at least half the time, and the FARMs rate has fallen from half into the single digits over a ten-year period. No joke.

[Anonymous]

You can set up all the supposed dual immersion public school programs you want (charter of DCPS) to keep affluent families happy. As the article points out, its attracting enough low-income native speakers to ensure successful immersion that's the trick.

[Anonymous]

For DCPS the trick is to keep putting these programs in locations where the IB population has significant numbers of native speakers -- and moving them every ten years or so if the population changes.

There are several majority Latino, ELL elementary schools that should and could be dual language -- Brightwood comes immediately to mind.

The charter law makes it harder for them. But location, staff and sibling preference, and attracting a diverse pool of lottery applicants helps enormously (not for YY because most their Chinese staff do not have children).

[Anonymous]

Yea, but federal and DC charter law hurt duel immersion (other than in name only). With a single lottery for admission, mono-lingual parents in the know soon storm the successful language immersion charters, or they never attract a cohort of target language speakers in the first place (YY). A school certainly can't rely on bilingual teachers kids to furnish bilingual students.

We left YY for a JKLM because we were one of the only fully bilingual, Chinese-speaking families in a wildly popular charter with more than 500 students. The program couldn't begin to provide appropriate language learning supports for our kids, because it wasn't set up to accommodate bilingual Chinese-speaking students. We didn't even have Chinese-speaking admins we could speak to in Chinese. Our children were treated like they spoke no more Chinese than other students in their grade (when they spoke at least twice as well as the strongest students who didn't speak the target language at home, and three or four times as well as the rest). We're much better of using a heritage language program in MoCo where the students are being raised in bilingual, Chinese-speaking homes.

We don't need more in-demand but fake immersion programs in this city to accommodate parents fleeing awful in-boundary schools. Do immersion right DC, or don't bother at taxpayers expense, and that means DCPS immersion, not charter.

[Anonymous]

We are a happy Oyster family in the lower school- and one of my DC's friend has a FATHER who also went to the school Family is now living in same house he grew up in.

Our classes have been very diverse- latino vs not ... but not all of the latino are poor. Quite a few families who work at IFIs, think tanks etc. Is that the rub?

Firm supporter that all families who want dual immersion should be able to find it- and attend- if space allows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a happy Oyster family in the lower school- and one of my DC's friend has a FATHER who also went to the school Family is now living in same house he grew up in.

Our classes have been very diverse- latino vs not ... but not all of the latino are poor. Quite a few families who work at IFIs, think tanks etc. Is that the rub?

Firm supporter that all families who want dual immersion should be able to find it- and attend- if space allows.

Of course "not all of the Latinos are poor" at Oyster. The school is 60% Latino, but the FARMS rate is 22%.

[Anonymous]

Oyster-Adams is a very good school, but I can't understand why DCPS doesn't replicate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oyster-Adams is a very good school, but I can't understand why DCPS doesn't replicate it.

It can't be replicated unless it's in the upper northwest. Are parents from Spring Valley going to drive their kids to Trinidad for a dual language program? Oyster is Oyster because the affluent kids dominate.

I KNOW, I KNOW, KNOW that oyster and Adams struggle with closing the achievement gap- even with the incredible resources and high number of affluent kids . FARM and SPED kids don't do nearly as well as their affluent peers. Look at DCPS data.

[Anonymous]

Oyster wouldn't be Oyster if it wasn't in Woodley Park. Fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oyster wouldn't be Oyster if it wasn't in Woodley Park. Fact.

Adams rides on the coat tails of Oyster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oyster-Adams is a very good school, but I can't understand why DCPS doesn't replicate it.

DCPS has tried to replicate Oyster. It's called Bancroft, Marie Reed, Powell, Cleveland, etc. The reason those schools don't perform as well is because they don't have Oyster's relatively affluent and well educated families. What do you want DCPS to do about that dear?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can set up all the supposed dual immersion public school programs you want (charter of DCPS) to keep affluent families happy. As the article points out, its attracting enough low-income native speakers to ensure successful immersion that's the trick.

Yeah, the whole "low income Latino" thing in the article made me kinda wonder if the author actually talked to any Latino students/parents at Oyster. Sure there are some low income Latino families, but there are a LOT of professionals, embassy staff, NGO employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oyster wouldn't be Oyster if it wasn't in Woodley Park. Fact.

Adams rides on the coat tails of Oyster.

You're still getting your information from old gossip about Adams' students left over from the 2007 merger. As someone pointed out up thread, Adams is now retaining over 90% of the SAME Oyster students whose coattails you say they're riding. So I guess they're riding their own coattails, right? Oyster also sends a disproportionate number of its graduates to Walls every year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can set up all the supposed dual immersion public school programs you want (charter of DCPS) to keep affluent families happy. As the article points out, its attracting enough low-income native speakers to ensure successful immersion that's the trick.

Yeah, the whole "low income Latino" thing in the article made me kinda wonder if the author actually talked to any Latino students/parents at Oyster. Sure there are some low income Latino families, but there are a LOT of professionals, embassy staff, NGO employees.

Exactly! Of course there are low income Latino families at Oyster, but they are definitely in the minority. Most of my children's Latino friends at Oyster have very well educated parents who work at the World Bank, IMF, various embassies, etc. There are also several Latino Oyster parents who held positions in President Obama's administration (including a cabinet level position); and one student is the child of a member of the US Congress.

[Anonymous]

One basic premise of the article, that there are many English language learners who could be bilingual in Spanish but they are not being served with bilingual programs at Truesdell or Raymond or Brightwood, is correct, and it's a shame.