DC Hebrew approved!!

[Anonymous]

Politics and religion aside, one of the challenges of niche charter schools is hiring and keeping niche-focused teachers and leadership.

The success of a language school is not contingent on whether non-target language kids enroll. But a charter has to also provide English remediation. Finding people who can do both is tough in any language. In DC area, Amharic might be easier to staff than Modern Hebrew.

Push comes to shove, DC CAS trumps foreign language in DCPS and charters.

[Anonymous]

You people need to get out more. There are a ton of Hebrew speakers in the DC area. Now if we were in the middle of Iowa I would be worried but we aren't.

[Anonymous]

It is hard to argue with people who cite wikipedia as evidence. People who make statements like "I don't think the school has much to offer people who aren't Jewish," and assert, out of their ass, that the school's "niche is religion." but then somehow, accuse posters of " trying to turn this discussion into an anti-Judaism thing, when they point out you are full of it. 1. Non-Jews speak Modern Hebrew; 2. the school is NOT religious; 3. charter schools are by definition niche schools, they exist to give people options; 4. not all speakers of a language are fluent - presumably the non-linguist who posted the wikipedia listing is taking some number of Israeli population numbers which are near 8 million - state department figures peg around 12 million Hebrew speakers. Swedish speakers number about 11 million as a comparison. 4. No one is arguing that either language is widely-spoken, but the whole tenor of your exchange suggests you are fixated on a "controversy" that doesn't exist. Ask yourself if you would do the same about another language. Doubtful....l and that should be offensive to all non-Jews, as well as Jews.

You are correct that I shouldn't have said the 'niche is religion', that was a complete misstatement/typo and I apologize. The niche is Hebrew, and that is very largely a language that people of one religion will be interested in, and most other people will not be. You can cite all the fancy statistics you want - when the non Jewish parents in DC come out in signfican numbers and say that they want our child to learn Hebrew (as opposed to saying, 'I want to send my kid to that school b/c I think it will be good and we have no other choices') , I will be proven grossly mistaken.

And I DID said in my post in multiple ways that I would feel the same way about any other language immersion charter that was used by only 12 million people, didn't I? A Swedish charter school? I would not be a fan at all. But you are choosing not to hear that and making it what you want to make it, so is certainly difficult to have a civilized discussion about it.

Finally, I am not fixated on any sort of controversy, I just don't like the school, and I think it will attract more controversy than Roots did, for instance. Maybe I'm wrong. I think its fine that it got its charter, I'm sure that plenty of kids will go there. Just not a fan. But go ahead and turn it into whatever you want to, since that seems to be your goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Politics and religion aside, one of the challenges of niche charter schools is hiring and keeping niche-focused teachers and leadership.

The success of a language school is not contingent on whether non-target language kids enroll. But a charter has to also provide English remediation. Finding people who can do both is tough in any language. In DC area, Amharic might be easier to staff than Modern Hebrew.

Push comes to shove, DC CAS trumps foreign language in DCPS and charters.

+100,000

[Anonymous]

You don't like a school that doesn't yet exist...You fault parents for saying "I want to send my kid to that school b/c I think it will be good and [other DCPS schools suck]." You think that parents must say I value Hebrew over DC CAS in order for a Hebrew charter school to be valid (do they say that YY? Who would say that? No one. The language component of an immersion school is a BONUS). Bottom line, if they can't fill the seats, they won't survive. If they can fill the seats, and survive and thrive, it won't matter if Hebrew was the deciding factor in attending or not, it will only matter if their students shine in English reading, writing, math, and science. There is NO controversy here. This is not one of those Scientology charters applying auditing technology. This is a charter that teaches a language as a plus factor, just like YY, or Stokes, or whatever. I am biracial, but have no problem with an Afrocentric school if it WORKS. I have no problem with hospitality industry charters, law-based charters, journalism-focused charters. All of these exist in the District, too. If they WORK, couldn't care less about whether they appeal to a niche of interests that are my sons'.

[Anonymous]

Posters who are trying to make this about religion are wrong. This is not about religion and as several posters noted, children from all around the city will have the possibility to enroll. It is a secular school.

I read the charter. I posted a few pages back that I am a fluent Modern Hebrew speaker. I've been to Israel many many times and I am Jewish. I am also against this charter school.

Hebrew is a very difficult language to learn, and, like a PP pointed out, most of you who think it doesn't matter what language is taught are probably not fluent speakers, readers and writers of Hebrew. Often, people don't know that Hebrew has a script form and a block form and they are wholly different in design, making both reading and writing challenging. Of course, it is also a deeply satisfying language to learn as it has influences from a number of other languages. And, yes, it is spoken by a small number of people, relatively speaking. According to most experts, that number is somewhere between 7-9 million people worldwide. And while a PP is correct that a MH speaker can have a conversation with a Biblical Hebrew speaker, the likely of that happening in the real world, outside of academic circles, is very very small.

Why we, as taxpayers, should care about this is two fold. One, since we already expect children from all areas of the city to attend this secular school, we are saddling students, many from families that many others have pointed out have few choices for a "good education" in DCPS or over capacity charters, with the task of learning a difficult language they will never use, which is, in my view, educationally irresponsible. Parents who want their children to learn Hebrew, for whatever reason, have many other options. The child who applies to this school because there are few other choices and has no interest in this language or no expectations of using it, are the ones who will not be served by this school's stated mission.

Yes, I would definitely be opposed to any immersion charter school based on a language that was both very difficult to learn and spoken by a relatively small number of people. At least Swedish is read left to right.

The second reason we as taxpayers should be concerned about this school is fairly evident right in this thread by all the posters who say, "if you don't like it, start your own school." The promise of the charter school movement was that it would improve public education for all. In reality, DC charter law allows taxpayer money to be used to create someone small group's "own school". This is not just, no matter how legal it may be.

As a Jew, I take my responsibility to heal the world very seriously, and this school, with such a narrow focus, does not do this for most of the children in DC. It sets them up with a very difficult language challenge for little or no practical advantage. I have a hard time understanding why so many posters on this thread fail to grasp this.

But, I get that the majority of the people on this thread celebrate the school's approval and perhaps plan on enrolling there, thus the somewhat ugly side of "winning". For example, calling anyone who disagrees with the approval a troll. Really? A troll for disagreeing? Because I re read the whole 12 pages of this thread and so far, anyone who challenged whether this school should be chartered did not speak in any kind of trolling way. They just made points you don't want to hear.

Ultimately, I think the PP who pointed out that DC-CAS trumps foreign language is correct, and that really makes my point of why a niche school such as this does nothing to serve the purpose of the charter movement.

[Anonymous]

^THIS!

[Anonymous]

^^^THIS!^^^

[Anonymous]

Difficultly in language learning is highly subjective. French grammar eludes me to this day, despite having spent years learning it. I wish I had had the opportunity to go to an immersion school as a child. My husband is Greek and my children are learning Greek (including its difficult alphabet) and love it. Prejudging the abilities (and futures) of DC students is also a sad and dangerous thing to do. It does sound like your real beef is with charter schools as a whole, which is legitimate, but picking on a Hebrew language charter school, particularly, when you as a taxpayer had ample opportunity to oppose the school for the last several months during the application process, seems misplaced. I predict you will be eating your words when one these students goes on to work for the state department or run an Israeli- high tech in 20 years' time. DC-CAS trumps everything in every DCPS institution. My kids are happy at their school and I am not moving them, but all of this Hebrew (and coded Jewish) bashing is really depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Difficultly in language learning is highly subjective. French grammar eludes me to this day, despite having spent years learning it. I wish I had had the opportunity to go to an immersion school as a child. My husband is Greek and my children are learning Greek (including its difficult alphabet) and love it. Prejudging the abilities (and futures) of DC students is also a sad and dangerous thing to do. It does sound like your real beef is with charter schools as a whole, which is legitimate, but picking on a Hebrew language charter school, particularly, when you as a taxpayer had ample opportunity to oppose the school for the last several months during the application process, seems misplaced. I predict you will be eating your words when one these students goes on to work for the state department or run an Israeli- high tech in 20 years' time. DC-CAS trumps everything in every DCPS institution. My kids are happy at their school and I am not moving them, but all of this Hebrew (and coded Jewish) bashing is really depressing.

AGREED! No one puts [my] baby in the corner. I want her to have every opportunity I didn't have, including learning languages. If she doesn't use it 13 years from now when she is sitting in her college dorm, but wants to learn Igbo or what have you instead, more power to her!

[Anonymous]

So Mandarin Chinese = no problem, but Hebrew = too difficult. Why am I not persuaded?

[Anonymous]

Because you are purposely ignoring half the equation.

Mandarin= difficult but 1000 million people speak it.
Hebrew= difficult but only 8 million people speak it.

[Anonymous]

One of the most popular courses at my public (tax-payer funded) university was Ojibwe. Most of the students in the class were white. Most of the university students were non-Native American. Ojibwe has only a few thousand speakers nationally. Like with a charter school, the students and their parents had the choice of taking Ojibwe or taking a more widely spoken language. The course was always full. I don't remember any uproar about offering Ojibwe or other Native languages. We seem to make assumptions about what a subsection of DC students/want or need, but we don't do the same for middle class students or white students, which is interesting. Parents want safe, quality schools, period. Anything beyond that (arts focus, health careers focus, foreign languages) is icing on the cake. We also seem to be making some ugly assumptions about what are students will achieve. They will never use Hebrew? Why? Israel is the second most represented country on Nasdaq, has a lot of scientific research companies, (the kind the US doesn't do anymore because of the Religious Right), has free trade status with the United States, has a lot of American tourists, etc. Do we assume our kids will never grow up to invest, research, broker trade disputes, or travel? Do we assume the language is too difficult for them? Children rise to the expectations you set for them.

[Anonymous]

Okay. You win. Not let's get to work to start that Ebonics charter!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an Italian-American lawyer, and I can tell you that knowledge of Latin is really is not important in the legal field. I would LOVE an Italian immersion school in DC, but I also think that a Hebrew school is great addition to our charter school network. First, it's not true that "nobody speaks Hebrew" and second, research shows that the process of learning a language is very useful, regardless of the language learned. Go Hebrew, Go French, I am all for it!

+1