CHARTERS MAY MERGE AT WALTER REED (The DC International School, IB Diploma Programme)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I wasn't actually surprised by the parochial content of the threads. Most of the YY parents I rub shoulders with hardly seem to know a thing about China or the culture, not where the major cities and provinces are located, not the major dialects, nor the major holidays, nor do they seem to care... This is the group posied to help launch the wonderfully international, much in demand and outward-looking DCI.

So are you a YY parent? If you have so many issues with the school, you should go elsewhere... and not send your DC to DCI. Easy decision. Hope you find a school that will serves your family's needs b/c YY and the future DCI won't for all the reasons you mentioned.

Easy to say "go elsehwere, sweetie" off handedly but rarely easy in practice. I rarely post on DCUM and I'm not Chinese, but we just tried to lottery out of yy to schools we hoped would provide rigorous instruction in English and struck out. We're saving for a property in NW to become IB for Deal. The issues raised on the Chinese vs. Spanish thread point not only to serious problems DCI is going to have in cultivating an intl outlook, but problems our society as a whole is going to have in contending with a rising China. I didn't read "anti-AA" comments on the previous thread, I read what Chinese culture is like. This is something the majority of yy parents don't get, or try to, because they've never spent time in Chinese-speaking countries or in Chinese-American communities, haven't studied Chinese, don't have Chinese friends, and aren't planning to. What's "bizarre" is the way some of these charters work, not what annoyed parents/tax payers/voters say about yy. The boosters will have another hissy fit in response. Let 'em, denying reality ad nauseum only works so well.

Not the poster you responded to, but I read a lot of anti-AA sentiment on that thread. It was horrible. The bi-racial mandarin speaking administrator who worked in grants was not Chinese enough for the Chinese community because she is of AA-Chinese origin. The school should not have an AA principal, but instead a Chinese principal. It did not matter whether the desired Chinese principal spoke Mandarin, or not. The school should offer quotas for Cantonese speaking families, for there are very very few Mandarin speaking famiies in the District, so any Chinese would do. This from a website that normally sees quotas as the next thing to the devil incarnate. That thread was sickening in many ways.

BTW--I wish you and your child well in the school that best fits your child's needs, but is it really necessary to knock a school that may fit the needs of other children. And I agree that YY is not for everyone, but neither is Deal, Lamb, Latin, etc. for everyone. That's the beauty of choice and opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I wasn't actually surprised by the parochial content of the threads. Most of the YY parents I rub shoulders with hardly seem to know a thing about China or the culture, not where the major cities and provinces are located, not the major dialects, nor the major holidays, nor do they seem to care... This is the group posied to help launch the wonderfully international, much in demand and outward-looking DCI.

So are you a YY parent? If you have so many issues with the school, you should go elsewhere... and not send your DC to DCI. Easy decision. Hope you find a school that will serves your family's needs b/c YY and the future DCI won't for all the reasons you mentioned.

Easy to say "go elsehwere, sweetie" off handedly but rarely easy in practice. I rarely post on DCUM and I'm not Chinese, but we just tried to lottery out of yy to schools we hoped would provide rigorous instruction in English and struck out. We're saving for a property in NW to become IB for Deal. The issues raised on the Chinese vs. Spanish thread point not only to serious problems DCI is going to have in cultivating an intl outlook, but problems our society as a whole is going to have in contending with a rising China. I didn't read "anti-AA" comments on the previous thread, I read what Chinese culture is like. This is something the majority of yy parents don't get, or try to, because they've never spent time in Chinese-speaking countries or in Chinese-American communities, haven't studied Chinese, don't have Chinese friends, and aren't planning to. What's "bizarre" is the way some of these charters work, not what annoyed parents/tax payers/voters say about yy. The boosters will have another hissy fit in response. Let 'em, denying reality ad nauseum only works so well.

Not the poster you responded to, but I read a lot of anti-AA sentiment on that thread. It was horrible. The bi-racial mandarin speaking administrator who worked in grants was not Chinese enough for the Chinese community because she is of AA-Chinese origin. The school should not have an AA principal, but instead a Chinese principal. It did not matter whether the desired Chinese principal spoke Mandarin, or not. The school should offer quotas for Cantonese speaking families, for there are very very few Mandarin speaking famiies in the District, so any Chinese would do. This from a website that normally sees quotas as the next thing to the devil incarnate. That thread was sickening in many ways.

BTW--I wish you and your child well in the school that best fits your child's needs, but is it really necessary to knock a school that may fit the needs of other children. And I agree that YY is not for everyone, but neither is Deal, Lamb, Latin, etc. for everyone. That's the beauty of choice and opportunities.

+1 9:53

[Anonymous]

+ 1!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+ 1!!!

Another +1. And as I read it, any anti-Chinese sentiment on those threads arose in response to the weirdly entitled Chinese posters. Also agree with other poster. I'd be amazed if there were more than 20 YY parents posting here out of, what, 400?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+ 1!!!

Another +1. And as I read it, any anti-Chinese sentiment on those threads arose in response to the weirdly entitled Chinese posters. Also agree with other poster. I'd be amazed if there were more than 20 YY parents posting here out of, what, 400?

What I got out of those threads was that YY doesn't care how the DC Chinese think, unless you count a few well-assimilated, high SES families. Asking for a decent number of Chinese speaking kids (using whatever dialect), however you get them, and a Chinese administrator, doesn't sound "weirdly entitled." It sounds deeply logical.

There are no more than 20 bilingual kids in the school and most of the parents of the other 380 truly are clueless about Chinese culture. We're AA and aren't returning in the fall. YY is simply a world unto itself, which most parents like because so few have a connection to the culture. Most Chinese immigrants arrived after '65, when a ban on Chinese immigratoin was lifted in this country, so they don't have the Civil Rights Movement, or the history of institutional racism in this country, in historical perspecive. You can calll them names, or try to understand where they're coming from.

I don't think any aspect of the arrangement at YY, or the commentary on these threads, has been sickening, it's just sort of silly, and a non-event in a world where, increasingly, it does pay to relate to Chinese thinking. A no brainer if there ever was one.

The fact that it's YY leading the DCI charge doesn't inspire confidence in us and other parents. I dearly wish the Chinese were on board for DCI, their kids soar academically, including those from low-SES famiilies! Fancy that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: The bi-racial mandarin speaking administrator who worked in grants was not Chinese enough for the Chinese community because she is of AA-Chinese origin. The school should not have an AA principal, but instead a Chinese principal. It did not matter whether the desired Chinese principal spoke Mandarin, or not. The school should offer quotas for Cantonese speaking families, for there are very very few Mandarin speaking famiies in the District, so any Chinese would do. This from a website that normally sees quotas as the next thing to the devil incarnate. That thread was sickening in many ways.

This comment is pure BS. Read the thread - nobody critiized the biracial administrator -only 1 or 2 pps even knew about her. Nobody said the principal had to be Chinese, just Chinese speaking with at least one ethnic administrator involved in outreach. Nobody talked about quotas for Cantonese speakers but some posters (AA, white, Asian) suggested a lottery for bilingual Chinese, the norm at highly succesful immersion schools in NY and San Fran, for the good of the school. But everyone agreed that the charter board wouldn't agree, at least not for years to come. Easy to figure out which pps know Chinese culture, or want to understand it, and which don't.

[Anonymous]

I did not realize the PARENTS had to be knowledgable and sensitive about the culture of the foreign language their kid is learning at school. My Asian immigrant parents could care less about French, German, Ancient Greek and Latin - the languages their kids learned at school. Seems YY parents are held to a different standard.

[Anonymous]

YY parents; don't encourage them by defending or supporting. just let them vent and be glad they're not in the school or are leaving the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YY parents; don't encourage them by defending or supporting. just let them vent and be glad they're not in the school or are leaving the school.

Good advice. Gluing fingers to my desk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: The bi-racial mandarin speaking administrator who worked in grants was not Chinese enough for the Chinese community because she is of AA-Chinese origin. The school should not have an AA principal, but instead a Chinese principal. It did not matter whether the desired Chinese principal spoke Mandarin, or not. The school should offer quotas for Cantonese speaking families, for there are very very few Mandarin speaking famiies in the District, so any Chinese would do. This from a website that normally sees quotas as the next thing to the devil incarnate. That thread was sickening in many ways.

This comment is pure BS. Read the thread - nobody critiized the biracial administrator -only 1 or 2 pps even knew about her. Nobody said the principal had to be Chinese, just Chinese speaking with at least one ethnic administrator involved in outreach. Nobody talked about quotas for Cantonese speakers but some posters (AA, white, Asian) suggested a lottery for bilingual Chinese, the norm at highly succesful immersion schools in NY and San Fran, for the good of the school. But everyone agreed that the charter board wouldn't agree, at least not for years to come. Easy to figure out which pps know Chinese culture, or want to understand it, and which don't.

See, I saw racism on the part of the anti-YY crowd with the following post:

As for racial predujice in Chinese culture, it is odd to Americans, but it's also very much a factor, so no use getting bent out of shape about it. I remember my kid once refusing to eat at an Indian restaurant because "Indians are dirty people," something he learned from Chinese caregivers (commonly held view even in the Chinese diaspora). When I discovered that the YY principal was black I thought, oh right, a practical approach to drawing in the area Chinese community.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/90/242151.page

I'd say that Yu Ying is a school that's full of very globally-thinking parents and kids--a full third of my child's PK classmates had at least one parent for whom English was not his/her native language. There are a large number of immigrant families at the school, and they're excited by the DCI concept in part because that for some of them it means that their kids will get a chance to study their parent's native language along with Chinese.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YY parents; don't encourage them by defending or supporting. just let them vent and be glad they're not in the school or are leaving the school.

YY parent who strongly disagrees. We could use more parents who can see the forest for the trees. DC public schools, both DCPS and charter, have a lamentable way of turning off, and driving out, many of the very parents who would improve them. These are high-SES parents, parents who speak a language of immersion, choosey parents who want to dramatically improve the curriculum and quality of instruction, parents who support G/T programs etc. It's not a happy story.

Come on, most of you stay after 2nd grade because you can't afford privates and/or aren't comfortable with your IB schools, not because YY is so great. I don't see how the school could go wrong in welcoming more Chinese-speaking families. Jeez, I went to a NYC magnet HS where, thankfully, I had lots of Chinese immigrant and ABC classmates.

[Anonymous]

+1. Damn straight, just not in the YY world. If you want a public immersion school, or an IB middle school, on a par with the excellent ones in other cities, high time for you to go, or avoid the lottery. Got it? DC can't play its own game on school quality forever. Not when the domestic and international competition is getting tougher and tougher.

[Anonymous]

"I did not realize the PARENTS had to be knowledgable and sensitive about the culture of the foreign language their kid is learning at school. My Asian immigrant parents could care less about French, German, Ancient Greek and Latin - the languages their kids learned at school. Seems YY parents are held to a different standard."

So you studied French, German, Ancient Greek or Latin in an immersion setting? American parent from one of the other immersion schools here who was lucky enough to attend a bilingual French-English institution in Ottawa as a kid. Nearly half my classmates spoke French at home, one of the best things about the place. I learned a tremendous amount about Quebecois culture from them, and their parents.

Nobody's arguing that the YY parents are to be held to a "different standard," but having so few native speakers involved does turn off some. Boosters on these threads try to make it sound like it's just a few entitled Chinese posters who aren't happy with the size of the bilingual parent and student group, but I turned YY down for that reason. Moreover, parents at some of the other schools aren't crazy about YY's domination of the DCI founding effort because you folks can come across as unpleasant and myopic.

Get a clue, native speakers are great for an immersion school, even if their culture isn't PC! Many of us believe in 2 lotteries for these schools, and don't think it's impossible that we'll ever get them.

[Anonymous]

Yawn.............

[Anonymous]

"Nobody's arguing that the YY parents are to be held to a "different standard," but having so few native speakers involved does turn off some. Boosters on these threads try to make it sound like it's just a few entitled Chinese posters who aren't happy with the size of the bilingual parent and student group, but I turned YY down for that reason. Moreover, parents at some of the other schools aren't crazy about YY's domination of the DCI founding effort because you folks can come across as unpleasant and myopic."

Hmmmm..... So you're don't go to YY and no one is forcing parents from the other schools to go to the DCI.....So maybe you should just go spend some time with your family and be glad you have choices and that your choice does not mean you have to rip apart others' choice. Especially since you aren't/haven't/won't be a part of that school community.