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

[Anonymous]

no one! so why don't you guys who know it all get busy? there's room for all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: It won't be able to "establish" much about the actual experience of Chinese-American parents who choose to stay at the school, since those voices are routinely ignored around here.

What gets established at YY anyway? Where are the survey results documenting the experiences of bilingual Chinese parents, Mandarin-speaking non-Chinese parents, non-bilingual Chinese-American parents, and others, separately and together? And who's surveying bilingual parents who stay away, asking why?

This sort of info is routinely collected at dual-immersion schools. Go to their web sites and view data that would be unthinkable for a DC charter to gather, let alone publish. Posters go round and round without even being in a position to know many parents and kids speak this and that - Wu, Cantonese and Taishanese, Fujian and Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka. Bilingual issues remain shrouded in mystery because all the children are supposed share some sort of blank slate linguistic status when they come in, and it's not supposed to matter that cultural influences generally need to be imported.

Who could argue that it would be bad for DC if a strong competitor school to YY were to offer a very different immersion experience?

YY parent and statistician who shares your frustration. More scientific rigor certainly wouldn't kill YY and other charters. Neither would the involvement of Chinese-speaking family volunteers. Stick to your guns, these are fair points. I'd love a two-way immersion option as would some other YY parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no one! so why don't you guys who know it all get busy? there's room for all!

+1

[Anonymous]

"YY parent and statistician who shares your frustration. More scientific rigor certainly wouldn't kill YY and other charters. Neither would the involvement of Chinese-speaking family volunteers. Stick to your guns, these are fair points. I'd love a two-way immersion option as would some other YY parents."

Good grief, you're at the school and you don't know about the many Chinese family volunteers who read with kids, share materials and services, etc? You can't have 2 way immersion unless you have a large number of target language native speakers (Mandarin, since that's the target language) and you can't have that at YY because of the geedee PCSB rules! Jeesh, what don't you people get? As for scientific rigor?? wth? they've provided an evidence and research base for every issue....speaking of which, statisticians aren't necessarily the experts on scientific rigor....

a historian, an engineer and a statistician are duck hunting. a duck rises from the lake. the historian fires first, and shoots 10' over the duck. then the engineer shoulders the shotgun and shoots 10' under the duck. the statistician exclaims, "got him!". ***

Statistics are like whores, play with them long enough and they'll do anything for you.

[Anonymous]

(Mandarin, wince that's the target language)

Actually, in a way that's the heart of this debate. PPs say that kids who speak non-Mandarin Chinese dialects should be counted as native speakers. Personally, I remain unconvinced. However, I hold no grudge against the pending school that will offer Mandarin immersion to Cantonese speakers. I think it and YY will fill two very different niches, and YY will wind up improved as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

(Mandarin, wince that's the target language)

Actually, in a way that's the heart of this debate. PPs say that kids who speak non-Mandarin Chinese dialects should be counted as native speakers. Personally, I remain unconvinced. However, I hold no grudge against the pending school that will offer Mandarin immersion to Cantonese speakers. I think it and YY will fill two very different niches, and YY will wind up improved as a result.

[Anonymous]

What pending school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What pending school?

We've established that there a significant number of people on this board who have expertise in how a Mandarin school can best be set up to serve families who have recently arrived from China. Since the total of their ideas would require a complete rewrite of the Yu Ying charter, and far more families want to attend YY than are able to, a new charter solves all the previous posters' problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I concur. And I'm optimistic that eventually, maybe in 2 or 3 years, this discussion will take off. China will keep rising, more bilingual families will come into the District, and stay, as neighborhoods and schools continue to improve, and more immigrant families accept government service as a solid career choice.

Since Mandarin isn't a niche language, like, say, Aramaic or Farsi or even Hebrew, founders do need to be careful not to attract droves of families who are OK with the Mandarin but not Chinese attitudes, and are out of touch with the Sino immigrant experience. You can have a minority of such families, but when they become the majority, as at YY, the less assimilated want no part of it and even high-SES bilinguals can feel token. There isn't a market for Cantonese immersion anywhere outside several California population centers. And there's enough tension over assimilation, challenge and cultural authenticity issues at YY: no point in exporting them to a sister charter.

Competition wouldn't hurt YY. Maybe it would help effect a change in administration that would benefit the school. I don't see why a handful of immersion schools should be the only ones feeding into DCI either.

Because they are the ones doing the work. People keep forgetting that YY is not a corporate founded, funded and operated charter like Kipp, Basis, IT, etc. It is a school started up by parents. And frankly in many ways it is still operated by parents. Perhaps the school will evolve and become more corporate like. Many posters have said, that you to can do the legwork and open your school to compete against YY. It appears that the charter board will approve almost anything if the proposal is half way decent. Now go out there and do your lobbying and fund raising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"And you'd get a host of ethnic parents happy to teach Tai Chi, Chinese chess, cooking, brush painting, folk/Lion dance and music, Chinese knotting etc. With considerable community input, a school can have a lot of fun with the culture. "

uh, Yu Ying offers all this and more from native Chinese folks..

Yea, sort of hired help. Rarely parents, uncles, grandparents. We've established that there isn't a Chinese community behind the school.

Well I don't want just anybody's uncle around my little boy. Has dear uncle been vetted or is he a pervert. Also, Who pays for the dear uncle and grandma's liability insurance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"And you'd get a host of ethnic parents happy to teach Tai Chi, Chinese chess, cooking, brush painting, folk/Lion dance and music, Chinese knotting etc. With considerable community input, a school can have a lot of fun with the culture. "

uh, Yu Ying offers all this and more from native Chinese folks..

Yea, sort of hired help. Rarely parents, uncles, grandparents. We've established that there isn't a Chinese community behind the school.

Well I don't want just anybody's uncle around my little boy. Has dear uncle been vetted or is he a pervert. Also, Who pays for the dear uncle and grandma's liability insurance.

Not sure but luckily for us, the charter DC is at does not do this. It's a question for the new Mandarin charter school catering to Cantonese speakers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Well I don't want just anybody's uncle around my little boy. Has dear uncle been vetted or is he a pervert. Also, Who pays for the dear uncle and grandma's liability insurance.

Not sure but luckily for us, the charter DC is at does not do this. It's a question for the new Mandarin charter school catering to Cantonese speakers.

MV poster. This paranoia is ridiculous. Involving parents and other family members who know the culture is a normal part of what makes immersion schools great. Ours doesn't need to hire professionals to teach Latino crafts, dance, cooking etc., although it sometimes does, because family members of students and "professionals" tend to be one and the same! Of course it's wonderful when skilled Latino family members get involved to share their culture - the grandmothers add a lot. Makes no sense to the rest of us. Really goofy.

At our school, we don't agree that the number of language immersion schools feeding into DCI should be limited. We'd much rather see as many immersion graduates as possible at DCI than have the majority of students lottery in from random schools. The point is to build the strongest international school possible, not to be territorial about which immersion schools can send kids.

Do you think that WIS administrators and parents think like you guys? Heck no, they just want the best suited kids/strongest students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: It's a question for the new Mandarin charter school catering to Cantonese speakers.

To clarify, certainly not a charter catering to Cantonese speakers. I assure you that nobody's going to attempt to found one because, without a lottery for bilingual kids like Oyster's, little point. What's being discussed is a DCPS school, or a DCPS/charter hybrid, catering to a mixed group of Chinese dialect speakers AND other parents sold on the dual, or two-way, immersion model, where students learn the target language and culture not only from teachers, but from bilingual peers and their family members (no perverted uncles allowed).

No idea if the concept will ever see the light of day, but it's a fine idea.

FYI, Cantonese is just one of half a dozen major Chinese dialects. My family speaks Fujian, my spouse's speaks Hakka, and we'd like to see an alternative to YY for Mandarin immersion.

[Anonymous]

So start one! It would be great to see in action and there would be a lot to be learned on all sides. I'm sure if the new school is up to snuff like the 4 already involved then those schools would be keen to have more speakers of Chinese (whatever dialect you chose to have for the school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So start one! It would be great to see in action and there would be a lot to be learned on all sides. I'm sure if the new school is up to snuff like the 4 already involved then those schools would be keen to have more speakers of Chinese (whatever dialect you chose to have for the school).

The school would be a Mandarin immersion school, w/dialect transition support for kids like ours. Mandarin is rapidly becoming the Chinese lingua franca for dialect speakers around the world. There are two-way Mandarin immersion elementary schools in cities as far flung as Vancouver, Sydney and Singapore for this reason. But I'd be really surprised if DCPS would play ball for now. We'll almost certainly have to wait until Gray and Kaya go. We'll ask but they'll tell us no money, little interest, we're closing schools, YY is enough.