Ward 6 and Miner ES: Grassroots Movement for Dual Language (Mandarin) Program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gosh. Such a negative spin on what would be a wonderful program. You can't win for losing in this city. And I bet all of the supposed homeless advocates don't have children at Miner or live in the community. I hope the organizers will ignore them and their irrelevant thoughts and go full steam ahead. There's always this assumption that we need to coddle "the poors" and they couldn't possibly want an innovative immersion program. It's pretty condescending. I'm just lucky we're at a wonderful immersion school- with a large cohort of FARMs children who are amazing and are thriving very well. You almost have to wonder if there isn't some hidden agendy from naysayers. Perhaps they want slots for themselves and so they'd rather to pretend to care about poor children when really they want immersion for themselves.

If you want to find out what the homeless families who send their kids to Miner would like, host a meeting at the homeless shelter, or at least hand out fliers there. Miner will also have a homeless outreach coordinator who can tell parents about these meetings. I'm not homeless and can't speak for them. I'm sure some families would be interested in Mandarin, some might like dual language but prefer Spanish/French/something else, and some would have questions or concerns.

And consider the possibility that there are different types of families getting FARMs (native English speakers vs. immigrants speaking the target language of your immersion school; a mom and two kids living on under $500 a month in TANF vs. the $36,000 that would still qualify for reduced-price meals; at DC General vs. in an apartment) and different types of schools (charter or PK where the kids had to win a lottery vs. neighborhood schools that have to take everyone).

You're probably a white person who thinks you know what's best for black people. Um, sorry. You're not that important! Again, OP. Please ignore the loud uneducation peanut gallery and move forward. People will do anything and say anything to prevent innovation for black and brown people. I'm excited as the prospect of the school and hope it works. There's example after example of immersion programs sprouting up and changing the community for the better. Miner can do it too!

Can you point to example after example of DCPS immersion programs which have changed a community for the better?

You could use some reading comprehension help. Poster didn't say DCPS. Nonetheless, here's an article about St. Louis: www.nationaljournal.com/.../how-a-public-chinese-immersion-school-is- desegregating-st-louis-20140909

It's nice to see that you are not limiting your distinctive assh*lery to the Hill elementary school discussion. Notwithstanding your reframing of my question, I was attempting to elicit specific information about DC, in part, because DCPS doesn't really do immersion/dual-language all that well. An article about a charter school in St. Louis doesn't alter this reality.

[Anonymous]

Barf. Why not math immersion or coding immersion? It is one thing to have charters doing immersion; quite another neighborhoid schools with 0 connection to the immersion language. I can't believe parents are still fixated on "Chinese" immersion as some kind of panacea.

[Anonymous]

There's a big difference between immersion schools that are charter or magnet, and serve children whose families have chosen immersion, and immersion schools as neighborhood schools.

There's also a big difference in the educational needs of students who are low income but live in stable housing in communities where they plan to stay long term, and students who are homeless and living in temporary or transitional housing. Kids in the latter situation need educational continuity. That is, they benefit when there are common standards and consistent scope and sequence between schools. Moving into a school where you don't have the prerequisite skills to be successful because you weren't there when they were taught is really hard. Spending 6 years (K - 5, assuming you didn't get in in the PK lottery) in a Mandarin immersion school can be a wonderful experience for a child from any language background. Spending 6 months in one is useless.

Having said this, this is an issue that DCPS needs to solve the issue of how to assign kids to immersion programs. I've known several families who, for very good reasons, didn't want their students in an immersion program. For example, I knew a family who adopted older kids internationally, and wanted English and catching up in English literacy to be the focus during the first few years, but DCPS insisted that they send their kids to Oyster. I've known another family that was already multi-lingual, and had a kid with a disability that impacted their language. They felt that adding another language wasn't the right time, but again DCPS insisted.

I personally think that schools should be paired, with one English only and one immersion option for the neighborhood, so that families can make the choice that's right for them, and priority given to kids in certain categories (e.g. kids with IEPs, kids who are homeless).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gosh. Such a negative spin on what would be a wonderful program. You can't win for losing in this city. And I bet all of the supposed homeless advocates don't have children at Miner or live in the community. I hope the organizers will ignore them and their irrelevant thoughts and go full steam ahead. There's always this assumption that we need to coddle "the poors" and they couldn't possibly want an innovative immersion program. It's pretty condescending. I'm just lucky we're at a wonderful immersion school- with a large cohort of FARMs children who are amazing and are thriving very well. You almost have to wonder if there isn't some hidden agendy from naysayers. Perhaps they want slots for themselves and so they'd rather to pretend to care about poor children when really they want immersion for themselves.

If you want to find out what the homeless families who send their kids to Miner would like, host a meeting at the homeless shelter, or at least hand out fliers there. Miner will also have a homeless outreach coordinator who can tell parents about these meetings. I'm not homeless and can't speak for them. I'm sure some families would be interested in Mandarin, some might like dual language but prefer Spanish/French/something else, and some would have questions or concerns.

And consider the possibility that there are different types of families getting FARMs (native English speakers vs. immigrants speaking the target language of your immersion school; a mom and two kids living on under $500 a month in TANF vs. the $36,000 that would still qualify for reduced-price meals; at DC General vs. in an apartment) and different types of schools (charter or PK where the kids had to win a lottery vs. neighborhood schools that have to take everyone).

You're probably a white person who thinks you know what's best for black people. Um, sorry. You're not that important! Again, OP. Please ignore the loud uneducation peanut gallery and move forward. People will do anything and say anything to prevent innovation for black and brown people. I'm excited as the prospect of the school and hope it works. There's example after example of immersion programs sprouting up and changing the community for the better. Miner can do it too!

Can you point to example after example of DCPS immersion programs which have changed a community for the better?

You could use some reading comprehension help. Poster didn't say DCPS. Nonetheless, here's an article about St. Louis: www.nationaljournal.com/.../how-a-public-chinese-immersion-school-is- desegregating-st-louis-20140909

It's nice to see that you are not limiting your distinctive assh*lery to the Hill elementary school discussion. Notwithstanding your reframing of my question, I was attempting to elicit specific information about DC, in part, because DCPS doesn't really do immersion/dual-language all that well. An article about a charter school in St. Louis doesn't alter this reality.

Um, the asshole is you. Based upon your misreading of the posters comment, you asked for something irrelevant- a scenario where DCPS does something. You assumed that poster was saying that DCPS has done will with immersion time and time again. See what happens when you ASSume!

[Anonymous]

Oh, please take your petty fights and bad tempers elsewhere!

The substance of this thread is interesting and I'd like to hear more about it, pros, cons, implications, limitations, synergies and all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a slightly different take on this. Something close to 25 percent of Miner students tested as proficient in ELAs last year. Why would introducing Mandarin, as opposed to more intensive interventions focused on mastering basic skills in English, be a good use of resources?

Exactly. And Mandarin as opposed to Spanish? Mandarin is to this decade what Japanese was to the 80's and 90's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would support a Dual Language (Urdu) Program at Payne. It's about as practical as offering Mandarin at Miner.

Because Miner is under enrolled, they're trying to attract some of the Yu Ying-loving crowd on the Hill that's currently enrolled in Maury, LT, and Brent, opening up more room in those schools for those not seeking dual language immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gosh. Such a negative spin on what would be a wonderful program. You can't win for losing in this city. And I bet all of the supposed homeless advocates don't have children at Miner or live in the community. I hope the organizers will ignore them and their irrelevant thoughts and go full steam ahead. There's always this assumption that we need to coddle "the poors" and they couldn't possibly want an innovative immersion program. It's pretty condescending. I'm just lucky we're at a wonderful immersion school- with a large cohort of FARMs children who are amazing and are thriving very well. You almost have to wonder if there isn't some hidden agendy from naysayers. Perhaps they want slots for themselves and so they'd rather to pretend to care about poor children when really they want immersion for themselves.

If you want to find out what the homeless families who send their kids to Miner would like, host a meeting at the homeless shelter, or at least hand out fliers there. Miner will also have a homeless outreach coordinator who can tell parents about these meetings. I'm not homeless and can't speak for them. I'm sure some families would be interested in Mandarin, some might like dual language but prefer Spanish/French/something else, and some would have questions or concerns.

And consider the possibility that there are different types of families getting FARMs (native English speakers vs. immigrants speaking the target language of your immersion school; a mom and two kids living on under $500 a month in TANF vs. the $36,000 that would still qualify for reduced-price meals; at DC General vs. in an apartment) and different types of schools (charter or PK where the kids had to win a lottery vs. neighborhood schools that have to take everyone).

You're probably a white person who thinks you know what's best for black people. Um, sorry. You're not that important! Again, OP. Please ignore the loud uneducation peanut gallery and move forward. People will do anything and say anything to prevent innovation for black and brown people. I'm excited as the prospect of the school and hope it works. There's example after example of immersion programs sprouting up and changing the community for the better. Miner can do it too!

I don't care what race you are. If you come to the school in the middle of the year and everyone's speaking Mandarin for part of the day, you're going to be lost. And if you leave the school and go somewhere else where they didn't spend half their time learning Chinese, it's going to be harder to catch up. Maybe there are a lot of families who are interested in it anyway. But the only way to find out is to ask them.

Having spent some time at Miner, I agree this is not the best use of funds. There are other exciting and other ways to improve enrollment by offering subjects that are more transferable. How about STEM, Medical, or media, languages like Mandarin etc are just the trend at the moment. Sigh....

[Anonymous]

I agree that you would need paired schools in which in-bounds students can choose the specialty program or a traditional school. And not within the same school building, which creates a weird dynamic like Tyler. Or make the Mandarin program at Miner a citywide draw like SWS or Logan.

[Anonymous]

This is a bad idea. What use will most of these students have for mandarin? How can we justify the serious investment in reading characters this will require and to the detriment of others skills?

Signed
USG Asia specialist with many years of mandarin training

[Anonymous]

Aside from everything else, I would only consider enrolling my kid in Miner Chinese Immersion if my kid was negative 10 years old. DCPS just doesn't do things well in the short term, and putting a Chinese program at Miner is no easy lift.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a bad idea. What use will most of these students have for mandarin? How can we justify the serious investment in reading characters this will require and to the detriment of others skills?

Signed
USG Asia specialist with many years of mandarin training

Maybe "these" students could become USG Asia specialists, or work abroad, or work in companies that do business with China?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a bad idea. What use will most of these students have for mandarin? How can we justify the serious investment in reading characters this will require and to the detriment of others skills?

Signed
USG Asia specialist with many years of mandarin training

Maybe "these" students could become USG Asia specialists, or work abroad, or work in companies that do business with China?

well, they need to know how to proficiently read and write in English first

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a bad idea. What use will most of these students have for mandarin? How can we justify the serious investment in reading characters this will require and to the detriment of others skills?

Signed
USG Asia specialist with many years of mandarin training

Maybe "these" students could become USG Asia specialists, or work abroad, or work in companies that do business with China?

Nice passive aggressive use of quotes.

Maybe they could go into the careers you mention but the number of positions that really value Chinese skills in this country are few and far between- in fact, there are virtually none. Students' time and energy and tax payers' money would be better put to developing core academic skills and Chinese immersion will simply distract from that with little benefit to students.

You should also know that "abroad" is a pretty big place and most of the people who live there don't -- wait for it -- speak Mandarin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a bad idea. What use will most of these students have for mandarin? How can we justify the serious investment in reading characters this will require and to the detriment of others skills?

Signed
USG Asia specialist with many years of mandarin training

Maybe "these" students could become USG Asia specialists, or work abroad, or work in companies that do business with China?

Nice passive aggressive use of quotes.

Maybe they could go into the careers you mention but the number of positions that really value Chinese skills in this country are few and far between- in fact, there are virtually none. Students' time and energy and tax payers' money would be better put to developing core academic skills and Chinese immersion will simply distract from that with little benefit to students.

You should also know that "abroad" is a pretty big place and most of the people who live there don't -- wait for it -- speak Mandarin.

I think Mandarin is going to be in much greater demand by the time current elementary school students graduate. Would love to get into Yu Ying, but since I've struck out, would love another Mandarin immersion option.