Bilingual Kids in Language Immersion ES Programs, Which Programs Have Many & Strive to Attract Them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know of at least two chinese kids who attended thomson and now attend yy.

They aren't too happy with the English instruction at YY though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Meaning, she knew no Mandarin when she started as the YY Principal, or meaning she did know some, and has learned more since coming on? I get that your assessment is she's not great on the tones, but is she conversational?

(From what I remember) At her previous school in Virginia she worked with the Mandarin program. I was under the impression that she spoke none or very little at that time, but has since picked up some basics. She is not conversational and could not present something like an info night. I speak very little Mandarin myself and can pick up that her tones are as flat as mine are. I'm not troubled by that in terms of how it looks to outsiders. What concerns me is that over half of her staff is Chinese and she can't understand them.

Yeah but the person who does all the hiring speaks fluent Mandarin, the director. The principal was either the principal or vice-principal of a fairfax county school prior to YY. She was instrumental in establishing that school's IB program.

FWIW, there are a couple of mandarin administrators on board. They are white or bi-racial (black/Chinese). I understand from this thread that the ethnically Chinese administrator is somehow tainted by the AA blood running through her veins, therefore not good enough for you racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yeah but the person who does all the hiring speaks fluent Mandarin, the director. The principal was either the principal or vice-principal of a fairfax county school prior to YY. She was instrumental in establishing that school's IB program.

FWIW, there are a couple of mandarin administrators on board. They are white or bi-racial (black/Chinese). I understand from this thread that the ethnically Chinese administrator is somehow tainted by the AA blood running through her veins, therefore not good enough for you racist.

Apparently some Chinese people count more as "Chinese" than others; like how the adopted Chinese kids should not be considered as Chinese b/c they were adopted by non-Chinese. All the YY threads have been really ugly and racist.

[Anonymous]

and assimilated Chinese are not as "Chinese" as Cantonese speaking immigrants...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I think you are mistaken to think that YY focuses on any Chinese at all....It aspires to catch DC's growing ranks of middle-class parents who want decent schooling for their kids. Currently bilingualism is a fashionable trend in the concept of decent schooling. That this language is Mandarin is irrelevant. It may as well be Portuguese...

Ten years ago, the Dept. of Ed commissioned a comprehensive study of dual immersion language program outputs in public schools nation-wide, done by the Center for Applied Linguistics. The researchers concluded that 50/50 dual immersion outputs are superior to one-way immersion, at least when ES students arrive with a firm grounding in English. The study report talks about how peer-provided cultural inputs are as important as language inputs in motivating children to continue with language study later. http://www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report63.pdf

If what you say is true, PP, if the aim of language immersion is simply to catch DC's growing ranks of middle-class parents, with target languages used being irrelevant, why would DC staunchly reject educational best practices in pursuit of this goal? Why would the District ignore the research when setting admissions policies for most of its immersion schools? It's one thing to strive to create dual immersion programs and fail, perhaps because there aren't enough speakers of a target language with young children in a school district, another to set out to do what research has shown doesn't work very well.

If LAMB burns for its lottery law-breaking, maybe its school community members should go down brandishing the report at the Dept. of Ed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a YY parent and also want the school to serve all children. In fact, I wanted my child there and not in our fairly homogeneous IB school.

But as 00:11 notes, the school gives off a very weird vibe when the tour guides, administrators, parents at Open Houses are so defensive when asked basic questions about Chinese language and cultural issues surrounding the school that you don't see at Spanish immersion schools -- governed by the same laws. It is really frustrating and I think does not serve our school well.

Um, could it be that the school is weird? I, single mom, went with MV after being offered a PreK YY slot. Knowing zilch beyond web site info before a visit, I assumed that a small bilingual community had been involved all along. An open house disabused me of the notion.

MV has a bilingual Latino community firmly behind it, which serves our school well.

You applied to both?!? It's good that you went with MV and Spanish rather than Mandarin which is harder to support on all levels and is a harder language to learn. PreK at YY is currently all in Mandarin - which helps the people who are mainly looking for a decent school option and aren't serious about Mandarin away.

What a strange perspective. By your logic, since I'm not serious about football, I should spend a year studying football.

No, it is not a great choice if you are not serious about Mandarin. If that's the case, you'd be better off in a different school, where you can focus on things you are serious about.

Since we are serious about Mandarin, it is perfect for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This is probably true. YY is not interested in dialect speakers. They are a Mandarin immersion school so unless the admin is proficient in Mandarin, they won't be interested. Unlike the W. Coast school probably, YY has no Cantonese population to speak of (or if they do, they all speak English) so a Cantonese speaker would not be hired unless they also spoke Mandarin.

College friend has blue chip MA in East Asian studies. Perfect Mandarin, learned from a young age and years of experience in China. Also speaks a dialect and has lovely personality, could do outreach locally. No chance of being hired at in-bred YY.

Why won't YY parents admit that you don't want dialect speaking little kids who can pick up Mandarin much faster than yours, and model the culture for the others? Why continue to claim this when it's clear that hardly anybody wants more bilingual families involved? Ech, I quit. Amen for MV (and I speak both Spanish and Mandarin).


Perhaps because we have no issue whatsoever with dialect-speaking little kids, that's why.

You're going to find this hard to believe, seeing as how you seem to expect the world to do everything exactly the way you want it, but YY parents have no control over school policy. And YY administrators have no control over charter law.

Since you're so accomplished, perhaps you can get right on that, and have the law changed? Thanks, love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Because the Asian kids in DC basically have the same background/socioeconomic level as the White kids in DC. Hard to find a FARM White kid in DC at any school: Are there FARM Asian kids in DC? I wouldn't be surprised if really low to nonexistent given the # of Chinese in DC.

Yes, they go to Thomson. They live with their grandparents in the Wah Luck house in Chinatown while their parents work multiple jobs. YY focuses strictly on "embassy" Chinese and pretends these children don't exist. The parents of these children find the academics (both English and Mandarin) at Yu Ying to be weak, not to mention the attitude of the administration.

I think you are mistaken to think that YY focuses on any Chinese at all. YY does not aspire to becoming a destination school for the Chinese-origin DC residents, a home away from home, so to speak. It aspires to catch DC's growing ranks of middle-class parents who want decent schooling for their kids. Currently bilingualism is a fashionable trend in the concept of decent schooling. That this language is Mandarin is irrelevant. It may as well be Portuguese. The underlying frustration you see in YY-focused threads is that Chinese-origin families come to this school with an expectation of finding somewhat of a "home", a special place for the Chinese, and the school was never designed to be that. That's the only reason you see these threads.

Speak for yourself, outsider. My family is interested in Mandarin. Not Portuguese, Mandarin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a YY parent and also want the school to serve all children. In fact, I wanted my child there and not in our fairly homogeneous IB school.

But as 00:11 notes, the school gives off a very weird vibe when the tour guides, administrators, parents at Open Houses are so defensive when asked basic questions about Chinese language and cultural issues surrounding the school that you don't see at Spanish immersion schools -- governed by the same laws. It is really frustrating and I think does not serve our school well.

Um, could it be that the school is weird? I, single mom, went with MV after being offered a PreK YY slot. Knowing zilch beyond web site info before a visit, I assumed that a small bilingual community had been involved all along. An open house disabused me of the notion.

MV has a bilingual Latino community firmly behind it, which serves our school well.

Wow, I can only hope I'm as lucky as all these parents who ALLEGEDLY applied and got into both MV and YY for pre-K. The odds of that have to be off the charts (even including getting in off the waitlist). And interesting how DCUM has so many of these lucky parents... Does that mean the more I post here on DCUM, the better my odds are of getting into at least 2 uber popular charters? Cuz the odds seem to improve drastically here!

Yes, it's remarkable what you can take credit for when you don't have to stand behind your words or prove your allegations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is such BS. A college friend, a kick ass admin at a W. Coast Mandarin immersion school, and a dialect speaker, has responded to YY's advertisements for admins several times. S/he has family in the MD burbs Chinese community and is eager to relocate. S/he gets nowhere. Just an anecdote,right, but where's the evidence that YY does its damdest to find Chinese-speaking admins, let alone an ethnic one?

I don't doubt this in the least. All of the applications funnel through one very young woman who, amongst other things, typically doesn't even entertain applicants with US degrees. If the applications do not pass her review then they never see the light of day on the admin desks.

Interesting. I know a Mandarin speaker, an excellent teacher with 12 plus years teaching in the US, who was offered a classroom assistant position.

Do you think this is a way to keep power over all these young, inexperienced teachers who need the YY job to stay in the country? Of course the track record for hiring English teachers is equally bizarre. It's as if they only consider teachers with zero experience. The leading class has never had a teacher with more than 2 or 3 years of experience. Oh how it shows!

That hasn't been our experience at all. We've been genuinely impressed with the teachers we've had. The leading edge class has always been something of an odd duck though, and much more different from and difficult than the others - behaviorally and academically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Meaning, she knew no Mandarin when she started as the YY Principal, or meaning she did know some, and has learned more since coming on? I get that your assessment is she's not great on the tones, but is she conversational?

(From what I remember) At her previous school in Virginia she worked with the Mandarin program. I was under the impression that she spoke none or very little at that time, but has since picked up some basics. She is not conversational and could not present something like an info night. I speak very little Mandarin myself and can pick up that her tones are as flat as mine are. I'm not troubled by that in terms of how it looks to outsiders. What concerns me is that over half of her staff is Chinese and she can't understand them.

Yeah but the person who does all the hiring speaks fluent Mandarin, the director. The principal was either the principal or vice-principal of a fairfax county school prior to YY. She was instrumental in establishing that school's IB program.

FWIW, there are a couple of mandarin administrators on board. They are white or bi-racial (black/Chinese). I understand from this thread that the ethnically Chinese administrator is somehow tainted by the AA blood running through her veins, therefore not good enough for you racist.

She's only the daughter of a US Ambassador to the U.N. and a Chinese mother. Her pedigree isn't pure enough to satisfy the racists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think you are mistaken to think that YY focuses on any Chinese at all....It aspires to catch DC's growing ranks of middle-class parents who want decent schooling for their kids. Currently bilingualism is a fashionable trend in the concept of decent schooling. That this language is Mandarin is irrelevant. It may as well be Portuguese...

Ten years ago, the Dept. of Ed commissioned a comprehensive study of dual immersion language program outputs in public schools nation-wide, done by the Center for Applied Linguistics. The researchers concluded that 50/50 dual immersion outputs are superior to one-way immersion, at least when ES students arrive with a firm grounding in English. The study report talks about how peer-provided cultural inputs are as important as language inputs in motivating children to continue with language study later. http://www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report63.pdf

If what you say is true, PP, if the aim of language immersion is simply to catch DC's growing ranks of middle-class parents, with target languages used being irrelevant, why would DC staunchly reject educational best practices in pursuit of this goal? Why would the District ignore the research when setting admissions policies for most of its immersion schools? It's one thing to strive to create dual immersion programs and fail, perhaps because there aren't enough speakers of a target language with young children in a school district, another to set out to do what research has shown doesn't work very well.

If LAMB burns for its lottery law-breaking, maybe its school community members should go down brandishing the report at the Dept. of Ed.

Even if it's true, the rest of the world learns English through one-way immersion. One of my best friends in college was from Shanghai and spoke perfect, flawless English - better than mine and I was raised here. Well enough to attend an Ivy League college as an undergrad and she had never been outside China until then. If my kid at YY, learns Mandarin half as well, I'll be happy.

[Anonymous]

Biracials of AA origin are always stuck with this problem. Chinese and black = black. White and black = black. Hispanic and black = black. What's so potent about black for this to exist. I feel we're all equal, so why is this reverse racism tolerated. Is black better or is it so repulsive that any amount negates any other ethnicity. Also, black people (aka self haters) tend to be the ones promoting this hatred, but are other groups doing this too? Is the Chinese/black admin. discounted as Chinese by Chinese people too. What's their malfunction? Sorry to steer to a somewhat off topic arena, but had to. Seems like the community everyone wants to be catered to (ie. the ethnically Chinese) are racist and should be catered too or are too good to be catered to. They cannot be compared to outreach to Latinos and native Spanish speakers in this regard. Latinos in the area are welcoming and "easy" to engage. Chinese are not. True?

[Anonymous]

WTF is the big deal with catering to native speakers of the target language? Why can't charters be amended to allow for preference of native speakers? Other than kids who can't get in due to the preference would be up in arms and kids already in would be happy as kids in slop. What's the big deal? Any plans for any of these charters being sneaky to go legit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Meaning, she knew no Mandarin when she started as the YY Principal, or meaning she did know some, and has learned more since coming on? I get that your assessment is she's not great on the tones, but is she conversational?

(From what I remember) At her previous school in Virginia she worked with the Mandarin program. I was under the impression that she spoke none or very little at that time, but has since picked up some basics. She is not conversational and could not present something like an info night. I speak very little Mandarin myself and can pick up that her tones are as flat as mine are. I'm not troubled by that in terms of how it looks to outsiders. What concerns me is that over half of her staff is Chinese and she can't understand them.

Yeah but the person who does all the hiring speaks fluent Mandarin, the director. The principal was either the principal or vice-principal of a fairfax county school prior to YY. She was instrumental in establishing that school's IB program.

FWIW, there are a couple of mandarin administrators on board. They are white or bi-racial (black/Chinese). I understand from this thread that the ethnically Chinese administrator is somehow tainted by the AA blood running through her veins, therefore not good enough for you racist.

I have no idea how you could think anything I wrote is racist. I was just stating information about how well the head of school spoke Chinese. I couldn't care less about her race as long as she does a good job. That is my primary concern.
Furthermore, there are 3 administrators at YY, none of whom are "mandarin" as you suggest: one AA head of school, one white COO and one white assistant principal. The former COO (different title then) is white and speaks Chinese. She is now working on the DCI and has no hand in the daily operations of YY. The bi-racial AA/Chinese person you speak of is a grant writer and is part of the development department. There is a Chinese program coordinator who appears to also be kindergarten classroom teacher at this time (according the the school's private portal). Interestingly, she is from Guangzhou. The person who screens all the applicants lives in another state, but she is a Taiwan native.