Chinese Immersion school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op-

No horse in this race at all, but there is a lot of yu ying haters out there, mostly from Rockville. Honestly I think they're bothered that nonchinese kids are speaking Chinese and spend an awful lot of time trashing YY here. Take their advice with a grain of salt.

+100. This must be the same community responsible for writing the negative crap about DC's Chinatown on Wikipedia. Geese.

+1000 All of this is written in the same voice as the dialect-speaking Yu Ying basher who thinks that schools attended by African americans can't be good enough for "heritage families". Please ignore this person and find out more about Yu Ying for yourself.

NP--when did the poster you're referring to say anything about AA? His/her beef seems to be that YY has very few native speaking students.

Yes, if it's Heritage Mom, she complains that there aren't enough native speakers and that there is no preference for Cantonese speakers, which would be against the law for a DC public charter school.

[Anonymous]

OP here,
Am I correct in saying that given I would be moving to DC with a girl in the winter of her final year of pre-K that my chances of getting her into YY are extremely low? IT sure sounds like it would be nearly impossible. If so, then it wouldn't enter as a factor in my planning very strongly. It's possible I would move to attend some other school, but I wouldn't be counting on getting her in at YY. Does that sound generally reasonable?

[Anonymous]

You would need to enter the lottery for the following year, her Kindergarten year.

Each year is different, but:

In 2014-15 YY offered 14 K seats in the first round lottery (eventually making offers to 31 people from their wait list to fill them)

In 2015-16 YY offered 0 K seats in the first round lottery.

If some current PK4 students leave they will replace them with students from their wait list but that would be no more than a handful of kids.

Data from here https://public.tableau.com/profile/aaron2446#!/vizhome/MSDCSeatsandWaitlistOfferData/Dashboard1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here,
Am I correct in saying that given I would be moving to DC with a girl in the winter of her final year of pre-K that my chances of getting her into YY are extremely low? IT sure sounds like it would be nearly impossible. If so, then it wouldn't enter as a factor in my planning very strongly. It's possible I would move to attend some other school, but I wouldn't be counting on getting her in at YY. Does that sound generally reasonable?

I wouldn't say extremely low, I'd say very low. Word is that YY wants to close the lottery door at first grade, rather than second (somebody jump in if you know how that discussion turned out).

If you truly want public school Chinese immersion in this Metro area, your best bet is to up your game at home and shoot for one of the MoCo elementary programs (where you'd almost certainly have a spot eventually if your child could test in to replace a drop out, taking you to Herbert Hoover MS and probably on to the stellar Richard Montgomery HS IB Diploma Program). But if you're set on staying in DC, you could still up your game at home, and in a heritage language weekend program, then try to lottery into DCI for 6th grade. If you succeeded and you'd done a good job at home/with the heritage school, there would be no barrier to your kid jumping onto the Mandarin partial immersion track at DCI. Again, as a native speaker, I wouldn't be intimidated by the Chinese taught at YY.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op-

No horse in this race at all, but there is a lot of yu ying haters out there, mostly from Rockville. Honestly I think they're bothered that nonchinese kids are speaking Chinese and spend an awful lot of time trashing YY here. Take their advice with a grain of salt.

+100. This must be the same community responsible for writing the negative crap about DC's Chinatown on Wikipedia. Geese.

+1000 All of this is written in the same voice as the dialect-speaking Yu Ying basher who thinks that schools attended by African americans can't be good enough for "heritage families". Please ignore this person and find out more about Yu Ying for yourself.

NP--when did the poster you're referring to say anything about AA? His/her beef seems to be that YY has very few native speaking students.

Yes, if it's Heritage Mom, she complains that there aren't enough native speakers and that there is no preference for Cantonese speakers, which would be against the law for a DC public charter school.

Ok, but where did she say anything about "schools attended by African [A]mericans can't be good enough for "heritage families"." Correct me if I'm wrong if she has made this statement or anything similar. Otherwise, please stop race baiting.

[Anonymous]

Right, cut if out, race baiter. There are AA kids at College Gardens at Herbert Hoover and their Chinese rocks. Why? Mainly because they've been learning alongside many native speakers for years, including by attending summer immersion camps in China. Yea, we know that the DCPCB is adamantly opposed to two-way language immersion programs (although they constitute best practices academically).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MoCo is only good for Chinese kids - many threads on how white kids are not welcome.

Whatever, many of the Chinese AND white kids leave immersion for magnets and that is why it is possible to test into the Mandarin immersion program at any grade. If they did not take new students, the MoCo immersion programs will be very sparse with many of the best students leaving.

You have to ask yourself what kind of kids remain in the immersion program in the upper grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right, cut if out, race baiter. There are AA kids at College Gardens at Herbert Hoover and their Chinese rocks. Why? Mainly because they've been learning alongside many native speakers for years, including by attending summer immersion camps in China. Yea, we know that the DCPCB is adamantly opposed to two-way language immersion programs (although they constitute best practices academically).

You're talking to multiple posters. We all know what Heritage Mom is like. Search the archives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MoCo is only good for Chinese kids - many threads on how white kids are not welcome.

Whatever, many of the Chinese AND white kids leave immersion for magnets and that is why it is possible to test into the Mandarin immersion program at any grade. If they did not take new students, the MoCo immersion programs will be very sparse with many of the best students leaving.

You have to ask yourself what kind of kids remain in the immersion program in the upper grades.

Not exactly. The strongest students in the two Chinese immersion programs don't all live near 4th-5th grade HGCs (Highly Gifted Centers). Some kids test in but aren't enrolled by parents who opt to avoid hassle-filled commutes to school. Others go to HCGs but don't stay, returning to a Chinese program eventually. Also, some parents with kids who test into HCGs decide to stay the course with the Chinese to shoot for the Richard Montgomery IB Diploma Program via Herbert Hoover's partial immersion track. Mandarin-speaking students seem to enjoy preferential treatment in admissions at RM, and only around 10% of 8th grade applicants are admitted county wide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MoCo is only good for Chinese kids - many threads on how white kids are not welcome.

Whatever, many of the Chinese AND white kids leave immersion for magnets and that is why it is possible to test into the Mandarin immersion program at any grade. If they did not take new students, the MoCo immersion programs will be very sparse with many of the best students leaving.

You have to ask yourself what kind of kids remain in the immersion program in the upper grades.

Not exactly. The strongest students in the two Chinese immersion programs don't all live near 4th-5th grade HGCs (Highly Gifted Centers). Some kids test in but aren't enrolled by parents who opt to avoid hassle-filled commutes to school. Others go to HCGs but don't stay, returning to a Chinese program eventually. Also, some parents with kids who test into HCGs decide to stay the course with the Chinese to shoot for the Richard Montgomery IB Diploma Program via Herbert Hoover's partial immersion track. Mandarin-speaking students seem to enjoy preferential treatment in admissions at RM, and only around 10% of 8th grade applicants are admitted county wide.

I'd sooner die than live in MoCo!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MoCo is only good for Chinese kids - many threads on how white kids are not welcome.

Whatever, many of the Chinese AND white kids leave immersion for magnets and that is why it is possible to test into the Mandarin immersion program at any grade. If they did not take new students, the MoCo immersion programs will be very sparse with many of the best students leaving.

You have to ask yourself what kind of kids remain in the immersion program in the upper grades.

Not exactly. The strongest students in the two Chinese immersion programs don't all live near 4th-5th grade HGCs (Highly Gifted Centers). Some kids test in but aren't enrolled by parents who opt to avoid hassle-filled commutes to school. Others go to HCGs but don't stay, returning to a Chinese program eventually. Also, some parents with kids who test into HCGs decide to stay the course with the Chinese to shoot for the Richard Montgomery IB Diploma Program via Herbert Hoover's partial immersion track. Mandarin-speaking students seem to enjoy preferential treatment in admissions at RM, and only around 10% of 8th grade applicants are admitted county wide.

I'd sooner die than live in MoCo!

And we would sooner die than return to YY. There are non-Chinese speaking parents at College Gardens who complain that the program caters to native speakers, that the Chinese taught is "too hard." But there seem to be just as many native Chinese speakers who complain that the English is too hard. Love it or lump it, our immersion program isn't nearly as inclusive as YY's. But then I've got children who speak two dialects of Chinese very well, and read and write above grade level in English. Best of luck to you, OP. Maybe we'll meet in a Rockville program down the road.

[Anonymous]

Can't believe the nastiness and general oneupmanship on this thread. Snotty Heritage mom types who feel YY isn't good enough for their precious snowflake. Reminds me of private school parents who would never consider public except the heritage types don't want to spend the cash.

OP, your chance of getting into YY is extremely low so it isn't a "choice" for you. Move of MoCo, sounds like you'll fit in better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op-

No horse in this race at all, but there is a lot of yu ying haters out there, mostly from Rockville. Honestly I think they're bothered that nonchinese kids are speaking Chinese and spend an awful lot of time trashing YY here. Take their advice with a grain of salt.

Oh come on, those of us who speak Chinese and have a connection to the Rockville native-speaking community don't hate Yu Ying. We just can't take a Chinese immersion school without Chinese-speaking admins or students seriously, and aren't very impressed with the results.

OP, I suggest that you hook up with one of the weekend programs in MoCo for native speakers, e.g. Cantonese School of Greater Washington if your family is from the south. You get great morale support from these communities to speak Chinese at home, and enjoy holiday celebrations where everybody in the room is either from Chinese immigrant/bilingual family or married into one.

If you want my two cents worth, ignore your kids if they reply in English. We do that consistently, so they rarely try English on us. Also, don't let them watch kids entertainment in English. We only allow cartoons from Direct TV channels from China and a big stash of DVDs of classic and current kids' movies dubbed into Chinese (easy to find in NYC Chinatown, on-line, through family members shopping in HK, Taiwan and on the mainland). We also arrange regular play dates with native-speaking kids, and have them tutored by Chinese graduate students who can teach traditional characters. Good luck!

#1 - Charter law does not allow for selection based on language preference. (This is a good thing, otherwise children who don't speak beautiful and grammatically correct ENGLISH could be sorted out).

#2 - There are over 500 students currently enrolled at Yu Ying. You do not know a statistically valid sample from which to form an intelligent opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another thing YY offers (which no other public school in the DMV does) is Mandarin immersion classes all the way through HS, including the IB Baccalaureate Exam.

OP, we bailed on YY early for College Gardens, now at Herbert Hoover MS in Potomac (partial Mandarin immersion where every student didn't come through College Gardens or Potomac; some were taught at home and in heritage language schools), hoping that DC will test into the Richard Montgomery HS International Baccalaureate Diploma program in Rockville. The program admits around 10% of 8th grade applicants county-wide, but strong Herbert Hoover Chinese students seem to get it. We weren't happy at YY without other immigrant bilingual children, but there were good things about it and most parents seemed to love it.

We live close to the DC-MD line and have close friends with kids at DCI, so we know that IB Diploma studies in their HS will be voluntary. In the strongest suburban IB programs, Richard Montgomery and Washington-Lee HS in Arlington, students are either "in" IB (pursuing the full diploma) or "out" (in AP classes etc.) making for some of the highest IB Diploma pass rates in the world. On a pass rate scale of 24-45 points, the strongest IB Diploma program in the DC public system is currently Banneker HS, with an average points total in the high 20s, the equivalent of around a C-. By contrast, Richard Montgomery's average pass rate is close to 40 points, the equivalent of an A-. Looks to me like DCI's average pass rate will also be in the high 20s for years, possibly the low 30s, because a school system can't do immersion languages very well without recruiting native speakers, and can't do International Baccalaureate studies very well without requiring students to pursue the full diploma (vs. allowing them dabble in it by taking one or more subject exams).

If you're serious about IB Diploma studies in a public system in the Metro area, you need to look to MoCo, Arlington of Fairfax, or possibly a Deal feeder. Chinese studies are coming along at Deal because the teacher is excellent, and the rest of their program, and facilities, are stronger than DCI's. Mandarin has been offered at Wilson for a couple years by another stellar teacher. But, unfortunately, high AP Mandarin scores no longer impress elite colleges as a general rule because it's a fairly easy test. More than 80% of test takers score 5s, by far the highest of any AP exam. Top scores (6s and 7s on a scale of 1-7) on IB "Higher Level" Mandarin separate the sheep from the goats. Good luck.

Disagree 100%. The Chinese students at Deal who actually speak anything close to good Chinese have private tutors. They can't compare with DCI. This includes former YY students whose Chinese has declined significantly because they didn't go to DCI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretty clearly, DCI International Baccalaureate Diploma studies will be IB lite on a relative basis. Still a big step forward for city public schools.

Especially considering that DCI is what, one year old?