More reason for there to be zero available slots at bilingual schools...

[Anonymous]

I was getting so tired of every thread devolving into a YY thread, thank God for Sela!!

[Anonymous]

Ah, our serial charter-basher is back. Best watch yourself, Jeff is on to you and your IP addresses (and busted you last time for your charter-bashing sock puppeting).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
What is the Sela animosity due to?


Feverish brows, marked pettiness, disgruntled DCPS teachers who want all charters to fail, holders of prized copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, people who were lazy and didn't oppose Sela and/or YY, and/or Basis, and/or other "unique" charters when they had their chance before the PCSB, and therefore bitch anonymously on DCUM, people who believe that Hebrew is too "hard" for African-Americans and other DC children (aka bigotry of soft expectations)....but certainly not from other charters in the District, the Charter School Board, most parents looking for quality education choices for their children, Muriel Bowser, Kid Power, FOCUS, or other supporters of Sela. Check yourself, before you wreck yourself, folks.


Whoa, where did you pull that one from? I've never seen anyone on DCUM say that about Sela "too hard for AA students"?? Seriously, Hebrew is "hard" but Mandarin isn't? You sure you're not projecting on that one?


There was thread, can't remember which one, where it talked about poor children being frustrated because they were forced to learn a difficult language like Hebrew. As an AA mom, I think that's clear code language.

Of course you can't remember the thread because it doesn't exist.

Hebrew is a difficult language FOR ALL CHILDREN, and it is not a common language. While there have been many posts about how difficult the language is, there is not a single one saying that poor or AA children are especially frustrated by Hebrew, so stop with this fake racist theory. You're really getting tiresome with this idiotic accusation.

Hebrew is a hard language for everyone. It is a language spoken by few people, meaning all kids will wrestle with a language they will have little use for in the future (unless they move to Israel.) and, as such, it's not a language whose immersion meets anyone's needs.

Even in this very thread, more people talk about the geographic convenience of a charter school, not about the importance of the specific language being taught.

[Anonymous]

Hebrew is a Category IV language, as opposed to Mandarin which is Category V. Students can typically learn Hebrew in half the time as it takes for Mandarin or Japanese.

Hebrew is roughly comparable in difficulty to learning Greek or Russian.

It's also easier than Arabic, because Arabic has many different dialects and quirks that don't exist in Hebrew. Hebrew makes a good gateway into Arabic, though - because of many shared semitic root words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hebrew is a Category IV language, as opposed to Mandarin which is Category V. Students can typically learn Hebrew in half the time as it takes for Mandarin or Japanese.

Hebrew is roughly comparable in difficulty to learning Greek or Russian.

It's also easier than Arabic, because Arabic has many different dialects and quirks that don't exist in Hebrew. Hebrew makes a good gateway into Arabic, though - because of many shared semitic root words.

Just out of curiosity, what is a Cat VI or Cat V language? I'm not arguing with you, but when I hear "cat 4" or "cat 5" I think of hurricanes, not languages. Presumably NOAA isn't deciding the difference between languages, so who is? What is the rubric for the different categories? What does it actually mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hebrew is a Category IV language, as opposed to Mandarin which is Category V. Students can typically learn Hebrew in half the time as it takes for Mandarin or Japanese.

Hebrew is roughly comparable in difficulty to learning Greek or Russian.

It's also easier than Arabic, because Arabic has many different dialects and quirks that don't exist in Hebrew. Hebrew makes a good gateway into Arabic, though - because of many shared semitic root words.

Probably true. Also probably true that you can learn Spanish or French in half the time than Hebrew, and that either is at least 10 times as useful, so my guess is that few people will real alternatives will choose Hebrew other other languages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally have no opinion about Sela or Hebrew and honestly if an English only charter had as many obnoxious boosters who brings up their not opened as yet charter at every opportunity, would be just as sick and tired of hearing about them too.

You haven't heard of either IT or Basis?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally have no opinion about Sela or Hebrew and honestly if an English only charter had as many obnoxious boosters who brings up their not opened as yet charter at every opportunity, would be just as sick and tired of hearing about them too.

You haven't heard of either IT or Basis?

Different PP here: I have not seen anything as obnoxious, no. Sela boosters are taking it to a whole new level...and even before the school exists.

[Anonymous]

No more obnoxious than the serial charter-bashers who hop from one to the next - YY, BASIS, Sela, whichever flavor of the day - they go around trashing one charter after another, picking fight after fight and then have the gall to complain about people getting defensive and "obnoxious" in response.

[Anonymous]

You are mistaking the general anti charter people with all the anti SELA people - those like me who have nothing against charters (send kids to a charter) but am sick and tired of hearing about SELA whose obnoxious boosters bring up SELA on every single thread nevertheless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are mistaking the general anti charter people with all the anti SELA people - those like me who have nothing against charters (send kids to a charter) but am sick and tired of hearing about SELA whose obnoxious boosters bring up SELA on every single thread nevertheless.

NP here, and I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I've only seen Sela come up in about 3 or 4 threads (though lengthy ones), and meanwhile, the vast majority of other threads have nothing at all to do with Sela. It's far from "every single thread" - and unless you are specifically looking for Sela posts, the topic hardly comes up, aside from whatever buzz is to be expected whenever there's talk of something new, i.e. DCI and Sela. Yesterday it was Basis, day before it was YY. The Sela stuff is nothing unusual, it's par for the course.

Here's some advice - buzz and hype everytime there's something new is to be expected, there's nothing much you are ever going to be able to do about it, and getting your self into a tizz and bent out of whack every time there's a little buzz and hype of the latest new thing isn't ever going to do much for your health and well being.

FWIW, I'm a charter parent, we're not interested in sending DC to Sela, as we are already on board with another school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are mistaking the general anti charter people with all the anti SELA people - those like me who have nothing against charters (send kids to a charter) but am sick and tired of hearing about SELA whose obnoxious boosters bring up SELA on every single thread nevertheless.

Yes, this. We're a charter family too, I was a big charter defender in all the WTU threads. And I, too, am truly OVER the major denial of Sela folks re: the fact that, if you look at the zillions of threads where people are saying "Hope you succeed Sela but could you please stop with the barrage of 'Go Sela!' posts and the overly certain of outcomes talk?", those posts are following the barrage, not starting it. Stop trying to explain us away as anti-charter, because we love charters. I was willing to love you Sela, but not so much now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hebrew is a Category IV language, as opposed to Mandarin which is Category V. Students can typically learn Hebrew in half the time as it takes for Mandarin or Japanese.

Hebrew is roughly comparable in difficulty to learning Greek or Russian.

It's also easier than Arabic, because Arabic has many different dialects and quirks that don't exist in Hebrew. Hebrew makes a good gateway into Arabic, though - because of many shared semitic root words.

Just out of curiosity, what is a Cat VI or Cat V language? I'm not arguing with you, but when I hear "cat 4" or "cat 5" I think of hurricanes, not languages. Presumably NOAA isn't deciding the difference between languages, so who is? What is the rubric for the different categories? What does it actually mean?

According to Wikipedia, the department of defense categorizes language by difficultly to learn, most likely in relation to people speaking English as a first language.


Category I language:
(French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish)
Category II language:
(German, Indonesian)
Category III language:
(Dari, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi/Urdu, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, and Uzbek)
Category IV language:
(Modern Standard Arabic, Pashto, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean)

Anyway count me in as someone who doesn't think a lot of non-Jews would really benefit from learning Hebrew.

[Anonymous]

Here is the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Language_Aptitude_Battery

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are mistaking the general anti charter people with all the anti SELA people - those like me who have nothing against charters (send kids to a charter) but am sick and tired of hearing about SELA whose obnoxious boosters bring up SELA on every single thread nevertheless.

Yes, this. We're a charter family too, I was a big charter defender in all the WTU threads. And I, too, am truly OVER the major denial of Sela folks re: the fact that, if you look at the zillions of threads where people are saying "Hope you succeed Sela but could you please stop with the barrage of 'Go Sela!' posts and the overly certain of outcomes talk?", those posts are following the barrage, not starting it. Stop trying to explain us away as anti-charter, because we love charters. I was willing to love you Sela, but not so much now.

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