What is your first choice bilingual program?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, Yu Ying is in the process of re-structuring its program so that some third graders and above won't actually be able to participate in the immersion program, but instead will receive Chinese langauge instruction for a few hours per week.

Yu ying is still a good school. So what is some kids are not getting full immersion.Why would someone want thier child to struggle with reading and math in thier native language? I think Yu Ying is taking a proactive approach to the situtation. Just a note they are talking about 1/5 of the 2nd and 3rd graders are below grade level. That is not alot of kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, Yu Ying is in the process of re-structuring its program so that some third graders and above won't actually be able to participate in the immersion program, but instead will receive Chinese langauge instruction for a few hours per week.

Yu ying is still a good school. So what is some kids are not getting full immersion.Why would someone want thier child to struggle with reading and math in thier native language? I think Yu Ying is taking a proactive approach to the situtation. Just a note they are talking about 1/5 of the 2nd and 3rd graders are below grade level. That is not alot of kids.

My general concern with Yu Ying is that they're kind of making it up as they go along. I'm not blaming the school for that -- they've got to start somewhere, after all, and it's not like they have a ton of PK-8 IB Mandarin-immersion models to learn from -- but it's a concern just the same. It seems like to really get the full benefit from Yu Ying -- bilingualism/biliteracy -- kids will have to stay through 8th grade. And there's somewhat limited evidence, today, that Yu Ying will be able to put together a quality program through middle school. Again, I don't mean that as a knock on the school -- the folks running things there seem very smart and committed (if somewhat light in traditional education/training), but each new year seems to bring the school into even darker and less charted waters. I truly hope the school succeeds completely and is a well-oiled machine a decade from now; I'd hesitate about sending DC there today.

[Anonymous]

Yu ying is still a good school. So what is some kids are not getting full immersion.Why would someone want thier child to struggle with reading and math in thier native language? I think Yu Ying is taking a proactive approach to the situtation. Just a note they are talking about 1/5 of the 2nd and 3rd graders are below grade level. That is not alot of kids.

Are you suggesting that children who have different learning needs, or those who are "struggling" as you say, should not be entiltled to learning a second language? Why should some kids be priveleged by this and not others? And, this will effect students all the way through 8th grade. Essentially, Yu Ying will now track students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW, Yu Ying is in the process of re-structuring its program so that some third graders and above won't actually be able to participate in the immersion program, but instead will receive Chinese langauge instruction for a few hours per week.

Why is Yu Ying doing this? Who determines which third graders and above are doing immersion? How?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yu ying is still a good school. So what is some kids are not getting full immersion.Why would someone want thier child to struggle with reading and math in thier native language? I think Yu Ying is taking a proactive approach to the situtation. Just a note they are talking about 1/5 of the 2nd and 3rd graders are below grade level. That is not alot of kids.

Are you suggesting that children who have different learning needs, or those who are "struggling" as you say, should not be entiltled to learning a second language? Why should some kids be priveleged by this and not others? And, this will effect students all the way through 8th grade. Essentially, Yu Ying will now track students.

Yes, its tracking. And, probably a way for them to boost test scores. They can "drill and kill" the lower performing kids while keeping the Chinese program for the better performing kids. And, seriously, if you had a low performing kid in Yu Ying (maybe learning disabled or something) and they got shunted out of immersion into a few hours a week of foreign language education, wouldn't you think seriously about putting your kid somewhere else? CAS scores? Taken care of, thank you very much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yu ying is still a good school. So what is some kids are not getting full immersion.Why would someone want thier child to struggle with reading and math in thier native language? I think Yu Ying is taking a proactive approach to the situtation. Just a note they are talking about 1/5 of the 2nd and 3rd graders are below grade level. That is not alot of kids.

Are you suggesting that children who have different learning needs, or those who are "struggling" as you say, should not be entiltled to learning a second language? Why should some kids be priveleged by this and not others? And, this will effect students all the way through 8th grade. Essentially, Yu Ying will now track students.

Yes, its tracking. And, probably a way for them to boost test scores. They can "drill and kill" the lower performing kids while keeping the Chinese program for the better performing kids. And, seriously, if you had a low performing kid in Yu Ying (maybe learning disabled or something) and they got shunted out of immersion into a few hours a week of foreign language education, wouldn't you think seriously about putting your kid somewhere else? CAS scores? Taken care of, thank you very much.

So if you child wasn't performing on grade level what would do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, its tracking. And, probably a way for them to boost test scores. They can "drill and kill" the lower performing kids while keeping the Chinese program for the better performing kids. And, seriously, if you had a low performing kid in Yu Ying (maybe learning disabled or something) and they got shunted out of immersion into a few hours a week of foreign language education, wouldn't you think seriously about putting your kid somewhere else? CAS scores? Taken care of, thank you very much.

If this is actually what's happening/what will happen, won't Yu Ying eventually get in trouble with the Charter board? I know that a handful of DCPS schools (Walls, Banneker) have official permission to weed out undedrperforming students, but I thought that this was a huge no-no for charters.

[Anonymous]

Yu Ying doesn't want to weed out poor performers. Anyone who knows the founders, administrators, or principal would know they are passionate about serving kids, and serving ALL children. For kids who are not passing in English, they are betting that they need more English instruction and math instruction than the current model allows for.

[Anonymous]

This YY tracking thing is dismaying for those of us who believe in a bilingual model for all children. I'm a parent at another immersion school and LOTS of kids struggled at the 2nd grade level there, including mine (when they presumably would be shuttled off the immersion track at YY). As a comparison, our school helps all children individually to keep progressing in both languages. I realize that Spanish is easier than Chinese, most likely, but the YY charter doesn't say that only super-duper smart kids will learn chinese-- it says all kids will learn chinese.

If anyone would have been cut off it would have been my kid. But our school didn't-- they kept working and working and working until she got it. Now she's a top scorer in both languages. End of 2nd grade is too early to start tracking kids and this plan is just that-- tracking. Yuck, I don't like it. Let me see--- I bet when you peek your head into the Third Grade "Bluebird" Room (chinese-lite) you are going to see a majority of special ed kids and non-white kids. Just a guess.

I'm disappointed that YY is giving up on a segment of children already.

[Anonymous]

The curriculum is not going to be dumb down. It will just give children more time to work on reading and math in Engish.

[Anonymous]

PP, that IS dumbed down. YY opened as chinese immersion. Period. Anything but that is dumbed down.

[Anonymous]

unless it's an afterschool program, it's dumbing down the curriculum for kids who need extra help. Taking away the very reason the school exists (Chinese immersion) for those children is absolutely lowering the expectations and content for them.

[Anonymous]

It makes me laugh to hear people discussing Yu Ying and Bancroft in the same breath, and not because I think one is superior to the other. If you don't care what language your child speaks, you'd better re-examine your reasons why you want your child to have a bilingual educations.

As a very wise woman said recently, remember that this is not a party trick. Bilingual education takes real commitment, and you'll have to start figuring out your homework backup plans sooner or later - how will you help your kids with their homework if it's in a different language? This will be work for you as well as your child.

[Anonymous]

I have mixed feelings about this.

Yu Ying is a really challenging school. If my child was struggling to even master English, I would zero my focus on that. I would consider Chinese a distraction, and I wouldn't have my child in an immersion school. I would be doing absolutely everything I could (tutors, Kumon, Beestar, assessment for a learning disability), and that would include placing my child in an all-English school.

According to the statistics (pretty widely known, folks) kids who aren't fluent readers by 3rd or 4th grade are highly likely to be behind - for life.

I don't think the school can help the fact that a handful of parents enrolled their children in a school that is too challenging for them, and yet they won't leave despite their failure to progress. It sounds as if these students would be struggling in any school. I guess in an English-only school, when you have to re-organize the curriculum to accommodate difficult students, it just doesn't make headlines.

Know your children, people! Enroll them in the school that's right for THEM, not the one that's right for YOU.

[Anonymous]

I'm curious if anyone has actually checked with the school for a confirmation of this change of policy and, if so, what their explanation was?