Charter School board is approving new schools!

[Anonymous]

dci has a huge proportion of native spanish speakers, many native french speakers, and of course, very few native chinese speakers.

[Anonymous]

I hope that Catania wins, and that he appoints a tough, smart chancellor who pushes through half a dozen major policy changes:

*Caps charter enrollment at 50%
*Sets up "exam" MS programs (starting in Ward 7; when I attended the DC City Council hearing on boundaries/feeders last year, I was impressed with the parents proposing a ward test-in option)
*Forces DCPS to free up many new buildings to Tier 1 charters with cramped and/or crappy facilities
*Works with the Council to amend DC Charter Law to create "magnet charters," e.g. schools teaching world languages running lotteries for target language speakers (at least to replace drop-outs)
*Set ups ES and MS GT programs, including open, city-wide screening for giftedness for ages 7-14

Yea, I'm dreamin. But then so are Catania and his rising army of parent supporters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope that Catania wins, and that he appoints a tough, smart chancellor who pushes through half a dozen major policy changes:

*Caps charter enrollment at 50%
*Sets up "exam" MS programs (starting in Ward 7; when I attended the DC City Council hearing on boundaries/feeders last year, I was impressed with the parents proposing a ward test-in option)
*Forces DCPS to free up many new buildings to Tier 1 charters with cramped and/or crappy facilities
*Works with the Council to amend DC Charter Law to create "magnet charters," e.g. schools teaching world languages running lotteries for target language speakers (at least to replace drop-outs)
*Set ups ES and MS GT programs, including open, city-wide screening for giftedness for ages 7-14

Yea, I'm dreamin. But then so are Catania and his rising army of parent supporters.

These all sound like doable options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:dci has a huge proportion of native spanish speakers, many native french speakers, and of course, very few native chinese speakers.

Where are you finding the many native French speakers? There's a small Haitian immigrant community in NE, and a few diplomats and European and Canadian immigrants floating around, but not nearly as many as in Frfx.

The DC native Chinese speakers who stick around for DC public (most move to MoCo when their kids are ready for K) are easily found at Rockville and Silver Spring "heritage language school" classes on weekends. There are more than you might think.

[Anonymous]

There are more native Chinese speakers then French.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the charter/dcps hybrid was tried twice. both times dcps walked away from the idea. i know the dci folks were very frustrated with dcps not being willing/able to make it happen.

I would love to know more about this hybrid idea and what was tried. It sounds like a terrible idea from the charter end of things, because as long as a facility is available, what is the benefit of a charter partnering with DCPS??

And the idea of DCI partnering with DCPS is the worst ever, given that DCI is already a collaboration of 5 elementary schools trying to figure out how to combine cultures, students, missions and language instruction into a cohesive middle and high school. What would DCPS add to that other than problems with school culture (not because DCPS has all bad school culture, but it would be like a 6th culture to add in depending on the school)?

Where/when/how were DCPS/charter hybrids tried in the past? And what was on the table for DCI and DCPS to do together that DCPS walked away from?

I can think of an excellent reason for creating strong DCPS-charter hybrids emphasizing foreign language instruction. Alternatively, beefed up DCPS programs would do the job. In a nutshell, charters don't allow students to test in. In other cities, even Rockville, bilingual and bilterate kids can test into K-8 immersion language schools, at least to replace drop-outs and to enter special lotteries for native speakers. You also have test-in magnet middle schools for advanced students, like the humanities program at Eastern MS in Silver Spring. This program teaches several languages (non-immersion) to 6th-8th graders at an accelerated pace, admitting no more than 20% of applicants county-wide.

What you have in DC public are charter language immersion schools with few native speakers, or advanced students either. The native speaker deficit isn't just seen at Yu Ying, the most egregious case, you find it at Tyler SI, Stokes and others. Oyster's middle school has many native speakers, but few advanced students. Because DC charter law doesn't allow students to test in, DCI is going to exclude potential students who speak, read and write Spanish, French and Chinese as well or better than some of their students.

This makes little sense when bilingual and biliterate students, and "gifted" students, would be an asset to any middle or high school teaching foreign languages, "new blood" as it were. I hate it when political goals (avoiding cherry picking students) trump common sense and educational goals.

I'm not excited about DCI, because I can't see it being all that great with few native speakers. I'm not excitied about "Global," because I can't see it being all that wonderful without the high standards that come from admitting a critical mass of strong students. When is DC going to reach for the stars where foreign language instruction goes? Even Deal doesn't offer advanced classes outside of math.

Hi PP, the only part of what you just said that makes sense to me is that DCPS should be beefing up its own language instruction offerings. Everything else you say, there are costs and benefits to both models (charters: random lottery admissions, no test-in options, full control over every aspect of how your school functions, including hiring/firing and promotions; vs. regular DCPS: neighborhood preference, can test in, very very hard to implement curriculum and staff changes and to have financial and budget control over school climate and resources). The main reasons charters came into existence in DC is to offer alternatives to the majority of DC schools that weren't successfully educating students. I'm still not understanding (again, beyond facilities issues), why charters would want to do a hybrid. And please be clear, while you are clearly in the camp that testing in for language proficiency is the main missing link, not all language school administrators prioritize that over everything else about access. No one questions the importance of and benefits of native speaking students, but there are many other issues that have to be weighed against that one piece.

In terms of your last question "When is DC going to reach for the stars where foreign language instruction goes?", seems to me DC has to figure out basically educating the vast majority of their students first, before focusing on "reaching for the stars" and programs that are just focused on the G&T. Not that you can't look at that as well, but there are much bigger problems needing to be solved than focusing on the needs of the "critical mass of strong students". They are very important, but so are the rest of the students, who are being significantly more neglected than the "strong students" system-wide.

[Anonymous]

Your thinking strikes this former Pell Grant recipient, married to a NYC magnet school graduate from a low-income family, as old fashioned.

As long as the best DC public schools don't even aspire to offer suburban-quality programs to upper middle-income families with friends and colleagues enrolling their chilren in some of the best schools in VA and MD, "peer pressure" will continue to drive many to vote with their feet for the burbs. Who wins? Neighborhoods will continue to suffer, and the tax base won't grow robustly as it could, which in term won't help the poor in the District.

Embracing best practices, such as providing a path for a critical mass of native speakers to enter each DC language immersion program, won't hurt poor kids. Keeping the strongest students out of the best programs is no way to grow your system. There are far better ways to improve schools serving poor kids than to support language immersion programs with nary a native speaker involved (incuding in administration). And there are better approaches to helping low SES children than throwing all students into the same middle school classes, regardless of ability, motivation or level of preparation, as at Deal and BASIS (other than for math), Latin, and almost every other public midle school in town.

Don't believe me? Visit one of the two Rockville Chinese immersion programs and talk to upper grades FARMs kids in Chinese, or have a Mandarin-speaking friend or colleague accompany you. Do the same at YY. Repeat using Spanish at any DC Spanish immersion program and one in Fairfax. Enough said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your thinking strikes this former Pell Grant recipient, married to a NYC magnet school graduate from a low-income family, as old fashioned.

As long as the best DC public schools don't even aspire to offer suburban-quality programs to upper middle-income families with friends and colleagues enrolling their chilren in some of the best schools in VA and MD, "peer pressure" will continue to drive many to vote with their feet for the burbs. Who wins? Neighborhoods will continue to suffer, and the tax base won't grow robustly as it could, which in term won't help the poor in the District.

Embracing best practices, such as providing a path for a critical mass of native speakers to enter each DC language immersion program, won't hurt poor kids. Keeping the strongest students out of the best programs is no way to grow your system. There are far better ways to improve schools serving poor kids than to support language immersion programs with nary a native speaker involved (incuding in administration). And there are better approaches to helping low SES children than throwing all students into the same middle school classes, regardless of ability, motivation or level of preparation, as at Deal and BASIS (other than for math), Latin, and almost every other public midle school in town.

Don't believe me? Visit one of the two Rockville Chinese immersion programs and talk to upper grades FARMs kids in Chinese, or have a Mandarin-speaking friend or colleague accompany you. Do the same at YY. Repeat using Spanish at any DC Spanish immersion program and one in Fairfax. Enough said.

Are you new here? The lack of test-in programs is federal charter law. Not set by parents, schools, or even DC.

And DC parents are resounding not voting with their feet. Public school enrollment is up, way up, as is the tax base. I agree that DCPS is lagging behind in offering high-quality programming, especially in middle grades, but the work being done by some charters is remarkable. Whether or not DCI is a success remains to be seen, but their goal of graduating students with IB diplomas and fluent in three languages certainly qualifies as shooting for the stars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your thinking strikes this former Pell Grant recipient, married to a NYC magnet school graduate from a low-income family, as old fashioned.

As long as the best DC public schools don't even aspire to offer suburban-quality programs to upper middle-income families with friends and colleagues enrolling their chilren in some of the best schools in VA and MD, "peer pressure" will continue to drive many to vote with their feet for the burbs. Who wins? Neighborhoods will continue to suffer, and the tax base won't grow robustly as it could, which in term won't help the poor in the District.

Embracing best practices, such as providing a path for a critical mass of native speakers to enter each DC language immersion program, won't hurt poor kids. Keeping the strongest students out of the best programs is no way to grow your system. There are far better ways to improve schools serving poor kids than to support language immersion programs with nary a native speaker involved (incuding in administration). And there are better approaches to helping low SES children than throwing all students into the same middle school classes, regardless of ability, motivation or level of preparation, as at Deal and BASIS (other than for math), Latin, and almost every other public midle school in town.

Don't believe me? Visit one of the two Rockville Chinese immersion programs and talk to upper grades FARMs kids in Chinese, or have a Mandarin-speaking friend or colleague accompany you. Do the same at YY. Repeat using Spanish at any DC Spanish immersion program and one in Fairfax. Enough said.

Are you new here? The lack of test-in programs is federal charter law. Not set by parents, schools, or even DC.

And DC parents are resounding not voting with their feet. Public school enrollment is up, way up, as is the tax base. I agree that DCPS is lagging behind in offering high-quality programming, especially in middle grades, but the work being done by some charters is remarkable. Whether or not DCI is a success remains to be seen, but their goal of graduating students with IB diplomas and fluent in three languages certainly qualifies as shooting for the stars.

I'm the other PP that the above PP was calling old-fashioned. I think s/he is saying that DCPS should shoot for the stars, not that DCI isn't, although everything else you say I agree with.

That said, to the PP calling me old-fashioned, it's all about setting priorities. I don't disagree that most of what you say above is useful and important. You and I just disagree about what's most important and how you get there. I totally agree with PP that attracting and keeping middle and upper income families is really not the problem right now for DCPS. Not saying that those families are guaranteed to stay for the next 10-15 years, but the enrollment stats and demographics speak for themselves: middle and upper income families are moving in and spreading out across DCPS. Keeping them through middle and high is another issue, but that is an issue for ALL DC residents (good quality middle and high schools). I think most of what you say are worthwhile programs to explore, I just think they are far from the most important ones if DCPS and DC leadership have limited attention spans and budgets, which of course they do.

And I'm totally missing your point on talking to the upper grade FARMS students at Rockville and Fairfax schools and then comparing them to YY or the many Spanish bilingual charters. What is the point you're making? That there are any FARMS kids in those programs? Or something about their language proficiency? If it's about proficiency, please be more specific with the challenges you see at YY and the DC Spanish charters. Because from what I have heard from most native speakers, YY kids do very well with language and tones, and LAMB and Stokes (the only 2 schools I know a lot about older grades) do well with Spanish. Please be specific about what comparison you're making and what you see on each side.

[Anonymous]

agreed! and i'm sure the hyper-critical previous poster has not done real research (valid, reliable) to back up his/her spurious claims about suburban immersion superiority. case in point: many of the md schools have approached Yu ying about training on their in-house developed assessments. so put that in your pipe and smoke it!