Who do I write to to advocate that Yu Ying join the common lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The assignments praising "President" Mao that the admins couldn't read could be construed as a wake-up call. The teacher's still on board, but now that she's been busted by a mom who actually reads characters, maybe she'll tone down her paens to Communism.

I see YY's embarrassing leadership situation, and dearth of bilingual students (although DC supports a small bilingual Chinese immigrant community) as a wake-up call. The city obviously isn't nearly as serious about improving school quality as it should be.

To my knowledge, in the burbs and other cities, school systems don't hire admins who can't read or speak immersion languages being taught. They scour North America to find them. That's how the Quebecois Maury principal came to this area - Fairfax recruited her from Canada to head up a new French immersion program, although she had no prior US school admin experience. It's no secret that she wouldn't head up Stokes because the one-way immersion set-up there doesn't do it for her. This country has to compete economically on a global stage.

You do not seem to understand the DC charter school system at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the YY poster who mentioned moving to MA. We'll be sad to leave YY, warts and all, including their dearth of Mandarin speaking administrators: That issue only seems to be an issue on DCUM from people who don't have kids at YY. I have never heard this complaint from anyone at YY although I have heard other complaints - but no school is perfect... and overall the families I know are pretty happy there which is shown by the low attrition.

Unlike some others here, I like the administration as is and welcome the new AP and SN Coordinator since it reflects the community we live in. Yu Ying is an immersion school in DC where the majority of kids are AA. It is not a Chinese immersion school for Chinese people, it really isn't.

It is mostly non-YY parents.

Non-YY parents who speak and write Chinese, and raise their kids to do so. True! What the heck do they know about learning Chinese anyway? The problems with running a Chinese immersion school without well-trained native speakers managing and teaching, and as many bilingual kids as you can scrounge, are so blatantly apparent that what I find mind-bogging is that they're discussed at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the YY poster who mentioned moving to MA. We'll be sad to leave YY, warts and all, including their dearth of Mandarin speaking administrators: That issue only seems to be an issue on DCUM from people who don't have kids at YY. I have never heard this complaint from anyone at YY although I have heard other complaints - but no school is perfect... and overall the families I know are pretty happy there which is shown by the low attrition.

Unlike some others here, I like the administration as is and welcome the new AP and SN Coordinator since it reflects the community we live in. Yu Ying is an immersion school in DC where the majority of kids are AA. It is not a Chinese immersion school for Chinese people, it really isn't.

It is mostly non-YY parents.

Non-YY parents who speak and write Chinese, and raise their kids to do so. True! What the heck do they know about learning Chinese anyway? The problems with running a Chinese immersion school without well-trained native speakers managing and teaching, and as many bilingual kids as you can scrounge, are so blatantly apparent that what I find mind-bogging is that they're discussed at all.

Nobody said you don't know anything about learning Chinese. But you clearly do not know a single thing about starting and operating a charter school in the District of Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You do not seem to understand the DC charter school system at all.

The problem is that I do understand it, all too well. I'm on the board of directors of a DC charter, resigning shortly because I'm not on board with their policy of celebrating Apartheid education (the franchise is happy supporting and creating schools that aren't diverse).

One-way immersion is too far from best practices for me to cheer about it, or claim that it's the best we can or should do in this city outside of Oyster. You cheer if that works for you, but I can't see how your kids will accrue the benefit. Why let MoCo and NoVa walk away with the local academic edge as far as the eye can see?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You do not seem to understand the DC charter school system at all.

The problem is that I do understand it, all too well. I'm on the board of directors of a DC charter, resigning shortly because I'm not on board with their policy of celebrating Apartheid education (the franchise is happy supporting and creating schools that aren't diverse).

One-way immersion is too far from best practices for me to cheer about it, or claim that it's the best we can or should do in this city outside of Oyster. You cheer if that works for you, but I can't see how your kids will accrue the benefit. Why let MoCo and NoVa walk away with the local academic edge as far as the eye can see?





No, you don't understand it. Oyster is able to provide two-way immersion because they hold separate lotteries for native Spanish speakers. DC charter schools cannot do that. Even if there was a robust Mandarin-speaking population in DC to draw from, a charter cannot provide preferential admission to those children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The assignments praising "President" Mao that the admins couldn't read could be construed as a wake-up call. The teacher's still on board, but now that she's been busted by a mom who actually reads characters, maybe she'll tone down her paens to Communism.

I see YY's embarrassing leadership situation, and dearth of bilingual students (although DC supports a small bilingual Chinese immigrant community) as a wake-up call. The city obviously isn't nearly as serious about improving school quality as it should be.

To my knowledge, in the burbs and other cities, school systems don't hire admins who can't read or speak immersion languages being taught. They scour North America to find them. That's how the Quebecois Maury principal came to this area - Fairfax recruited her from Canada to head up a new French immersion program, although she had no prior US school admin experience. It's no secret that she wouldn't head up Stokes because the one-way immersion set-up there doesn't do it for her. This country has to compete economically on a global stage.

Who are you? Stokes has plenty of of French speaking kids. However, after reading your many posts, they are most likely not the French speakers you would like. They are Black, mostly from Western and Central African countries.

[Anonymous]

Come off it, the conventional wisdom on the subject is that the charter law should be amended a third time, at least to let immersion schools screen kids to fill spots made available by dropouts. My charter board talks about this regularly. Not agreeing with you and not understanding are different concepts, or should be.

[Anonymous]

So, basically some families that don't go to YY want to change the school because they are unhappy with it, despite the fact that the families who actually are there are happy. As is the PCSB, and the hundreds and hundreds of families trying to get in.

Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The assignments praising "President" Mao that the admins couldn't read could be construed as a wake-up call. The teacher's still on board, but now that she's been busted by a mom who actually reads characters, maybe she'll tone down her paens to Communism.

I see YY's embarrassing leadership situation, and dearth of bilingual students (although DC supports a small bilingual Chinese immigrant community) as a wake-up call. The city obviously isn't nearly as serious about improving school quality as it should be.

To my knowledge, in the burbs and other cities, school systems don't hire admins who can't read or speak immersion languages being taught. They scour North America to find them. That's how the Quebecois Maury principal came to this area - Fairfax recruited her from Canada to head up a new French immersion program, although she had no prior US school admin experience. It's no secret that she wouldn't head up Stokes because the one-way immersion set-up there doesn't do it for her. This country has to compete economically on a global stage.

Who are you? Stokes has plenty of of French speaking kids. However, after reading your many posts, they are most likely not the French speakers you would like. They are Black, mostly from Western and Central African countries.

I've lived in Africa and speak some French. You, too? Stokes isn't 10% bilingual. Canada and Fairfax shoot for 50%. Ottawa even runs public immersion schools which will not enroll kids unless one parent can pass a tough French conversation test. Are you going to argue that American industry shouldn't pay attention to best practices either?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You do not seem to understand the DC charter school system at all.

The problem is that I do understand it, all too well. I'm on the board of directors of a DC charter, resigning shortly because I'm not on board with their policy of celebrating Apartheid education (the franchise is happy supporting and creating schools that aren't diverse).

One-way immersion is too far from best practices for me to cheer about it, or claim that it's the best we can or should do in this city outside of Oyster. You cheer if that works for you, but I can't see how your kids will accrue the benefit. Why let MoCo and NoVa walk away with the local academic edge as far as the eye can see?






Are those MoCo and NoVa schools you reference Charter Schools? If not, they are not relevant. Like NoVa and MoCo, DCPS allows dual lotteries for their immersion schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Come off it, the conventional wisdom on the subject is that the charter law should be amended a third time, at least to let immersion schools screen kids to fill spots made available by dropouts. My charter board talks about this regularly. Not agreeing with you and not understanding are different concepts, or should be.

Okay, now you are talking about amending DC law, which is out of the hands of even Chinese administrators. This is why we keep saying apples and oranges, because the suggestions you and others have (Fire your administration and recruit global Chinese education experts on a charter school budget! Change the demographics of DC students! Amend the charter school law!) are pure wishful thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, basically some families that don't go to YY want to change the school because they are unhappy with it, despite the fact that the families who actually are there are happy. As is the PCSB, and the hundreds and hundreds of families trying to get in.

Got it.

Hundreds of families who don't speak or read Chinese. Simply thrilling. Yes, families are happy - the bubble will not burst for some for years to come, if at all. But the fact remains that many of the kids who will compete against YY graduates in taking the International Baccalaurate Mandarin Diploma Higher Level (HL) Examination now attend two-way immersion programs. Doing things right from the get go, or at least striving to, shouldn't be the problem that it is. You guys seem too far out in left field on these issues to have a good discussion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, basically some families that don't go to YY want to change the school because they are unhappy with it, despite the fact that the families who actually are there are happy. As is the PCSB, and the hundreds and hundreds of families trying to get in.

Got it.

Hundreds of families who don't speak or read Chinese. Simply thrilling. Yes, families are happy - the bubble will not burst for some for years to come, if at all. But the fact remains that many of the kids who will compete against YY graduates in taking the International Baccalaurate Mandarin Diploma Higher Level (HL) Examination now attend two-way immersion programs. Doing things right from the get go, or at least striving to, shouldn't be the problem that it is. You guys seem too far out in left field on these issues to have a good discussion.

It's not that we're ignorant of the benefits of two-way immersion. You just seem to be ignorant about the reality of getting 50 percent native Mandarin speakers in the District of Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Yup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, basically some families that don't go to YY want to change the school because they are unhappy with it, despite the fact that the families who actually are there are happy. As is the PCSB, and the hundreds and hundreds of families trying to get in.

Got it.

Hundreds of families who don't speak or read Chinese. Simply thrilling. Yes, families are happy - the bubble will not burst for some for years to come, if at all. But the fact remains that many of the kids who will compete against YY graduates in taking the International Baccalaurate Mandarin Diploma Higher Level (HL) Examination now attend two-way immersion programs. Doing things right from the get go, or at least striving to, shouldn't be the problem that it is. You guys seem too far out in left field on these issues to have a good discussion.

You really, really do not get it. You are either willfully ignorant of DC charter rules (because they are discussed in every.single.YY thread) or you are truly ignorant. Either way, you want something you cannot have in DC or something that is not warranted in this school that has accomplished so much so far.