Reply to What do you think about a Japanese Immersion Public Charter in Ward 7?

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Reply to "What do you think about a Japanese Immersion Public Charter in Ward 7?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a fluent Arabic speaker, and I can tell you that my relatively worse Spanish, German and even, god forbid, my 100 or so words of French have been of FAR more use to me than the Arabic I spent years drilling into my head.  I'm a bit mystified by folks who are so enthusiastic about an Arabic charter.   The only people who wanted to talk to me about a job when I graduated were the CIA, and that's not a career path I'd be thrilled with for my kid.[/quote]

But we are in DC and many many industries doing work around the world would hire an Arabic speaker with another skill in a heartbeat over someone just with the skill and no language or nothing really useful. [/quote]

I get that you think this is true.  What I'm telling you is that I've been in the position of a graduate with skills and language, and this was explicitly NOT my experience.  Hiring companies cared about the skills, but not the language.  There seemed to be a pervasive idea (outside of the military and probably some NGOs) that Americans who are not of Arab descent can't really learn the language to a useful level.  This was definitely the case in industry.  Even the FBI thought that my Spanish would be more useful than Arabic,  even though I had one year of college Spanish and about two years of full-time intensive, graduate level immersion Arabic, plus having lived and worked in an Arabic speaking country speaking almost exclusively Arabic for two years.  I ended up getting hired to work in Europe using German and Spanish (both of which were far weaker than my Arabic).

If you've had a different experience, I'd love to hear about it.[/quote]

Not the PP but I know 2 Arabic speakers (one native, one not) who have DMV non-governmental jobs they primarily got for speaking Arabic.  On is in IT and one is in hotels/hospitality, but on the business side.  Only one reads DCUM sometimes but I will encourage her to tell her own story if she's up for it.  From what they each tell me, speaking Arabic has indeed been an asset for them.[/quote]

Folks, we are talking about tax payer dollars here. One person you know that got a job speaking Arabic (did they go to an immersion school to learn this?) and opening a Japanese immersion language school in wards 7/8. I don't care what you do with your dime, but when you're talking about mine. I say "Hell No"!!!![/quote]

You're free to say "Hell No" to whatever you want to.  Hopefully though you're not actually on the PCSB.  When they say Hell No, it should be based on actual data on how specific languages increase college admission and job acquisition.  Not based on some personal "I speak Arabic and it didn't help me get a job" or "I just think it's a bad idea".  Those of us who deal with colleges or employment data have a different opinion.  As long as PCSB is using both local and national data to inform what they support (including both educational models and languages), everyone on DCUM (including me) can howl "Hell yes!" or "Hell no!" as much as they want.[/quote]

I'm the "I speak Arabic" PP, not the "Hell no" one.  I find your post ironic, considering that I at least have one data point, which is exactly one more than all of the previous posters who have blithely said "it will increase your chances of getting hired" without providing ANY data.  Since you are one of the wise "us" who "deal[s] with colleges or employment data", it should be no problem to provide an annotated list of links proving the utility of immersion Arabic primary and secondary school programs in the US and demonstrating their utility over, say Spanish or Mandarin.  I eagerly await your list.

[/quote]

Right, because your[b] one singular experience r[/b] on an anonymous message board even equals a data point??  If your tons wasn't so snark I'd take a moment to look around and post links.  But no, not gonna do it just because you said "prove if".  DCUM is full of highly - educated parents and people will propose the schools they think are useful, open the ones that are approved, and then the market will do the rest re whether that school succeeds or not.

But do let me know if you ever get appointed to PCSB, because then "proving it" may actually have a worthwhile impact.  I can make the effort to give up data for that.[/quote]

Um, that's kind of the definition of a data point.[/quote]

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