Reply to Ward 6 and Miner ES: Grassroots Movement for Dual Language (Mandarin) Program

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Reply to "Ward 6 and Miner ES: Grassroots Movement for Dual Language (Mandarin) Program"

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[quote=warrenox][quote=Anonymous][quote=warrenox][quote=Anonymous]Minor is a bridge too far for us, way too far.  How many high SES/white kids in K this past year - 2?  How many in 1st-5th, zero?  What percentage of the catchment area is high SES/white now - 60%?  Simply put, the arrangement is criminal.  DCPS could easily give the gentrifiers a fighting chance of using the school, or Payne.  Mandarin immersion won't do the job, folks.  Nice try.

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Could you please quote statistics instead of guessing?  I'm interested in debating and working out solutions, but we have to have a honest dialogue.

Did you see my post above where 30 parents of children inbound to Miner met about how to help Miner change into the neighborhood school we would all like to see?  What brought this about?  Conversations about immersion for Miner.  There isn't a program there yet, but just talking about a immersion program has spurred some people into becoming engaged.

What will do the job for you?

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One can't come by official public school grade-by-grade demographic stats in this city because neither DCPS nor DCPC collects them.  But you can always talk to parents with children in the school, and visit to peer into classroom windows.  On my last visit to Miner, at a spring open house, I saw 2 white kids in one K class, and none in the other, or in any elementary class I got a look at.  Does anybody have a different, more accurate head count to offer up?

DC could house a test-in GT ES program at Miner to help the school serve its catchment area, but won't so much as consider doing so.

If a Miner Mandarin program offered a Chinese dominant lottery, with speakers of dialects other than Mandarin (Cantonese, Hakka, Fujian) etc. eligible to enter it, at least the program would offer something Yu Ying doesn't, a path to dual/two-way immersion.  Even with two lotteries, I'm not optimistic that parents would rush in, particularly Chinese speakers.  As I said, a bridge too far for the great majority of gentrifiers living in the Miner District.  I'd wager this will be the case for a decade or more.  Good luck.

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I don't know what bridge you are looking at that you can't see the other side, but I do know that Mandarin is spoken by 1/5th of the World's population, and is increasingly important in business as we see China becoming a even larger market that will someday take over the United States as the largest market in the World.

I've been involved with a large group of parent's that are eager to have a neighborhood school.  So I'd take your wager; Miner will change in less than 3 years.

Thanks for the well wishes; I'll get you to buy in when you see changes taking shape.

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