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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Foreign language instruction is woefully behind in the U.S. A whole network of bilingual schools would be a great idea, especially in an internationally-oriented city like ours. 
Why not Hebrew or any other language? Hebrew texts are one of the foundations of Western civilization and modern Israel is a country where non-Jewish Africans and Eastern Europeans immigrate, too. 
And why not study religious texts (Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Arabic, Slavonic, etc.) in a secular context? 
Why shouldn't D.C. be a place to train future experts in the histories and cultures of the world's peoples?[/quote]

Um, religious texts are not written in Modern Hebrew and there are not enough Modern Hebrew speakers in the world to warrant a bilingual immersion publicly funded charter school in DC. [/quote]
But Modern Hebrew is a resurrected version of Talmudic Hebrew, and is therefore a not-too remote descendant language of Biblical Hebrew.  It took no training for me to learn to read Middle English, and only a bit more work to learn Old English.  I'm imagining that Hebrew would work the same way.

Beyond that, does DC charter law actually require that charter schools focus on studies with actual practical applications?  Isn't there a dramatic arts focused charter, and a visual arts focused school (SAIL, which folded due to scandal rather than a problem with its charter)?  I could be wrong, but my understanding is that if a school uses Hebrew, Amharic or Serbo-Croation but its students score adequately on the CAS and are otherwise prepared for further education, there's no problem.  [/quote]

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