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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pp, you're ridiculous. Do you really think the kids coming from dcps have a foundation in any language? My kid was a product of Brent's weekly mandarin classes. She learned next to nothing in those years.  The quality of instruction was lacking, to say the least.  We're very happy that Basis requires Latin for two years, and they do a great job of it..[/quote]

Don't get why BASIS requires Latin.  What would be wrong with making Latin optional, while teaching Spanish, Chinese, maybe French to families who would prefer kids to learn those languages from 5th grade, particularly those who come in with serious background for whatever reasons?  Sure, kids aren't coming in from DCPS with strong language foundations en masse, now. But if a kid starts weekly Spanish in PreK3 (as at Brent this year) and continues through 5th grade, they're likely to learn a certain amount of Spanish, particularly if families supplement.

Latin should not be optional because, as the Latin teacher explained, knowing the roots, suffixes and prefixes allows you to guess the meaning of a lot of words - on the SAT for example.  At Washington Latin the Latin teacher was very clear about using it as a way to sneak in English grammar that is not taught anymore.  BASIS teaches English grammar, which is also useful for foreign languages (if you work with your kids, be prepared to learn predicates and indirect objects all over again).

There has been for a while a class for kids who come from native or almost native french speaking families I think (we had two kids in MS place #4 and #6 in the nation in some competition last year) but honestly if you have really learned a language, not studying it for two years will not do untold damage.  What I hope for eventually (but we would have to get our Latino population up there) is a Spanish class for native speakers who can already speak the language but don't know how to read and write it and what is slang and what is not......

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