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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You raise a very good point. The bilingual DCPS schools offered are not in this area, where most native speakers live. Remember, the point of bilingual ed is not only to teach a language to English speakers, but to serve ELL kids better. Those parents are the least likely to advocate for themselves to DCPS. [/quote]

Many Latino families do not want a Spanish middle, high school, the students speak enough Spanish at home and in the community. The want their students to do well in English and go on to lead successful lives. In mixed-bilingual families, families from high SES they may prefer ...[/quote]

This is a truly unfortunate misunderstanding of the purpose of dual language education. Also to the PP above, no, it’s not just to teach English speakers a second language! Schools like Brightwood already have a huge percentage of ELL and they are essentially in English immersion. Problem there is they don’t become literate in Spanish (at a high level) and also may miss some instruction given in English (see lower test scores). Schools instead do remedial work and ESl etc and treat them basically like some type of IEP kids when they are positioned to be so much more in a dual language environment. [/quote]

Above is true.  If your ESL program is not strong and teachers are not experienced, they will get a suboptimal experience and it’s easy to say they need to be placed in remedial classes instead of getting the adequate and experienced resources they need.

As to the statement above that Latino families do not want Spanish immersion, I think it depends on SES.  Low SES families who are not literate in English tend not to want their kids in Spanish immersion.  That’s because they can’t support the English at home and are worried that only 1/2 the time is spent learning English.

But high SES native Spanish speaking families, they are already proficient in English, highly educated, and absolutely want Spanish immersion so their kids are fluent in not only speaking but also reading and writing in Spanish.  They can easily also support and help their child in English at home but most don’t need it.  The child is easily bilingual.  We see this in many kids in our language immersion charter.

The opposite is also true of native English speaking parents who really value and want language immersion.  If they can’t support at home, they will support outside of school if the child even needs it.
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Yes about SES.  This is why it’s very easy to get into DCPS dual language programs as native Spanish speaking.  They are not attracting the high SES native speaking families and the low SES families are not interested.[/quote]

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