Reply to Who do I write to to advocate that Yu Ying join the common lottery?

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Reply to "Who do I write to to advocate that Yu Ying join the common lottery?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You're full of it.  The Amherst MA school knocks itself out to attract and retain local native speakers.  A college friend, a Cantonese-speaker, is an administrator there.  She troops around to places where Chinese families gather in Western Mass trying to drum up interest.  The school freely allows bilingual kids to replace drop-outs, just like the MoCo schools and others we've visited in San Fran and NYC.

The bottom line is that YY is popular, and works for the families it attracts (those not raising their kids bilingual).  They're not shooting for the stars where the cultural and language component goes.  It's good enough for DC in 2014, no matter who does or doesn't write in.

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No.  Everyone has to enter through the lottery and they cannot give preferences to kids who already know Chinese.  I asked them b/c we are moving there and my kid knows Chinese and will be entering in upper elementary.

It's in Hadley, BTW, not Amherst.[/quote]

Thank you PP for actually stating facts instead of trying to wind everyone up through false/incorrect information.  I will never understand why some people who clearly have been engaged in this conversation for some time still refuse to acknowledge that this is a rule outside of YY's ability to change.  [b]And some of us (maybe not you PP or anyone else in this thread, but many out there) actually believe that equal access to the few spots for all DC residents is actually more important than giving preference to native speakers,[/b] so some of us would still fight for the current arrangement even if it was on the table to change it.

But for now, it's not a rule YY created or has the power to change.  All the repetitive frustration towards YY for not changing it is a waste of everyone's energy.  [/quote]

You are welcome.  The school in MA explained that their original charter only allowed them to take new students up to 1st grade w/o preference for language but the MA legislature changed the law for charters so that they now have to fill all spots from attrition including the upper grades without preference for language.  The MA legislature seems to agree with you that since charter schools are supported by tax payers everyone should have equal access without regard to race, color, sex....  and language proficiency.

[/quote]

I'm the PP you're replying to.  I do see how hard it must be to join a bilingual school in the later grades with no language proficiency at all, and I can only imagine how hard (almost impossible??) it must be to have classes in the 2nd language like Math, Science etc targeted to those who have been speaking the language since at least K or 1st grade, and then have someone enter in 7th grade with no proficiency.

To my mind, YY and other schools who cut off new students at 1st or 2nd grades (or LAMB who cuts off at K) have the right idea, and DCI comes in to address attrition AND to provide another opportunity for those with no proficiency in a 2nd language to start from scratch but *together* in a cohort of new students.  That seems easier to plan for staff-wise and curricula-wise than having a few new students entering at every single grade and figuring out how to teach them at grade-appropriate and language-appropriate levels.  But I wholly support the lottery remaining random at whatever entry grades a school chooses.

Do you know how that is going in MA?[/quote]

The school has very low attrition and they don't advertise that anyone without prior knowledge of Chinese can apply to any grade through the lottery (and honestly, who in their right mind would?). The school is an IB candidate like YY and goes through high school.  The entry yrs are K, 6, and 9 and they have it set up so kids can start in those grades without any prior knowledge of Mandarin.

The public schools are generally better and the private schools are less expensive than here so the people that apply really want Mandarin and are not trying to escape their public schools.  Test score -wise, it has the highest scores in the area for reading and math.  They use Singapore math.

You have to be a resident of MA to apply to their lottery by state law so you cannot apply from out-of-state unlike here.  So far, every Public Chinese immersion school I've found is like this so YY is the exception.[/quote]

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