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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]is Chinese "necessary and important" (Yu Ying/Creative Minds)? Is Montessori/Spanish Montessori "necessary and important" (SS/LAMB)? Is Afro-Centrism "necessary and important" (Roots)? Is hotel restaurant management "necessary and important" (Hospitality High)? "Green-centered" (Mundo Verde)? Girls only? (Excel Acad.). All charter schools have a special twist beyond providing the necessary and important basic building blocks of learning. Luckily, we have a charter school board who vets these schools - if you don't like a given school's mission, don't enroll, but stop turning every post on Sela (or Yu Ying, or Basis, the list goes on and on) into this hate-fest. Let people be happy or critical of a location without questioning the legitimacy of the school over and over. It's bitter, and boring, and unfair. [/quote]

Not everyone is hating.  I've got nothing against Sela and am impressed with what they have accomplished so far.

That said, given the racial, ethnic and economic dominant groups in DC public schools, there IS a difference between Sela and every single other example you just gave: every other one of those special foci are applicable and immediately useful to the majority students of DC.  Chinese is a business language of the present and future, spoken by millions of people.  Montessori has overall good results for student performance.  Afro-centrism or Spanish language schools, well African Americans and Latinos are the 2 biggest racial/ethnic groups in DC schools.  Green-centered, is the environmental and also a business wave of the present and future, can position students who might otherwise not be exposed to that field and get them engaged and exposed.  Girls only schools: many who believe (& back up with decades of findings) that academically girls do better in long run with time in girls-only schools.

So either because of the demographics of DC or the directions of business in present and future, every single example you give has applicability or real utility to DCs kids... EXCEPT Sela.  Aside from the general benefit of learning a 2nd language (and there is a benefit to that, I'm not saying there isn't), there is absolutely nothing about learning Hebrew specifically that is really relevant to a majority of DC kids in terms of usability, better educational outcomes, or proven benefits or world economics.

If you are alleging there is, please be specific about exactly what that benefit is that is beneficial beyond all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language.[/quote]

Montessori has overall good results for student performance. NOT UNIVERSALLY TRUE. Depends on school. 
Benefits of Afro-centrism. Depends on school - if you follow the Post, you'll see some very bad examples in our area. 
Spanish-language: Important - but is it necessary? 
Green-centered? Can you even define what that really means? Again, depends on school. MV is clearly making it work, but is it necessary? 
Girls only? Is it necessary? Again, depends on the school. A bad all girls school is a bad school. Period.

I guess what I am saying, is that your allegations are also very subjective - and many people dispute the utility of one or more of the above.

First of all "all the good stuff that comes from learning a 2nd language" is not insignificant.

Second, Israel is an important business, research & development center. Yes, many Israelis speak English, but knowing Hebrew could prove useful. When I was growing up, the emphasis was on Russian and Japanese, now the emphasis is on Spanish and Mandarin - we don't know what the future holds for our world. So making judgments about a given language in today's context is pretty futile. Third, if you examine the history of ethnic groups in this country and in D.C., you will note that Jews are a big part of the American/DC story. I'm sure that there are Jewish DC kids studying Spanish and Chinese in charter schools. Non-Jewish kids will study Hebrew at Sela. It's part of America and the District are about, or should be, different kinds of folks studying and learning with and from each other. I don't have personal connection to Hebrew, but I think it's a cool option for our kids to have, and it does seem that there is an irrational hyper-focus on Sela (Basis, Latin, YY, etc.). Let's just be happy they found a good site for their school.

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