Reply to Oyster middle school- english option?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Oyster middle school- english option?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Oyster-Adams needs to compare itself to other middle schools with strong in-bounds students (we only have Deal around here for that) rather than continuing in its self-affirming bubble. There's no question that by the time they're in 9th grade, O-A graduates are at least a year behind Deal's top students in math... and that's merely the easiest subject to compare. If they score well on standardized tests, it's simply because high SES kids bring strong personal qualities that have little to do with their schools. But it is a terrible shame to content yourself with lowered expectations overall (which was my teen's experience) when your children could push themselves farther in a more stimulating environment. [/quote]

I think having half of the classes in Spanish is academically very stimulating. Plus, they do Chinese, so I don't see a lowering of expectations here.  Bilingual education has also been shown to enhance mental capacity. In our case, we prefer DC to be much further ahead in terms of foreign language acquisition and understanding of other cultures compared to the expected outcome in this respect at Deal.

DC is very good in math and is active in class since the teacher assigns more challenging work to the better students. Then, what is the potential downside of remaining at OA? Not completing Geometry? If we think it is important to have geometry before HS, then DC can do it on the side. I think it is much simpler to complete one math course on the side than doing three years of language immersion on the side. As PP said, let's not throw the baby with the bathwater. Of course things can be improved at OA. Perhaps one option could be to offer Geometry as a special in 8th grade. Then, the advanced students could do it instead of Chinese and in addition to the 8th grade Algebra course.

[/quote]

+100![/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics