Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to continue Chinese I would look at some of the other elementary that offer it once or twice a week, Brent, Eaton and Thompson (there may be others). Both Brent and Eaton are sought after schools. Of the two, I would probably go with Eaton becauses it feeds into Deal which offers Chinese. At Brent you would have to find a middle school and apply to get in (most kids end up at Latin or Basis, both offer Chinese).

Another option would be to lottery into Yu Ying at 2nd grade. Yu Ying differentiates instruction and there are some combination classes so it might not be the worst option if you are committed to Chinese and want to live in the city long term (DCI is the destination school, IB for middle/high).

Still another option, maybe in combination with one of the above, would be to send your daughter to Hope Chinese on the weekends. There is one in Beltsville on Saturdays and one in Falls Church on Sundays. The classes are fairly inexpensive and I hear pretty good.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for the suggestions. Learning Mandarin only two days a weeks is not sufficient, but I am grateful for the names of weekend programs. Searching the DC International page lead me to the website for Stokes. Stokes will accept third grade students via lottery, so we will apply there since my son also has a low to moderate level of proficiency in French.

I had not considered applying to 2nd grade, that could be an option, but I don't know if my child would be bored in the 2nd grade, and if the differentiated instruction would keep him challenged the entire year. My child is not gifted, but earns A across the board.

OP, if your child attended Stokes,they could eventually go to DCI and pick up the Mandarin again there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the opposition to selective admission for charters. What difference does it make if it's a charter?

Banneker, Oyster and several other DCPS schools have been noted here for their selective admissions. They are public schools. If it's fine for DCPS then what is the argument against the same for charters?

It makes zero sense.

Also, on that "access" argument - not every kid succeeds at tryouts for the football team. Where's the equal access there?

Or another analogy to throw into the mix - DCPS provides special bussing and covers expenses for out-of-state schooling for special needs students. But is the same available for any kid? No. Is it appropriate for every kid? No.

Face it, not all kids are the same. They don't all have the same capabilities, the same level of preparation, the same level of skills, et cetera. Not every kid is fantastic at math. Not ever kid is fantastic at football. Not every kid is a fantastic writer. Not every kid is fantastic at music.

So why act like they are and constrain everyone to an equal-access but one-size-fits-none model? That's what you seem to want to do here.

This is the most bizarre post! Who ever said all kids are the same? That is not the basis of anyone's argument here. But if funds were specifically allocated to DC to fund charter schools to provide other quality options for students with the worst options, why is ok with you that the funds effectively be siphoned off to fund schools that have cut off access? Your analogies are totally flawed. It isn't about whether everyone is cut out to play football. An accurate analogy to the charter system is if a school received federal funds for their girls' sports programs, and instead used the funds to start more teams for boys.

Why are you ok with money going to a school or a school system for a specific, understood by all parties purpose, and then the school/system choosing to do something different with those funds that undermines the contracted purpose?

Your logic circuits clearly aren't working here. Let's try again and go through your arguments...

To turn your argument against selective admissions around, why are you OK with Banneker "siphoning off public funds" when they cut off access due to selective admissions? Because that's what they do. So do some other DCPS schools If you are OK with Banneker then you should be OK with any other school doing it, to include charters.

And, they aren't "siphoning off money" - they are educating kids with that money. What difference does it make if the kids are in Building A with Teacher B or if they are in Building X with Teacher Y - they are all getting taught. It's not as though money is being evaporated off into the ether.

And where do you get this bizarre complaint about schools doing something different than what they agreed to? Nobody here said anything about that. The agreed-upon purpose of Ellington is a school for the arts. The agreed upon purpose of Phelps is construction and architecture. The agreed-upon purpose of St. Colettas is to serve special needs. The agreed-upon purpose of Yu Ying is Chinese immersion. And, that's what they all do. The agreed-upon purpose of one school can be different from the agreed upon purpose of another school, and that's fine. That's why they have charters and oversight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You obviously forgot the 3rd DC: the one full of people who think that the only way to be "dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan" is to have policies, plans and structures that serve your middle and upper classes and push lower classes out. Because that is pretty much what you're saying about the fact that the public charter school board does not allow charters to test in at any grade because it doesn't want to cut out access to families who can't afford a private Mandarin tutor, or Spanish summer camp, or private Montessori schools until they can nab a spot at a public one.

So your answer is to cut out access to everyone at the expense of additional resources to the school, which affects all grade levels, including the lower grades that are serving the underprivileged children?

Anonymous wrote:

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

But you can defend that to the end and still admit that there's some point where it makes no sense to put someone with no mandarin experience in a classroom otherwise full of mandarin speakers, and actually disserves that person by setting them up to fail. You can defend randomness in early-grade admission while admitting that the spot could be filled by someone who does speak Mandarin, whether because they just moved here from another state or country, or because they speak Mandarin at home, or because they have tutors (though this last seems the least likely possibility), and that the school is better poised for success for all grade levels if its enrollment is not artificially limited.

To defend a policy on principle when applied to situations where it does not serve any of the values behind the policy is asinine.

??? I'm not defending on principle, I'm defending based on how YY actually works now. What do you mean "admit that it makes no sense to put someone with no Mandarin experience in a class full of Mandarin speakers"? YY cuts off new admissions at 2nd grade, is moving towards doing it at 1st grade (or maybe now they already do?) and has support structures in place for catching new-to-Mandarin students up - exactly to make sure that students do not start so far behind they can't catch up. The whole reason YY fought to cut off new admissions earlier twas to avoid the scenario where new students are so far behind, it is a set up to fail. You are calling something "artificially limited", when it's far from "artificial" - YY is a school set up to educate urband students in Mandarin and English. Why is a 1st or 2nd grade cut off, and supports for the new-to-Mandarin 1st or 2nd grader, "artificial" in your eyes?? It's the whole premise of the school! Under YY's current admissions policy, or DCI's where the assumption is that new students will come in with no foreign language proficiency, where would it happen that as a regular occurrence students would enter into a classroom of "Mandarin speakers" and be so far behind they can't catch up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to continue Chinese I would look at some of the other elementary that offer it once or twice a week, Brent, Eaton and Thompson (there may be others). Both Brent and Eaton are sought after schools. Of the two, I would probably go with Eaton becauses it feeds into Deal which offers Chinese. At Brent you would have to find a middle school and apply to get in (most kids end up at Latin or Basis, both offer Chinese).

Another option would be to lottery into Yu Ying at 2nd grade. Yu Ying differentiates instruction and there are some combination classes so it might not be the worst option if you are committed to Chinese and want to live in the city long term (DCI is the destination school, IB for middle/high).

Still another option, maybe in combination with one of the above, would be to send your daughter to Hope Chinese on the weekends. There is one in Beltsville on Saturdays and one in Falls Church on Sundays. The classes are fairly inexpensive and I hear pretty good.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for the suggestions. Learning Mandarin only two days a weeks is not sufficient, but I am grateful for the names of weekend programs. Searching the DC International page lead me to the website for Stokes. Stokes will accept third grade students via lottery, so we will apply there since my son also has a low to moderate level of proficiency in French.

I had not considered applying to 2nd grade, that could be an option, but I don't know if my child would be bored in the 2nd grade, and if the differentiated instruction would keep him challenged the entire year. My child is not gifted, but earns A across the board.

Apply for the 2nd grade lottery at YY. They assess Mandarin and Chinese regularly so if your child tests above grade level, they can put your child into the appropriate learning group.

I will do just that!!!!!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YY uses a responsive classroom model. No desks but tables of ~5 kids per learning group.

What grade does this responsive classroom model begin in? Or is it from PreK through 6th grade?

All grades, PreK - 5th. I don't know about DCI.

Anonymous wrote:YY uses a responsive classroom model. No desks but tables of ~5 kids per learning group.

What grade does this responsive classroom model begin in? Or is it from PreK through 6th grade?

Anonymous wrote:

You obviously forgot the 3rd DC: the one full of people who think that the only way to be "dynamic, innovative, progressive and cosmopolitan" is to have policies, plans and structures that serve your middle and upper classes and push lower classes out. Because that is pretty much what you're saying about the fact that the public charter school board does not allow charters to test in at any grade because it doesn't want to cut out access to families who can't afford a private Mandarin tutor, or Spanish summer camp, or private Montessori schools until they can nab a spot at a public one.

So your answer is to cut out access to everyone at the expense of additional resources to the school, which affects all grade levels, including the lower grades that are serving the underprivileged children?

Anonymous wrote:

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

But you can defend that to the end and still admit that there's some point where it makes no sense to put someone with no mandarin experience in a classroom otherwise full of mandarin speakers, and actually disserves that person by setting them up to fail. You can defend randomness in early-grade admission while admitting that the spot could be filled by someone who does speak Mandarin, whether because they just moved here from another state or country, or because they speak Mandarin at home, or because they have tutors (though this last seems the least likely possibility), and that the school is better poised for success for all grade levels if its enrollment is not artificially limited.

To defend a policy on principle when applied to situations where it does not serve any of the values behind the policy is asinine.

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand the opposition to selective admission for charters. What difference does it make if it's a charter?

Banneker, Oyster and several other DCPS schools have been noted here for their selective admissions. They are public schools. If it's fine for DCPS then what is the argument against the same for charters?

It makes zero sense.

Also, on that "access" argument - not every kid succeeds at tryouts for the football team. Where's the equal access there?

Or another analogy to throw into the mix - DCPS provides special bussing and covers expenses for out-of-state schooling for special needs students. But is the same available for any kid? No. Is it appropriate for every kid? No.

Face it, not all kids are the same. They don't all have the same capabilities, the same level of preparation, the same level of skills, et cetera. Not every kid is fantastic at math. Not ever kid is fantastic at football. Not every kid is a fantastic writer. Not every kid is fantastic at music.

So why act like they are and constrain everyone to an equal-access but one-size-fits-none model? That's what you seem to want to do here.

This is the most bizarre post! Who ever said all kids are the same? That is not the basis of anyone's argument here. But if funds were specifically allocated to DC to fund charter schools to provide other quality options for students with the worst options, why is ok with you that the funds effectively be siphoned off to fund schools that have cut off access? Your analogies are totally flawed. It isn't about whether everyone is cut out to play football. An accurate analogy to the charter system is if a school received federal funds for their girls' sports programs, and instead used the funds to start more teams for boys.

Why are you ok with money going to a school or a school system for a specific, understood by all parties purpose, and then the school/system choosing to do something different with those funds that undermines the contracted purpose?

YY uses a responsive classroom model. No desks but tables of ~5 kids per learning group.

*should say mandarin and english*. Oy. Their differentiation is very good

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to continue Chinese I would look at some of the other elementary that offer it once or twice a week, Brent, Eaton and Thompson (there may be others). Both Brent and Eaton are sought after schools. Of the two, I would probably go with Eaton becauses it feeds into Deal which offers Chinese. At Brent you would have to find a middle school and apply to get in (most kids end up at Latin or Basis, both offer Chinese).

Another option would be to lottery into Yu Ying at 2nd grade. Yu Ying differentiates instruction and there are some combination classes so it might not be the worst option if you are committed to Chinese and want to live in the city long term (DCI is the destination school, IB for middle/high).

Still another option, maybe in combination with one of the above, would be to send your daughter to Hope Chinese on the weekends. There is one in Beltsville on Saturdays and one in Falls Church on Sundays. The classes are fairly inexpensive and I hear pretty good.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for the suggestions. Learning Mandarin only two days a weeks is not sufficient, but I am grateful for the names of weekend programs. Searching the DC International page lead me to the website for Stokes. Stokes will accept third grade students via lottery, so we will apply there since my son also has a low to moderate level of proficiency in French.

I had not considered applying to 2nd grade, that could be an option, but I don't know if my child would be bored in the 2nd grade, and if the differentiated instruction would keep him challenged the entire year. My child is not gifted, but earns A across the board.

Apply for the 2nd grade lottery at YY. They assess Mandarin and Chinese regularly so if your child tests above grade level, they can put your child into the appropriate learning group.

Anonymous wrote:If you want to continue Chinese I would look at some of the other elementary that offer it once or twice a week, Brent, Eaton and Thompson (there may be others). Both Brent and Eaton are sought after schools. Of the two, I would probably go with Eaton becauses it feeds into Deal which offers Chinese. At Brent you would have to find a middle school and apply to get in (most kids end up at Latin or Basis, both offer Chinese).

Another option would be to lottery into Yu Ying at 2nd grade. Yu Ying differentiates instruction and there are some combination classes so it might not be the worst option if you are committed to Chinese and want to live in the city long term (DCI is the destination school, IB for middle/high).

Still another option, maybe in combination with one of the above, would be to send your daughter to Hope Chinese on the weekends. There is one in Beltsville on Saturdays and one in Falls Church on Sundays. The classes are fairly inexpensive and I hear pretty good.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for the suggestions. Learning Mandarin only two days a weeks is not sufficient, but I am grateful for the names of weekend programs. Searching the DC International page lead me to the website for Stokes. Stokes will accept third grade students via lottery, so we will apply there since my son also has a low to moderate level of proficiency in French.

I had not considered applying to 2nd grade, that could be an option, but I don't know if my child would be bored in the 2nd grade, and if the differentiated instruction would keep him challenged the entire year. My child is not gifted, but earns A across the board.

I think that there is a 4/5 and a 5/6 class. Not sure if there are combination classes in the lower grades but that might be something to check into.

Anonymous wrote:If you want to continue Chinese I would look at some of the other elementary that offer it once or twice a week, Brent, Eaton and Thompson (there may be others). Both Brent and Eaton are sought after schools. Of the two, I would probably go with Eaton becauses it feeds into Deal which offers Chinese. At Brent you would have to find a middle school and apply to get in (most kids end up at Latin or Basis, both offer Chinese).

Another option would be to lottery into Yu Ying at 2nd grade. Yu Ying differentiates instruction and there are some combination classes so it might not be the worst option if you are committed to Chinese and want to live in the city long term (DCI is the destination school, IB for middle/high).

Still another option, maybe in combination with one of the above, would be to send your daughter to Hope Chinese on the weekends. There is one in Beltsville on Saturdays and one in Falls Church on Sundays. The classes are fairly inexpensive and I hear pretty good.

Hope this helps.

What does that mean, "YY differentiates instruction and there are some combination classes"? Especially the "combination classes", what does that mean or refer to?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote=

Deal with it entitled people: the very people preventing a test in option are the "stagnant, old-school, retrograde" people who were part of creating the charter schools that you so desperately want entry to now. Trying to keep the door even faintly open for lower SES families and families who don't have geographic advantages of being IB for great DCPS schools is NOT stagnant, and while I do hope there will some day be a way to figure out increasing applications and interest from families who already speak Mandarin or French or whatever, so that the pool of applicants includes more native speakers, I defend to the end the randomness of admission and the fact that kids who herwise wouldn't have a shot in a million years at speaking Mandarin and all the doors that may open to that child, that that child has a shot - a loooooong shot (like everyone else's long shot), but a shot nonetheless, at going to a school like Yu Ying.

WTF? How is DC going out of their way to serve high SES families or high achieving v kids? Those are always after though. DCPSjses high SES families to raises hundreds of thousands of dollars that inevitably be used for shit to help the third graders who can't read. Ou don't like it? fuck you. THe ONLY reason the scores are going up is due to high SES families.

Reading comprehension is not your sQtrength. Neither is writing. But that's cool. When you have the ability to get mad at something I actually said, please do write again. Cheers!

Hold on - the "retrograde, stagnant, old school" IMHO is NOT the charter school community - you are confused on that point - it continues to be the same DCPS political culture that resisted charters in the first place - and which now resists innovation and change, things like magnets, test-in or G&T because they are deathly afraid that it will end up with white kids, these are the same people who rail against gentrifiers, the same folks who cling to the old school "Chocolate City" image from the 1970s even as that image continues to melt. It's the age old story of "we fear change".

You really are a shit stirrer spewing your prejudices. I bet you are a relative newcomer in the city as well and think you know all about the comings and goings of the politics. If your position is that the DC citizens of old are holding onto change in the schools, who exactly do you think pushed for the charter movement and private school vouchers. Who do you think fled DCPS and into the new innovative charters that popped up everywhere except ward 3 in the city. Who do you think keep these charters, good and bad, afloat. And who do you think started the originally test-in DC schools, such as SWW and Banneker. You are a carpetbagger who thinks she is better and smarter than the people who have endured and been around fighting for change.

Thank you to the poster who coined this statement, but bitch, bye and take your ass back to Kansas.

Wow. And now, the anti-white racism rears its head. "Kansas?" Really?