Anonymous wrote:If you have an average or above average kid they will spend a lot of time on the iPad or own their own chilling. There is no incentive to push kids to excel; there IS PUNISHMENT if the struggling kids dont improve, so where do you think the teachers will focus?

Its just how public school is structured; there is no benefit for the schools or teachers for doing better than pass the SOLs in higher and higher percentages. Teachers would love to spend time with your high performing kid and teach them interesting things, but there just isn't the time or resources.

The most important thing is making sure your kid is a strong and enthusiastic reader, so when they have all that down time they can just pull out a book and its not a complete waste of time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Thank you… the premise of OPs and others post is just so wrong - I didn’t have words to adequately respond.

We used to group kids by ability so the whole class could be taught at similar levels. But that exposure the sociaeconomic trends in class distribution, so now we have remedial classes where mainstream kids are placed to just fill a seat and watch the teach focus on bridging gaps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Thank you… the premise of OPs and others post is just so wrong - I didn’t have words to adequately respond.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Thank you… the premise of OPs and others post is just so wrong - I didn’t have words to adequately respond.

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IME as a teacher 20-30% EL is the sweet spot—you have your core curriculum and then have groups for enrichment, remediation, or language support. Particularly at the lower grades and particularly for literacy, key instruction happens in small leveled groups. I see much more of an impact on the gen ed curriculum when you get to 70% EL or more.

I am an instructional assistant and I agree with this assessment, except of course 0% ESL would be even better lol

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

This seems overly optimistic to me. We were in a diverse school and ended up having a child with dyslexia. I think if you have a test taking wunderkind like above they will do well in nearly any school. My kid was just ignored. Granted this was MCPS but APS seems equally hair on fire bad at basics. Also question the friendships this poster says came about - our diverse hood either had mama trying to recreate Mumbai - only play with other boys from Mumbai, cram school or major language differences (parents couldn’t coordinate play dates in English): also as one child got older he found a good friend via soccer but kid lived in such a scary neighborhood- and had likely gang members as friends we said no go to meeting up. Sorry to be the truth teller here but we moved from said diverse hood and at least got English speaking parents who could arrange play dates.

Anonymous wrote:IME as a teacher 20-30% EL is the sweet spot—you have your core curriculum and then have groups for enrichment, remediation, or language support. Particularly at the lower grades and particularly for literacy, key instruction happens in small leveled groups. I see much more of an impact on the gen ed curriculum when you get to 70% EL or more.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I teach in a school which has about 60% EL population. What does this mean?
Amazing kids from all over the world, who are eager to learn, caring, interesting and funny people. Many of them are smart enough to speak 2, 3 or 4 languages.

My kids who aren't as gifted linguistically, those who can only speak English, are not put on computers so I can "catch everyone else up". Nor are they given a book to read while I "catch everyone else up". In fact, the students who are only able to speak one language are often just in much of "catching up" as my bilingual and multilingual kids, if not more. Yes, even the white, middle income kids need remediation.

I think we need to stop saying our bilingual and multilingual kids need remediation and insist that every single student become proficient in at least two languages in order to graduate 8th grade. And then let's test the kids whose first language is English and see how they perform on assessments after a year or two in Urdu or Spanish or Polish. My guess is everyone else would have to sit around waiting while the "I only speak English" crowd has to catch up.

But, to the OP's question, it means that your child will have friends from different places, who speak different languages and what a rich school environment that will be! I put my own child in a heavily Spanish speaking school. She's now fully bilingual and headed to college on a full ride scholarship in her field of choice. We Americans need to stop understanding "smart" as a 1600 SAT and a top ten university and need to start understanding smart as learning more than one language.

This seems overly optimistic to me. We were in a diverse school and ended up having a child with dyslexia. I think if you have a test taking wunderkind like above they will do well in nearly any school. My kid was just ignored. Granted this was MCPS but APS seems equally hair on fire bad at basics. Also question the friendships this poster says came about - our diverse hood either had mama trying to recreate Mumbai - only play with other boys from Mumbai, cram school or major language differences (parents couldn’t coordinate play dates in English): also as one child got older he found a good friend via soccer but kid lived in such a scary neighborhood- and had likely gang members as friends we said no go to meeting up. Sorry to be the truth teller here but we moved from said diverse hood and at least got English speaking parents who could arrange play dates.