Please link to research that shows the scenario you outline above is actually effective at achieving excellence for all. I know it looks pretty, feels nice and is taught at all the schools of education. Meanwhile, our scores as a country continue to drop in comparison with the rest of the world. Show me that this approach both narrows the achievement gap and raises the bar for everyone. To me, it is almost impossible to implement effectively beyond the early elementary years and wastes a ridiculous amount of time and frustrates students to no end. Especially when many of them lack the basic social skills to work in groups and lack the self regulation to work.independently. not to mention the more advanced kids who are bored to tears.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All learners have something strong to bring to the table. Honor all of their strengths. Vary the scaffolding to achieve both common and personal goals for all students.

I'm having a hard time understanding "vary the scaffolding." Can you give a concrete example of what this would look like?

Sure, the idea is that all students receive challenging work in a heterogeneous classroom. Challenging work means that tasks or activities for each student is optimally engaging so that all students are working slightly above their comfort zone. So, growth and progress are the goals. So, when you differentiate the instruction, it looks like choices of books where a wide range of reading materials are offered, varied prompts for writing in a journal, flexible groupings that change throughout the day, multiple levels of questions being asked on the same concept, you create literacy centers where the task/workload varies, using podcasts and other multimedia to "assist" when assistance is needed, or you vary the graphic organizers based on students' interest, readiness. You have can have audio/video recorders as a scaffold; you can highlight print materials, you can have note-taking organizers of varying degrees of difficulty, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it comes down to a choice of having to favor strong students or favor struggling students, I pick the strong students.

It shouldn't be the choice. That's the point. All learners have something strong to bring to the table. Honor all of their strengths. Vary the scaffolding to achieve both common and personal goals for all students.

I have no freakin' idea what this means. Are you suggesting the kids should become housepainters?

Anonymous wrote:Right, you are missing the point. It isn't about Chinese or Spanish or French. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the language learning. It has to do with the idea that you have separated out students who seem to be struggling and put them all together into one class. What kinds of experiences are these students receiving in the lower track? Socially, emotionally, academically, there are no peer models for high expectations.

They don't "seem" to be struggling. They ARE struggling, and they are doing so despite every intervention (small group learning, after school tutoring, booster groups, specialized teachers, etc.).

Children who can't speak Chinese in the United States are not doomed to jail. Children who can't read in English in 4th grade, are.

It's really that simple. In your quest to steal 2.5 days of English instructional time from them, you are suggesting dooming them to a life of difficulty. But, why should you care? They're not your children, after all. It'll just grease the chip on your shoulder.

Anonymous wrote:All learners have something strong to bring to the table. Honor all of their strengths. Vary the scaffolding to achieve both common and personal goals for all students.

I'm having a hard time understanding "vary the scaffolding." Can you give a concrete example of what this would look like?

Anonymous wrote:If it comes down to a choice of having to favor strong students or favor struggling students, I pick the strong students.

It shouldn't be the choice. That's the point. All learners have something strong to bring to the table. Honor all of their strengths. Vary the scaffolding to achieve both common and personal goals for all students.

If it comes down to a choice of having to favor strong students or favor struggling students, I pick the strong students.

If their parents gave a rats hiney, they would have sorted the situation out before it reached this point. It is not just the school's fault that these kids are below grade level. My dad was a high school drop out and he was going to be damned that his kids would follow in his path. He made sure that even when he or my mom could not help us that they found someone to do it. There was not money for this but this is where community engagement comes into play. My parents asked around at church and in the neighborhood to get a math tutor for my brother when he was struggling in the 3rd grade. They made sure that we were on target in school by actually engaging our teachers and supporting them rather than sending us to school with some pencils and wishing us luck.

Anonymous wrote:Right, you are missing the point. It isn't about Chinese or Spanish or French. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the language learning. It has to do with the idea that you have separated out students who seem to be struggling and put them all together into one class. What kinds of experiences are these students receiving in the lower track? Socially, emotionally, academically, there are no peer models for high expectations.

Oh, good grief. It's more important to keep them in the same class (and have them continue to struggle, and fall farther and farther behind) than it is to do everything possible to make sure them actually learn the material? That is just silly. And that's the nicest thing I can say about it.

And don't you think the kids know they're struggling in the immersion class? What's that doing to their self-esteem?

The ironic thing is that if YY had done just what you suggest - keep them all together - the kids would have continued to struggle, and continued to get farther and farther behind. That would do their futures far more damage in the long run - they'd lack the essential building blocks needed to further their education. (And I'd bet dollars to donuts that in that situation you'd be screaming about how YY failed these poor students.)

It would be great if we could just wave a magic wand and have all kids learn at the same (high) rate. But mine is broken - can we borrow yours?

Anonymous wrote:Right, you are missing the point. It isn't about Chinese or Spanish or French. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the language learning. It has to do with the idea that you have separated out students who seem to be struggling and put them all together into one class. What kinds of experiences are these students receiving in the lower track? Socially, emotionally, academically, there are no peer models for high expectations.

How many children are required to serve as peer models? What is the ratio of peer models to non-peer models?

Right, you are missing the point. It isn't about Chinese or Spanish or French. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the language learning. It has to do with the idea that you have separated out students who seem to be struggling and put them all together into one class. What kinds of experiences are these students receiving in the lower track? Socially, emotionally, academically, there are no peer models for high expectations.

It doesn't make sense to me because:
A) The children in the non immersion classroom are being taught the SAME content as the children in the immersion classroom. (For some things, they are all being taught together) The caveat for this is they are not being taught the Chinese aspect of it for the same amount of time. (characters, speaking, reading in Chinese-the still get a number of hours of instruction)
B) No, I don't believe that NOT learning as much Chinese is a "Structure that will create inequality". Chinese is fluff--not necessary to get by in the US.

If we were in China, stopping Chinese language instruction to a track of kids would create a structure of inequality. If Yu Ying decided to stop English instruction I would agree with you--this is not the case.

Are you really arguing that kids who can study Chinese (but aren't immersed for 2.5 days) are trapped?
I studied Spanish through high school and got taught it 3 times a week for 45 minutes--my life wasn't ruined because I wasn't immersed in for 2.5 days a week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boiled down for the case of Yu Ying: Because you now don't have a chance to spend as much time (but still substantial time) learning to read and write in Chinese, you are in a structure that will hold you back?

Yes. Putting all of the students who are struggling in one classroom is tracking and this is a structure that will create inequality. The gap between those doing the full immersion and those doing less than will grow with each passing moment. And, that gap that is created at the young age of 8 years old sets them on a downward trajectory. It is nearly impossible to catch up once you've been labeled and placed in the lower track. Why doesn't that makes sense to you, I just don't know.

The gap between those in full immersion vs those doing less will increase with respect to Chinese.
The gap between doing less Chinese and the rest of American kids their age will decrease with respect to reading.
Which is more important?

It isn't about which is more important in this case. It is the school that is an immersion school. So, some of the students are the haves and some of the students are now the have nots (e.g., not good enough to be in the Chinese class). Those perceptions will stay with them for life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boiled down for the case of Yu Ying: Because you now don't have a chance to spend as much time (but still substantial time) learning to read and write in Chinese, you are in a structure that will hold you back?

Yes. Putting all of the students who are struggling in one classroom is tracking and this is a structure that will create inequality. The gap between those doing the full immersion and those doing less than will grow with each passing moment. And, that gap that is created at the young age of 8 years old sets them on a downward trajectory. It is nearly impossible to catch up once you've been labeled and placed in the lower track. Why doesn't that makes sense to you, I just don't know.

Perhaps because you clearly don't know what you are talking about, and appear intent on demonstrating exactly that, over and over? The whole point of the separate class is to IMPROVE English/reading skills by eliminating a perceived impediment (Chinese immersion). So the Chinese language knowledge might suffer, but English/reading will improve. I hardly think that improving English skills, at the expense of Chinese, will set these students on a downward trajectory from which they'll never recover and doom them to a life of poverty, crime and underachieving. (And if it does, my kids are screwed, because they don't know a lick of Chinese. Bummer.)

Or put it another way: do you think kids in full-immersion classrooms at YY are suffering because they learn less English than those who are in non-immersion track? Racism! They will be doomed to a lifetime of poor spelling, poor reading and jail.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Boiled down for the case of Yu Ying: Because you now don't have a chance to spend as much time (but still substantial time) learning to read and write in Chinese, you are in a structure that will hold you back?

Yes. Putting all of the students who are struggling in one classroom is tracking and this is a structure that will create inequality. The gap between those doing the full immersion and those doing less than will grow with each passing moment. And, that gap that is created at the young age of 8 years old sets them on a downward trajectory. It is nearly impossible to catch up once you've been labeled and placed in the lower track. Why doesn't that makes sense to you, I just don't know.

Perhaps because you clearly don't know what you are talking about, and appear intent on demonstrating exactly that, over and over? The whole point of the separate class is to IMPROVE English/reading skills by eliminating a perceived impediment (Chinese immersion). So the Chinese language knowledge might suffer, but English/reading will improve. I hardly think that improving English skills, at the expense of Chinese, will set these students on a downward trajectory from which they'll never recover and doom them to a life of poverty, crime and underachieving. (And if it does, my kids are screwed, because they don't know a lick of Chinese. Bummer.)