Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really, those are European languages. Chinese, Arabic, etc. are languages that are highly desired by employers and likely to be in the future. Not sure European languages and those in particular will be needed. Plus, English is more wide spread in Europe than any of those 13:55 mentioned.

Nah. We will never, EVER compete with the Chinese when it comes to language education. They are turning out so many future professionals whose language skills on their worst day will be 10x better than the best American Chinese-speaker's. I think it's pretty useless for kids in the States to study Chinese as an attempt to get a professional leg up. Of course, learning any language as a child is good for neural development, so by all means, go nuts. Just don't say that it will help the kids in their careers. That's silly.

Spoken by someone who obviously has not done ANY research into what advantages Chinese proficiency specifically have been documented to bring job applicants and college applicants in the last 5 years and the upward trend of that advantage. That's all I'm saying about that until my kid gets into YY (fingers crossed!), but once we're in a Mandarin language school, I'll give you all the cites you ask for on that...

Run! The Zionists are coming! The Zionists are coming!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, this confirms the connection between Sela and the Hebrew Charter School Center: http://www.hebrewcharters.org/documents/HCSC-Press-Release-april-2012.pdf

And? Why is it when this same group opened a school in Harlem with a minority of Jewish students, and a healthy number of Muslim students - none of this nutty Zionist threat rhetoric came up? What is about DCUM that brings out the ugly in people. Gross.

There is nothing ugly about it - just don't see why Israel should get special treatment.

What special treatment are the Zionists nagging for this time?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have we discussed the fact that sela is commected to the pro-Israel lobby? I am not really worked up by Israel/Palestine but I am kind of shocked that dc would have approved a politically oriented charter.

This is the first I've heard of such a connection. What's your source?

Just google around a bit. My understanding is that Sela is sponsored and got seed money by something called the Hebrew Charter School Center. The chair of the Center has been quoted as saying that students will be "a vanguard for understanding Israel." The curriculum is supposed to create an "affinity for Israel" and "foster a love of Israel." Israeli flags are in the classroom. Arguably none of this would be totally objectionable, except for the fact that at other similar Hebrew charters the Arab minority is ignored in the curriculum. Another Hebrew charter was actually started by an AIPAC member.

Now Sela says that it will not be similarly pro-Israel but it is supported by the same group that supports the other schools.

http://m.forward.com/articles/155713/hebrew-charter-schools-focus-on-israel/?p=all

I think you need to do some more research than "the google." 1) Sela is grassroots school in DC - it's not run/sponsored by the Hebrew Charter School Center; 2) there is no support for the statement that the Arab minority is ignored in Sela's curriculum; 3) there is no evidence that the Arab minority is ignored in schools that are part of the Hebrew Charter School Center - as someone in a mixed Muslim-Jewish family with family in a Brooklyn Hebrew charter I can tell you that the schools in New York have large numbers of Muslim students; 3) the fact that a school not affiliated with Sela (or, with the Hebrew Charter School Center) was founded by a former member of congress who is a member of AIPAC - tells you nothing about Sela; 4) I hope for the sake of your daughter you are not an anti-Semite, but Israel is an actual country and there is noting wrong with learning about it as a country where Hebrew is spoken.

But you skirted the main question: Is Sela or is Sela not in any way affiliated with the Hebrew Charter School Center, and if there is any connection, what is it? Is it financial in any way? What other connection?

Re: how the history of Isreal and Palestine is covered, I will be very interested to hear (if it's posted here at all, because my kid won't be there to learn it in person) how it is covered and how the politics of the situation and the different views are represented (if all the views are represented at all). I would hope all sides would be at least represented, and learned, but it will just remain to be seen how it is handled. I agree though, not covering the seemingly intractable situation and having Isreali as well as Palestinian voices in the dialogue would seem to run so couter to the inclusive and progressive threads throughout the charter school movement.

Anonymous wrote:People should read the whole article. It's more than just that quote about being the vanguard of Israel - though that one is bad enough.

I read it. I don't see a problem with it. Israeli culture is as valid as any other. Hebrew is as valid a language as any other. I don't have any connection to either, and I am not leaving Stokes for Sela. But you people really need to do some soul-searching...it's really got ugly up in here. Put away your fangs - the school hasn't even opened yet and they hired a former priest to run - so I doubt it's going to be a hotbed of Jewish education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, this confirms the connection between Sela and the Hebrew Charter School Center: http://www.hebrewcharters.org/documents/HCSC-Press-Release-april-2012.pdf

And? Why is it when this same group opened a school in Harlem with a minority of Jewish students, and a healthy number of Muslim students - none of this nutty Zionist threat rhetoric came up? What is about DCUM that brings out the ugly in people. Gross.

There is nothing ugly about it - just don't see why Israel should get special treatment.

Anonymous wrote:Ok, this confirms the connection between Sela and the Hebrew Charter School Center: http://www.hebrewcharters.org/documents/HCSC-Press-Release-april-2012.pdf

And? Why is it when this same group opened a school in Harlem with a minority of Jewish students, and a healthy number of Muslim students - none of this nutty Zionist threat rhetoric came up? What is about DCUM that brings out the ugly in people. Gross.

People should read the whole article. It's more than just that quote about being the vanguard of Israel - though that one is bad enough.

Here is the actual quote:

I often dream of what the graduates of our Hebrew-language charter schools will look like 20 years from now,” wrote Sara Berman, the chair of the Hebrew Charter School Center in the Spring 2011 issue of Contact, the journal of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life. “I see them as a vanguard of understanding for Israel and for cultural respect in general.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/155713/hebrew-charter-schools-focus-on-israel/?p=all#ixzz2LTqtdTgq

Vanguard = "people leading a new way of people who introduce and develop new ways of thinking" about cultural understanding for Israel and other cultures.

HOW DARE THEY, REALLY? CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING? INSANITY.

And as the troll neglected to mention, in the same article:


"At the new Washington, D.C., charter, however, the school’s founders said that Israel will not be a special point of interest for the school. “Is it a Zionist enterprise? The answer is no,” said Jessica Lieberman, who helped establish the school. Israel will be taught “just as you learn about any other country in elementary school.”

In the school’s application to the board of charter schools, Sela’s founders instead described the advantages of bilingual education and of studying Hebrew as a gateway to doing business with Israel, a thriving global economy."

THE NERVE OF THESE EFFING ZIONISTS!

Ok, this confirms the connection between Sela and the Hebrew Charter School Center: http://www.hebrewcharters.org/documents/HCSC-Press-Release-april-2012.pdf

Anonymous wrote:1. You have presented no evidence of "explicit nationalist connections to Israel" in Sela, founded in part by local human rights activists who are active in the Israeli peace movement;

2. You have presented no evidence at all of "explicit nationalist connections to Israel" on the part of an organization that may have given seed money to Sela called the Hebrew Charter School Center other than they seek to promote Hebrew and understanding secular Israeli culture. There are flags of El Salvador and Cuba in my daughter's classroom at her Spanish bilingual school.

What you are doing is tarring by association in your addled, stereotype ridden mind - and it stinks.

3. If you don't think Hebrew is a legitimate language to study, don't send your kid there.

Ok then - explain all that business about the Hebrew charter schools being the "vanguard of Israel"? What did that quote mean? If LAMB said it was the "vanguard of Cuba" ... Well imagine!

We need to save the children of Benning from the Zionist threat. This is serious people.

The Forward is a left of center Jewish weekly paper with a long history. It is known to be anti-Zionist but that linked article has a lot of quotes that were either said or not said about the schools' connection to Israeli nationalism. Would be good if a more mainstream paper looked into it.

1. You have presented no evidence of "explicit nationalist connections to Israel" in Sela, founded in part by local human rights activists who are active in the Israeli peace movement;

2. You have presented no evidence at all of "explicit nationalist connections to Israel" on the part of an organization that may have given seed money to Sela called the Hebrew Charter School Center other than they seek to promote Hebrew and understanding secular Israeli culture. There are flags of El Salvador and Cuba in my daughter's classroom at her Spanish bilingual school.

What you are doing is tarring by association in your addled, stereotype ridden mind - and it stinks.

3. If you don't think Hebrew is a legitimate language to study, don't send your kid there.

Anonymous wrote:Not really, those are European languages. Chinese, Arabic, etc. are languages that are highly desired by employers and likely to be in the future. Not sure European languages and those in particular will be needed. Plus, English is more wide spread in Europe than any of those 13:55 mentioned.

Nah. We will never, EVER compete with the Chinese when it comes to language education. They are turning out so many future professionals whose language skills on their worst day will be 10x better than the best American Chinese-speaker's. I think it's pretty useless for kids in the States to study Chinese as an attempt to get a professional leg up. Of course, learning any language as a child is good for neural development, so by all means, go nuts. Just don't say that it will help the kids in their careers. That's silly.