Anonymous wrote:Wow, so many salty people, or should I say maybe just 2. Heck it might be the same person over and over.
I guess when people feel like their ‘parenting skills’ are attacked this is what happens.

Thank you to the people who actually answered the question, I have a better idea now. Perhaps I should have put this in the relationship thread or something, this was advice kind of having to do with that.. Maybe a Mod will move it because this is becoming less about why parents go nuts over DL and how Spanish is so special and important in this world and how dare I not 100% agree that it’s the best.


Yes all languages are beautiful and important but you don’t see me telling people to go learn Japanese, it’s just not practical. Unless you want to learn it, and most 3-4 y/o don’t.

Because if you want to do a dual-language program, you need lots of teachers who speak the target language fluently. It is easier to find native Spanish speakers who are qualified to teach than it is to find native Japanese speakers or native French speakers, because there are far more native Spanish speakers in this country.

Anonymous wrote:OP is 21. Years old.

Exactly, probably best to think of her like your child rather than admonish her.

These posts about languages needed in healthcare are pretty useless. yes, we know many languages are spoken ESPECIALLY IN SILVER SPRING.

Anonymous wrote:OP is 21. Years old.

And has an associates degree, this explains a lot.

I am someone who learned Spanish via immersion and am hoping to do the same for my kids if we get a good lottery pull. I am not looking at this from an employment perspective. I naively thought that my Spanish fluency would help me get a job or earn more but in reality I use it close to never in my white collar career (management consulting and then healthcare administration). I’m sad that I don’t use it more but there are just very few white collar jobs where you’ll have the opportunity to use it. I did interview for a few global roles where I’d be traveling to South America but ultimately didn’t get them because these companies were looking for native speakers (which are plentiful, by the way). That being said, learning Spanish absolutely improved my English language skills, particularly my writing, which has been invaluable. I’m seeking language immersion for my kids because I personally believe it will help them overall in language arts and provide them a more well rounded education.

OP is 21. Years old.

Anonymous wrote:

I’m in healthcare and you are twisting what you do to be the norm. It’s not. Whatever you do interacting with these less common languages is not what the majority of us healthcare workers do. The most common non-English speaking group is Spanish.

In fact, if you take a poll of English only speaking healthcare workers, what language they wish they knew, an overwhelming majority if not 100% would say Spanish.

PP here. So where do you live? California? Florida? Arizona? Texas? I work in Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Md. in a large hospital. What I encounter _IS_ the norm where I live. A plurality of the entirely-non-English speaking patients do speak Spanish, true. But Spanish-only is not so far ahead of Language #2 and Language #3 and #4 that I'm going to devote much energy into conversational Spanish.

Amharic, I forgot that one. My patients today spoke Amharic, Cantonese or Vietnamese. No Central Americans today, no need for Spanish.

I used to work in Rockville and Silver Spring in an urgent care. Rockville we would need a spanish translator maybe once a day. Silver Spring numerous times everyday to say the least. In fact, the ancillary staff who worked there, most spoke Spanish (company was looking for staff who was fluent in Spanish) because too much time was lost with phone translation. Spanish everyday, all the time.

I’m sure you already know that Silver Spring has a very high concentration of Spanish speaking people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The point was will I get paid a lot more for knowing Spanish? No, even if I were to change my profession.
Some people really take things so personally. I’m seriously only wondering why DC parents literally go crazy for dual language!

I don't even know why I'm bothering jumping in on this bc OP seems to just be bored and kind of trying to stoke the fire at a time of heightened anxiety for parents with kids entering the lottery, but FWIW there are lots of jobs where being bilingual English/Spanish pays more and opens up opportunities. I'm in healthcare. It's a premium. As if making more money is the only value added of learning another language that a large portion of your population speaks...but you can't really argue that it isn't valuable in business in the US. Not everybody is going into trade opportunities with China, OP

+1000. I am also in healthcare and huge advantage and more opportunities. But most importantly, it would make my job easier and things don’t get lost in translation thru a phone interpreter. I have been in healthcare for over 15 years. I can count on 1 hand how many times I needed an Mandarin interpreter. I have lost track of the hundreds and hundreds of times I needed a Spanish interpreter.

Knowing what I know now, wished I had taken Spanish instead of French from middle school thru high school.

I would think in any service oriented field in this country with direct interaction with people - medicine/healthcare, law, marketing, business, etc..- knowing Spanish would be a very helpful skill to have.

Huh. I wonder where you two PPs live? I used to think like you do, that as a healthcare provider in Montgomery County, I had a responsibility to learn Spanish so I could communicate with patients. Because, hey, 4 zillion people in the US speak Spanish, right? It would be a no-brainer to take Spanish For Healthcare, at a minimum.

But a funny thing happened as the years went by. Every single week, I have to communicate with patients/families who speak neither Spanish nor English. Greek, Cantonese, Korean, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, Creole/pidgin/patois/French are the most common. Occasionally I'll get a Russian-only speaker.

I have no desire to learn 8 languages in order to do my job seamlessly. Translator phone it is!

I’m the first pp. I’m in DC. Yes, we are a multilingual city and I have to use the language line for Amharic, Russian, French, Swahili etc from time to time but Spanish is all day every day, baby! And speaking the language makes an ongoing relationship with a healthcare provider much smoother than using some phone line...

I’m in healthcare and you are twisting what you do to be the norm. It’s not. Whatever you do interacting with these less common languages is not what the majority of us healthcare workers do. The most common non-English speaking group is Spanish.

In fact, if you take a poll of English only speaking healthcare workers, what language they wish they knew, an overwhelming majority if not 100% would say Spanish.

PP here. So where do you live? California? Florida? Arizona? Texas? I work in Silver Spring, Montgomery County, Md. in a large hospital. What I encounter _IS_ the norm where I live. A plurality of the entirely-non-English speaking patients do speak Spanish, true. But Spanish-only is not so far ahead of Language #2 and Language #3 and #4 that I'm going to devote much energy into conversational Spanish.

Amharic, I forgot that one. My patients today spoke Amharic, Cantonese or Vietnamese. No Central Americans today, no need for Spanish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The point was will I get paid a lot more for knowing Spanish? No, even if I were to change my profession.
Some people really take things so personally. I’m seriously only wondering why DC parents literally go crazy for dual language!

I don't even know why I'm bothering jumping in on this bc OP seems to just be bored and kind of trying to stoke the fire at a time of heightened anxiety for parents with kids entering the lottery, but FWIW there are lots of jobs where being bilingual English/Spanish pays more and opens up opportunities. I'm in healthcare. It's a premium. As if making more money is the only value added of learning another language that a large portion of your population speaks...but you can't really argue that it isn't valuable in business in the US. Not everybody is going into trade opportunities with China, OP

+1000. I am also in healthcare and huge advantage and more opportunities. But most importantly, it would make my job easier and things don’t get lost in translation thru a phone interpreter. I have been in healthcare for over 15 years. I can count on 1 hand how many times I needed an Mandarin interpreter. I have lost track of the hundreds and hundreds of times I needed a Spanish interpreter.

Knowing what I know now, wished I had taken Spanish instead of French from middle school thru high school.

I would think in any service oriented field in this country with direct interaction with people - medicine/healthcare, law, marketing, business, etc..- knowing Spanish would be a very helpful skill to have.

Huh. I wonder where you two PPs live? I used to think like you do, that as a healthcare provider in Montgomery County, I had a responsibility to learn Spanish so I could communicate with patients. Because, hey, 4 zillion people in the US speak Spanish, right? It would be a no-brainer to take Spanish For Healthcare, at a minimum.

But a funny thing happened as the years went by. Every single week, I have to communicate with patients/families who speak neither Spanish nor English. Greek, Cantonese, Korean, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, Creole/pidgin/patois/French are the most common. Occasionally I'll get a Russian-only speaker.

I have no desire to learn 8 languages in order to do my job seamlessly. Translator phone it is!

I’m in healthcare and you are twisting what you do to be the norm. It’s not. Whatever you do interacting with these less common languages is not what the majority of us healthcare workers do. The most common non-English speaking group is Spanish.

In fact, if you take a poll of English only speaking healthcare workers, what language they wish they knew, an overwhelming majority if not 100% would say Spanish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The point was will I get paid a lot more for knowing Spanish? No, even if I were to change my profession.
Some people really take things so personally. I’m seriously only wondering why DC parents literally go crazy for dual language!

I don't even know why I'm bothering jumping in on this bc OP seems to just be bored and kind of trying to stoke the fire at a time of heightened anxiety for parents with kids entering the lottery, but FWIW there are lots of jobs where being bilingual English/Spanish pays more and opens up opportunities. I'm in healthcare. It's a premium. As if making more money is the only value added of learning another language that a large portion of your population speaks...but you can't really argue that it isn't valuable in business in the US. Not everybody is going into trade opportunities with China, OP

+1000. I am also in healthcare and huge advantage and more opportunities. But most importantly, it would make my job easier and things don’t get lost in translation thru a phone interpreter. I have been in healthcare for over 15 years. I can count on 1 hand how many times I needed an Mandarin interpreter. I have lost track of the hundreds and hundreds of times I needed a Spanish interpreter.

Knowing what I know now, wished I had taken Spanish instead of French from middle school thru high school.

I would think in any service oriented field in this country with direct interaction with people - medicine/healthcare, law, marketing, business, etc..- knowing Spanish would be a very helpful skill to have.

Huh. I wonder where you two PPs live? I used to think like you do, that as a healthcare provider in Montgomery County, I had a responsibility to learn Spanish so I could communicate with patients. Because, hey, 4 zillion people in the US speak Spanish, right? It would be a no-brainer to take Spanish For Healthcare, at a minimum.

But a funny thing happened as the years went by. Every single week, I have to communicate with patients/families who speak neither Spanish nor English. Greek, Cantonese, Korean, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, Creole/pidgin/patois/French are the most common. Occasionally I'll get a Russian-only speaker.

I have no desire to learn 8 languages in order to do my job seamlessly. Translator phone it is!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The point was will I get paid a lot more for knowing Spanish? No, even if I were to change my profession.
Some people really take things so personally. I’m seriously only wondering why DC parents literally go crazy for dual language!

I don't even know why I'm bothering jumping in on this bc OP seems to just be bored and kind of trying to stoke the fire at a time of heightened anxiety for parents with kids entering the lottery, but FWIW there are lots of jobs where being bilingual English/Spanish pays more and opens up opportunities. I'm in healthcare. It's a premium. As if making more money is the only value added of learning another language that a large portion of your population speaks...but you can't really argue that it isn't valuable in business in the US. Not everybody is going into trade opportunities with China, OP

Sorry, that’s insensitive of me. It’s just honestly I didn’t experience that growing up. Like anxiety came for uni, I had only 2 I was dead set on going to and if I didn’t get those that was it. But elementary school? Seems excessive.
And yea you do get paid more in certain jobs for speaking Spanish. Teaching isn’t one of them lol but then again that’s not the best pay overall.

I don’t want to be the kind of parent who stresses about preschool. I just want my child to be happy, healthy, and learn. I feel if you are involved with your child at home they’ll go above and beyond. I tell all my parents that they are their child’s first teacher and I absolutely stand by that.

OP should realize that learning languages is best young not when you are 14 years old or older. It’s much easier to be fluent and sound native speaking when you start anywhere between 3-5 years old and continue with it thru your education than when you are 14 and in middle school.

Speaking from one who started in middle school here....

Anonymous wrote:I think this OP doesn't realize how privileged she is to know 3 languages, 2 of them fluently. This is sad. A person growing up bilingual in this country should be constantly made aware of the benefits she is receiving, be they soft skills as mentioned by some, potential for higher earnings, ability to travel more easily, or potential cognitive benefits.

The benefits are so huge, I am sad her parents didn't really let her know what they are or she didn't hear them. This is a good message for us parents of kids in dual language. It may not be obvious to our kids why we are doing this to them. I hope that my values are instilled in my children, which includes intercultural communication (and basic empathy for all people which grows through such experiences). THAT is why my children are in dual language, and thanks for the reminder to make sure they know that as they grow up.

My parents didn’t tell me the benefits, it was a requirement. It’s obvious in my family if both parents know a foreign language and one of them is a native resident/speaker the child should know how to speak the language. They didn’t do anything special (their perspective), it was part of life, no extra studying except for reading and writing.

I think Americans really have a low bar for their kids, thinking it’s actually high. Knowing 3 languages is nice but fostering my creativity and independence is the best privilege they could have given me IMO. Can’t lie though summers in Japan being able to speak and play with local kids was indeed a privilege. I guess for me I can’t see why you’d want your kids to study a random language unless you can have them actually culturally connect and not just in a school. It’s not the same as going to Columbia, Spain, Mexico, etc.

Thanks for your perspective, it seems you don’t have the mentality of the DL parents I saw at the school I was at for 3 years. Most of them were entitled and yes I’m going to say it, White non-Hispanic parents. There’s was even a school meeting bringing this up. DL parents get outraged easily, as demonstrated by many people here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this OP doesn't realize how privileged she is to know 3 languages, 2 of them fluently. This is sad. A person growing up bilingual in this country should be constantly made aware of the benefits she is receiving, be they soft skills as mentioned by some, potential for higher earnings, ability to travel more easily, or potential cognitive benefits.

The benefits are so huge, I am sad her parents didn't really let her know what they are or she didn't hear them. This is a good message for us parents of kids in dual language. It may not be obvious to our kids why we are doing this to them. I hope that my values are instilled in my children, which includes intercultural communication (and basic empathy for all people which grows through such experiences). THAT is why my children are in dual language, and thanks for the reminder to make sure they know that as they grow up.

The benefits are huge when the kids actually learn to speak the language decently. This isn't always the case in DC charter immersion programs. You know this if you're a native speaker of any of the DCI target languages who tries to speak to various upper grades kids in your language around your neighborhood. The results can be pretty grim considering that some of these kids have been in 50% immersion for up to 8 years. Some of them even go through ECE in 100% immersion. There's an awful lot of pretending going on about how well many charter immersion students can actually communicate in the target language. Less so at Oyster.

While you may be right, and parents should push admins to make sure strong learning is happening in each language, exposure itself can be a fantastic ground for later proficiency. I didn't learn Spanish until college, but I'd like to have had the base for it developed much earlier and especially the accent. Instead took French which I also started too late to get any kind of respectable accent, in my once a week classes for fun in elementary school. I think simply getting that accent is a bigger deal than you realize, even if it's still clearly non-native. Developing the ear, much like music class, is great.

So, yes we should push for better, but also this answers OP's question about why we "go nuts" for DL.

Also - in order to get any better, [b]we need to change rules around recruitment into charters to prioritize native speakers and improve the balance[/b].

I would love this to happen. I think it would help Stokes' French program as well. I encounter tons of francophone West African families in this area, probably more than Europeans who speak French, and a good handful attend our IB. I would love if they could have a preference at Stokes and DCI.

A little political background for those who are interested. Fenty/Rhee and the DC Public Charter Board made the decision NOT to prioritize native speakers in immersion charter admissions back around 2006. They made this decision knowing that the Dept. of Ed had not interfered when states had offered priority to native speakers in separate charter lotteries. This remains true. YY admins actually asked the DCPCSB for preference for native speakers back around 2012, and were denied.

The priority of Fenty/Rhee, and every DC mayor and PS Chancellor since, has been for charter sector to run citywide lotteries where high SES families don't have an edge, as they do in gaining access to high-performing neighborhood schools. The decision was misguided in helping language immersion charters fulfill their missions, because such programs obviously can't offer robust immersion without being able to attract and admit sizeable cohorts of native speakers. When I say robust immersion I refer to two-way immersion vs. the one-way type you see at programs like Stokes and YY, where students don't learn the language from peers, they only learn it from teachers in classroom settings. Without robust immersion, kids can't learn to speak languages well unless families where adults do not speak the target language well supplement e.g. by hosting foreign au pairs or paying for language tutors. Supplementing isn't cheap.

I see no prospect for a change in the policy on admission to language immersion charters under Mayor Bowser. Maybe 10 or 15 years from now, a more enlightened and engaged mayor, or a re-constituted elected school board will see the light.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is my take on why is it so widely desired in DC..

All parents want a good education for their children. May affordable neighborhoods in DC do not have good schools. Language immersion has been a means to draw potentially high performing students (children from high SES families) into schools in transitioning neighborhoods and charters schools. Parents like it because they see a way that their children will be challenged even if the broad population in a particular school is somewhat unknown. It is a means to self-select your children's peers.

More broadly in the DC region it is a multi-cultural area, many people have travelled broadly and they see the benefit of being bilingual and want that for their kids.

My kids did not go to a dual language elementary school, I tried in the lottery but was not successful and ultimately we had a strong school path for them so I did not lose any sleep about it.. They started a foreign language in 6th grade (at Deal). One chose Spanish and one chose French. We let them choose what interests them, I do not burden my children with what I think will give them a corporate advantage later in life. My children have been exposed to many international families as their peers in school and friends and they see the value of speaking multiple languages.

My advice to OP. No need to overthink it. Also, wait a while to have kids, you are very young to be married already, do not rush things.

This. The language immersion charters offer a better peer group than the crappy DCPS schools in gentrifying neighborhoods, and the brain development research gives the parents a "legitimate reason" for choosing the school instead of just fleeing their IB DCPS. There are a few exceptions, but that's the reason for 99% of families at the language immersion schools if they're being honest.

That's why these language immersion charters get so few students from the strong WOTP school boundaries.

OP, one thing to look at with your fiancee is what you give up at each school to get the language. At our HRC DCI feeder, the ELA is really suffering. They also do a terrible job with special needs and advanced kids. If you don't have an average neurotypical kid, then I recommend to stay away from charters. It's been a disaster for our advanced SN kids (this is more common than you might think). Charters also have very little oversight. There are layers of oversight for DCPS schools, but the charter school board has been clear that they don't get involved with any issues unless there's fraud (embezzlement etc) so there's no help there.

The parent association basically does fund raising and a little bit of infomercial type stuff. They're shills for the admin and don't really advocate for parents. I think most charters are this way. It's very different from the strong WOTP DCPS schools that have a strong parent group to advocate. After being in both systems, I strongly recommend moving in boundary for good schools for ES, MS, and HS (DC or suburbs). The families will stay for the schools and you'll have a strong community.

Thank you

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The point was will I get paid a lot more for knowing Spanish? No, even if I were to change my profession.
Some people really take things so personally. I’m seriously only wondering why DC parents literally go crazy for dual language!

I don't even know why I'm bothering jumping in on this bc OP seems to just be bored and kind of trying to stoke the fire at a time of heightened anxiety for parents with kids entering the lottery, but FWIW there are lots of jobs where being bilingual English/Spanish pays more and opens up opportunities. I'm in healthcare. It's a premium. As if making more money is the only value added of learning another language that a large portion of your population speaks...but you can't really argue that it isn't valuable in business in the US. Not everybody is going into trade opportunities with China, OP

Sorry, that’s insensitive of me. It’s just honestly I didn’t experience that growing up. Like anxiety came for uni, I had only 2 I was dead set on going to and if I didn’t get those that was it. But elementary school? Seems excessive.
And yea you do get paid more in certain jobs for speaking Spanish. Teaching isn’t one of them lol but then again that’s not the best pay overall.

I don’t want to be the kind of parent who stresses about preschool. I just want my child to be happy, healthy, and learn. I feel if you are involved with your child at home they’ll go above and beyond. I tell all my parents that they are their child’s first teacher and I absolutely stand by that.