Washington Education Association (WEA): Choice without charters

When kindergartners and first-graders start their day at John Stanford International School, they are greeted either with "hola" or "konichiwa" as "hello."

They spend half their day learning Spanish with Maria Buceta-Miller, or learning Japanese with Mihoko Tsang, studying math, reading and writing entirely in one of those languages. The foreign language to most of the students in class, however, isn't a learning block. Instead, the immersion language program is one of the beauties of this north Seattle school, described as the first public elementary in Washington with an international focus.

The Stanford school is just one example proving that school choice already does flourish in Washington state – without charter schools. The Stanford school, or JSIS as it's often called, was the dream of the late Seattle Superintendent John Stanford. Opened in the heavily renovated Latona Elementary in Wallingford in 2000, it's meant to be a place where English-speaking students will be prepared to live in an increasingly globalized community and culture by speaking a second language, becoming fluent in technology and adding an international element to subjects from music to social studies.

The international focus goes both ways, says English teacher Margretta Murnane. The school houses a temporary orientation center for new immigrant students and serves bilingual students in mainstream classes as they learn English fluency.

Because the majority of students are struggling at times with Spanish or Japanese, there's a connection for the students tackling English.

"It's very powerful for them," Murnane says. "They feel confident and not completely lost. For part of the day at least they see a respect for their culture and language and they get to see somebody speak their language.

"Language is the most obvious representation that we have in our culture and we're modeling being lifelong learners."

Students in the second- through fifth-grades have a 30-40 minute "content" class -- such as math -- taught in Spanish or Japanese each day, rather than having isolated foreign language lessons most schools offer.

Partnered with the University of Washington, JSIS also is the first U.S. elementary school connected to the high-speed Internet 2, a far faster and more powerful network that has a hub at the UW. The partnership includes helping write curriculum and sending undergraduate and graduate students to work in the classrooms.

Since the school's opening, a waiting list of parents lining up to get their children into the Stanford school continues to grow.

A school can choose themes to focus on, but part of the success of the Stanford school is the staff's mix of talents and experience levels among certificated teachers and instructional assistants -- and that provides accountability, Murnane says.

"We have high academic standards. We get funding from many resources from the community (video conferencing, a connection with the UW's Jackson School of International Studies, and a faster Internet connection) and an experienced staff.

She says the high-caliber staff cares about their craft. The school's schedule allows time for staff to talk regularly in groups to plan and problem solve.

"I love being able to work with people from all over the world," she says as she rattled off the many countries staff members are from: Japan, China, Venezuela, Chile, Spain … "Every day, you're exposed to different cultures and I think that's incredibly valuable for our students."

"Students in the second- through fifth-grades have a 30-40 minute 'content' class -- such as math -- taught in Spanish or Japanese each day, rather than having isolated foreign language lessons most schools offer."

Maybe this is why math test scores are so low in Washington.

Indeed. I thought the idea behind school choice, charter schools, etc., was to focus on the basics in order to counterbalance the poor education given in those schools that are not able to focus on the basics because of their focus on multiculturalism. It sounds to me like the idea behind this charter school (in the liberal neighborhood of Wallingford), is to blur the American identity of these children so that as they age, the term 'globalism' will have no meaning, because that term implies the melding of nations and borders into one congealed whole. As these children grow, they will probably NOT be raised with the traditional notion of nations and borders, but only of cultural differences. Their children, in turn, would then have no concept of culture as they would be raised in whatever becomes acceptable to the globalists as the one acceptable amalgamation of all the world's cultures.

I have no problem with the kiddies learning a second or third language, even with the "immersion style" as long as it isn't a replacement for English. If it is American kids learning Japanese, Chinese, Russian, what ever, then great, but if it is non English speaking kids and it is done for the benefit of them so they don't have to learn English, then I say it is time to "immerse" them in the language of their new home country.

Two-way immersion is completely different than bilingual education and is different from the usual immersion method of learning a second language.

Half the day is spent learning core subjects in english and half in a second language. After a few years of this (just one or two doesn't work) all of the kids end up fluent in both languages. And, because they learned them early enough, they do not have an accent.

Also, after 3 or 4 years test scores in all subjects, not just languages, are higher than average.

One of the unstated benefits of this is that native-born Americans learn to speak the foreign language fluently and without an accent. Think about how much better our intelligence would be if we had thousands of Americans of unquestioned loyalty completely fluent in some of the middle eastern languages.

I don't have a problem with learning other languages, either. I have a problem with US kiddies learning all about these other cultures and languages, celebrating those cultures and languages, while the schools turn a blind eye (or a hateful eye) upon American culture and the English language. The students in this article are very young. I'd like to see them have a firm foundation of American tradition and values and then branch outward.

This is one of the reasons why I decided against teaching in the public schools, though I am certified to teach English K-12.

I don't know what this has to do with "choice." In most of these kinds of specialized schools, students are admitted either by lottery or by examination. The student may "choose" to go there, but the school doesn't have to "choose" that particular student. Where's the "choice" here?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.