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  • Long-time supporter of Mandarin immersion new Palo Alto school board president

    New school board president a veteran of education wars
    Former probation officer, lawyer, got hooked on schools as a Jordan parent
    by Chris Kenrick
    Palo Alto Weekly Staff

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    Taking the gavel for the second time, new Palo Alto Board of Education President Camille Townsend says she spends a lot of time “poring over research” to grasp the issues.

    “The school district is so complicated — from K-12 curriculum to construction to architecture to bond management to bond sales to athletics, including equipment, fields, coaching staff — and you have to get a feel for the issues so you can give direction.

    “It’s not OK to say, ‘I don’t know construction, so I want to let someone else deal with that.’ You can’t do that,” she recently told the Weekly.

    First elected in 2003, Townsend is a veteran of school controversies that have included creation of the district’s five-year-old Mandarin Immersion program — she was a consistent supporter — and the ‘math wars’ that periodically surface over curriculum.

    She was in the minority on a controversial 3-2 vote in 2009 to adopt the K-5 mathematics textbook “Everyday Mathematics.” And most recently, she was in the minority on the contentious 3-2 vote last May to revamp the 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic calendars to begin the school year earlier in August so as to end the first semester before the December holidays.

    Please read more here

  • Anti-charter, Mandarin, rally big in New Jersey

    Rally Brings Out Supporters and Local Officials in Favor of Charter Reform and Against the Proposed Hua Mei Charter

    BY   |  SATURDAY, JAN 07, 2012 7:45AM  |  COMMENTS (0)

     

     

    Speaker is Assemblywoman Mila M. Jasey

    For residents of Maplewood, South Orange and West Orange, the news that their school districts might be getting a new charter school was not met with universal acceptance. In fact, many oppose not only the Hua Mei charter school, which would offer a Mandarin-immersion curriculum, but also the process by which new charter schools are approved (or rejected) in New Jersey.

    Please read more.

  • Houston Chronicle likes Mandarin immersion idea

    Mandarin program makes sense

    HOUSTON CHRONICLE
    Updated 05:49 p.m., Monday, January 2, 2012

    Beginning next year, the Houston Independent School District will offer a magnet school program for elementary-age students in which core subjects will be taught in Mandarin Chinese – the most-spoken language in the world. The program will be at the former Holden Elementary on West 28th Street.

    President John F. Kennedy said that the Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word “crisis.” One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, it’s important to be aware of the danger – and to recognize the opportunity. Appropriately, students in this Mandarin language immersion program will learn that wisdom in more than one way.

    Please read more here.

  • New Lake Forest, Illinois Mandarin immersion school accepting applications

    District 67 Slates Kindergarten Registration for 2012-13 School Year

    Parents should contact their neighborhood school now to receive packet.

    Parents who reside within the Lake Forest School District 67 boundaries and plan to enroll their children in kindergarten for the 2012-13 school year are asked to contact their neighborhood school now.

    Students must live within the District 67 school boundaries and be 5 years old on or before Sept. 1. Registration packets will be mailed on Jan. 17. Parents who do not receive a registration packet can pick one up at their neighborhood school’s office.

    Residents unsure of their school boundaries or who have questions may call any of the following primary schools: Cherokee School, 475 E. Cherokee Road, (847) 234-3805; Everett School, 1111 Everett School Road, (847) 234-5713; Sheridan School, 1360 N. Sheridan Road, (847) 234-1160.

    District 67 offers an optional multi-year Mandarin Immersion Program for parents that want their children to develop bilingual proficiency in a second language. This program is open to all incoming kindergarteners. Kindergarteners in the Mandarin program will attend Cherokee Elementary School, but will maintain their neighborhood school status.

    An incoming kindergarten parent information meetings about the Mandarin Immersion Program will be held from 9-10:30 a.m. Jan. 12 or 7-8:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at Cherokee Elementary School.

    Please read more here.

  • NJ residents rally to oppose Mandarin immersion charter school

    Residents Plan Anti-Charter School Rally For Friday

    The rally is opposing the Mandarin-immersion charter school that would draw students from South Orange, Maplewood and West Orange.

    With the latest application by the Hua Mei in the process, some Maplewood, West Orange and South Orange residents are joining together to fight it.

    On Friday, January 6 at 4:30 p.m.,residents will be meeting at the Maplewood Community Centerin DeHart Park to protest the application. More than 1,500 residents have already signed a petition that asks Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf to reject Hua Mei’s application, something that has happened before.

    Please read more here.

  • Our year in statistics

    It’s been a good year on the Mandarin Immersion Parents Council blog. Thanks to all our readers and writers. As always, we love getting articles, ideas and submissions. Please drop us a note at immersioneducation (at) gmail (dot) com

    Here are some stats for 2011:

    This blog was viewed about 60,000 times in 2011. On average, each post was viewed by 377 people. (for a very niche blog, that’s pretty good.) Every day we get between 100 and 150 people stopping by to read us. The busiest day of the year was October 20th with 339 views. The most popular post that day was Staying bilingual is the hard part.

    In 2011, there were 159 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 385 posts. There were 47 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 19mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

    The most common sites that referred people to us were:

    Yahoo mail

    Bayarea.todaysmama.com

    Facebook

    Jose Ortega School

    Visitors who found us through searching, mostly used the terms

    mandarin immersion parents council and

    mandarin immersion.

    We have an international audience. Most of our readers came from the United States, Hong Kong and Canada.

     

    Of our North American Readers

    97.7% of readers are from the United States

    2.1% from Canada

    0.1% from Mexico

     

    In Asia

    41.4% were from Hong Kong

    15.2% from the Philippines

    11.2% from Singapore

    8.8% from Taiwan

    5.4% from Malaysia

     

    In Europe, most came from England

    32.2% from the United Kingdom

    21.9% from Germany (Thanks to the new school in Berlin!)

    6.6% from the Netherlands

    6.3% from France

    5.6% from Spain

     

    In Oceania

    75.8% were from Australia

    24.2% from New Zealand

     

    Our most popular posts last year were:

    5 FAQ

  • Mandarin immersion program flourishes at L.A. school

    Broadway Elementary in Venice launched the effort to boost enrollment. The plan worked so well the principal is concerned that dual-language learners will outnumber students in regular classes.

    The English half of the dayFirst-grader Charlotte Woodruff (on class pajama day) shows her science project to her dual-language class as Rae Cullen, who teaches in English, looks on at Broadway Elementary School in Venice. The students spend half the day with Cullen and half with a teacher whose instruction is in Mandarin. (Barbara Davidson, Los Angeles Times /December 16, 2011)
    By Matt Stevens, Los Angeles TimesDecember 29, 2011, 8:28 p.m.

    Twenty-four first-graders scrambled from their seats and plopped onto a rainbow-colored rug in “Wong laoshi’s” classroom. In a minute, they would begin a lesson on food groups. But first a quick exercise on water.

    “Zhengfa!” teacher Kennis Wong said, using the Mandarin word for “evaporation,” and the students jumped to their feet.

    “Ningjie!” Wong said next, giving the word for “condensation.” And like a forming raindrop, students hugged in small groups.

    “Jiangyu!” she said finally, and the raindrops splashed to the floor, giggling the whole way down.

    Please read more here.