Charter Schools in Suburbia: More Argument Than Agreement

This report is part of a joint project between NJ Spotlight.com and the Patch.com network of community news sites to provide both a statewide and a local look at the politics of charter schools in many New Jersey communities, and the tensions that sometimes arise regarding their funding in an age of budget cutbacks.

Suburban charter schools almost sound like a contradiction in terms. After all, charters typically conjure up the image of families seeking alternatives to gritty urban schools.

Charters Across New Jersey

East Brunswick: Questioning Charter School’s Right to Exist

Morristown: Unity Charter May Be a Jewel, But It’s One With Some Costs

Gloucester: A Home Schooler Takes on the School Board

Hoboken: Can the Public Schools Compete, by Getting Better?

Livingston: How Many Mandarin Schools Is too Many?

Princeton: Everyone’s Mad About Mandarin

Red Bank: Charter Schools Face Budget Woes Too

South Brunswick: A Debate or a Shouting Match?

Teaneck: Innovation or Duplication?

But while some suburban charters have been in existence from the start in places like Princeton and Morristown, the small, independent schools are becoming a growing presence — and a growing source of tension as well.

A combination of factors are at work, not the least of which is Gov. Chris Christie’s push to expand charters statewide. Much of the attention has been on so-called boutique schools, with narrow focuses like Hebrew or Mandarin. That specialization is raising concerns in host communities as to why they have to support special-interest institutions.

But on the eve of this week’s budget votes, ongoing recession fears and tight public resources that have left everyone struggling for money underlie the tension. School districts in suburban and urban areas generally pay charters 90 percent of the district’s per-pupil costs.

Not every district is grumbling, by any means, but the complaints in districts like Princeton, East Brunswick and South Brunswick are getting louder.

NJ Spotlight and Patch.com have teamed up to examine the issues that have surfaced over the growing charter school movement in New Jersey, especially in suburban districts.

Read more here.

Learning Chinese is new craze at American schools

Last updated at 5:58 PM on 21st April 2011

Chinese is now the language du jour for parents who want their children to learn a second – and sometimes third – dialect.

The sudden rise is likely due to the economic growth of the country as parents want their children to have limitless opportunities in a global economy bringing Asia, the U.S. and Latin America closer together.

A lot of children who learn Chinese are often trilingual, due to one or maybe both Spanish speaking parents.

Children sit at desks marked with their name tags in Chinese at Broadway Elementary School in Venice, Los Angeles, which launched one of only two English-Mandarin Chinese dual-language immersion programmes in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2010

School districts have expanded Chinese language programmes due to the rise of China in the global economy and students from a wide range of backgrounds have joined them.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379312/Learning-Chinese-new-craze-American-schools.html#ixzz1KGzjpmDv

I had no idea there were so many videos up about the various immersion programs nationwide.

Barrington Illinois program, beginning in 2011:

Excelsior Elementary, Minnetonka, Minnesota

XinXing Elementary, Hopkins, Minnesota

College Park, San Mateo County

Superintendent of Schools James Crisfield will host an open discussion on the process of charter school applications Monday, May 9 at 7:45 p.m. in the Millburn High School auditorium.

The public can participate in a question-and-answer session with Crisfield and the Millburn Board of Education along with superintendents and Boards of Education from the Livingston, Maplewood-South Orange and West Orange districts.

Two groups of area residents have applied with the New Jersey Department of Education to start charter schools that would accept Millburn students, as well as students from the other districts whose representatives are invited to the meeting. Both schools, Han Mei Charter School and Hanyu International Academy Charter, would open in 2012 and offer Mandarin immersion at the elementary level.

In a phone interview with The Item of Millburn and Short Hills Tuesday, Crisfield said the idea of charter schools in areas like Millburn is “a great theory that completely falls on its face.”

If the charter schools are approved, Millburn would pay 90 percent of the average per-pupil cost of educating a child, he said. “It’s just cash off the top of our budget without a corresponding reduction in cost.”

More here.

Proposed Mandarin-Immersion Charter School in Jeopardy

The school needs zoning approval and an occupancy permit from South Brunswick by June 30; charter official says district cares more about money than children.

By Greta Cuyler | Email the author | April 19, 2011

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The September opening of the Princeton International Academy Charter School may be in jeopardy if South Brunswick officials fail to grant zoning variance approvals and an occupancy permit by June 30.

PIACS, approved by the state Department of Education in January 2010 as a dual-language Mandarin-English immersion school for students in grades K-2, will draw students from Princeton, South Brunswick and West Windsor-Plainsboro school districts.

More here.

At the tours for the Chinese Language Conference in San Francisco last week, Wendy Cheong, with the San Francisco Unified School District’s Multilingual and World Languages department shared the current SFUSD standards for Mandarin immersion students. She has kindly made them available to parents as well.

Please note that these are works-in-progress. As our program matures (we’re only up to 4th grade now) and as what works and what doesn’t work for our student body at Starr King and Jose Ortega Elementary Schools becomes clear, these too, will change. But here’s a snapshot in time which might be helpful to parents in the Mandarin program in San Francisco as well as other programs elsewhere.

We’d like to encourage other districts or parents to send their standards, so we can start to see the commonalities.

MI Inst Min Revised 1_2011

K12 Proficiency Based Performance Expectations 1_21_2011

K5 Proficiency Descriptors 4_18_2011

K Can Do PDF

Grade 1 Can Do PDF