DCist: ‘Au Revoir’ to Foreign Language for District 9th Graders

February 21, 2008

‘Au Revoir’ to Foreign Language for District 9th Graders

2008_0221_foreignlanguages%282%29.jpg Ninth graders in D.C. public schools will not be allowed to enroll in foreign language courses next year, the Examiner reported yesterday.

The rationale behind the decision, according to a spokesperson for Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, is to help students focus on classes they must take for graduation. Audits done by school leaders have shown that guidance counselors are frequently not properly scheduling students. Consequently, as students reach their junior or senior year, they have missed core classes and can’t graduate on time. Since foreign language courses are considered electives, they are being shelved until students hit 10th grade.

In a new report released this week by the nonprofit education group Achieve, Inc., the District of Columbia was recognized as part of a group of only 19 states that require students to complete a “college and career-ready curriculum” in order to earn a diploma, including four years of mathematics through at least Algebra II, and four years of English. A foreign language is not required.

Since only 58 percent of students in D.C. graduate high school at all, some might argue that the primary goal should be doing what it takes to help more students earn diplomas. But why aren’t foreign language courses considered core subjects in the first place? Many parents are upset that high-achieving students will miss out on opportunities because of the new policy, or that the benefits of foreign language study will be diminished by only being offered late in a student’s academic career. Wouldn’t a better solution be to place greater accountability on school counselors to properly schedule students?

“Are we surprised to find out that D.C. has incompetent counselors who can't figure out how to prepare students for college, a global economy, and a U.S. with more immigrants than at any other time in history?” said Aaron Seligman, a former high school Spanish teacher at Friendship Collegiate Academy, a charter school in Northeast. “No other subject pushes logical thinking, communication, and provides a tangible skill set more than foreign languages. I guess the message the counselors are sending is ‘No se puede.’”

By Rachael Brown in News | Link | Comments (34) | Recommend this! (9) |

Tags: DCPS, foreign languages, Michelle Rhee

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Comments (34)

[1] | 02/21/08 01:06PM

This is depressing. I don't have any solution for the school system and the miserable graduation rate, but it seems like this pretty much kills the chances of any DC kids really learning a foreign language. Foreign languages are not necessary, perhaps, but they at least provide some potential to open students' eyes to a broader world and alternative viewpoints. To at least dream, "maybe I'll go to college, and study abroad in Spain." Sigh.

[2] | 02/21/08 01:10PM

Speaking as a bigoted jackass, these kids can barely read and write English and you want them to talk all foreign-like? And why can't them furreners learn to talk American anyways? I didn't have both my legs blown off at the siege of Chunking and La Choy just to have to yell at the Mexican cashier at Mcdonald's to give me DOS BREAKFAST BURRITOS POR FAVOR, GODDAMMIT!

[3] | 02/21/08 01:10PM

I understand the rationale, but isn't there ANY other solution? This is terrible. Kids should be getting more foreign language education, not less.

Why are the students being punished for something the guidance counselors are doing wrong?

[4] | 02/21/08 01:15PM

I'm okay with a foreign language not being required, but it makes no sense at all to me to forbid 9th graders from taking one. The rationale from Rhee's spokesperson would be absolutely laughable if it wasn't such sad proof of the incompetence of the system's guidance counselors and schedulers.

Is it possible that this is just a ham-fisted way of dealing with a serious shortage of foreign language teachers in the system and/or cutting that part of the budget? After all, it potentially cuts the number of class hours that need to be taught by up to 25% . . .

[5] | 02/21/08 01:23PM

Fantastic. The older you get, the more difficult it is to learn a foreign language. We ought to be expanding kids' language abilities in a more dedicated fashion throughout schooling, starting at kindergarten, but that's another discussion. But putting it off a year further than the too-late point at which it's offered now?

Inexcusable.

[6] | 02/21/08 01:23PM

in New Jersey, we started foreign language in 7th and 8th grades. i don't remember how many years were required on a high school level . . . maybe two? in other parts of the country, elementary schools are teaching foreign languages. why should DC students be denied taking these classes?

leaving it as an elective for 9th grade, but then requiring it in 10th makes more sense. outright telling these kids 'sorry, you're SOL' just doesn't sit right.

and to echo monkeyrotica's comment in *hopefully* a less demeaning way . . . *English* is a foreign language to some of these kids. are you going to deny that to them, too?

[7] | 02/21/08 01:25PM

I have a fifth grader in DCPS, I don't feel so strongly about this decision generally when you look at the whole DCPS predicament. There is plenty of evidence to show that kids should be learning a foreign language way before ninth grade anyway. Also, i believe the same to be true about science, but i'm not gonna go there. The teaching of most of these "hard" subjects comes from the lack of effective teaching more then kids ability and interest.

[8] | 02/21/08 01:26PM

That sucks! The earlier you learn a language, the better chance you can be proficient. It’s crazy to me that bright students are punished because guidance counselors can’t do their job (under union protection of course). I hope that the concerned parents can organize and startup a charter school that provides a foreign languages.

Can’t the guidance counselors be trained to design a students schedule in the same way that some principals were trained a few years ago not to use their city issued credit cards for personal items?

[9] | 02/21/08 01:28PM

42% of these kids don't graduate, so who cares if they take a Spanish class?

[10] | 02/21/08 01:29PM

Teaching, better yet, starting a foreign language in high school is a joke in the first place; its too late, the brain has developed and has moved on to better things. The only way for students to really learn a foreign language, without total emersion, is to start in elementary school, when the brain is still hungry for language development.

[11] | 02/21/08 01:34PM

ok, i can see where they're coming from with regards to the need for core classes, etc.

but why not carve out an exemption for high-performing students. if i was an eighth grader going into ninth grade in DCPS, and i was a 4.0 student, why shouldn't i be allowed to enroll in spanish, french, german, etc.? it doesn't makes any damn sense to completely pander to the lowest common denominator...

[12] | 02/21/08 01:36PM

Phooey... I've learned three languages after age 19 and none other than English (and some even doubt I handle on that one) before then. It can be done, but it is easier if you start sooner.

[13] | 02/21/08 01:50PM

@monkeyerotica: My understanding of English grammar and syntax was greatly INCREASED by my study of French. One can't generally think about translating something into a foreign language before thinking of it correctly in the native language.

@erincarly: I agree. The requirements for graduation in NJ (at least when I was in HS) were 4 years of English, 3 years Science, 3 years Math (or through Algebra II depending on how long that took you to get there), 4 years of PE, 2 years foreign language, 2-3 years of history, and some arts I believe. We had 6 academic periods a day (plus a lunch period and a gym period). I don't understand how DC can't manage to get the required classes in unless they have so few periods per day as to be laughable.

The answer here isn't restricting what classes are available, the answer is holding those counselors accountable for the schedules they are producing.

[14] | 02/21/08 01:57PM

I think foreign languages could help the kids with their core studies. Trying to learn the grammar of an unfamiliar language would help them better understand their own, so English skills would improve. Learning a new language requires a lot of memorization and analytical thought, so skills that are used in history and math would be strengthened too. It's similar to the argument about why music and art should be kept in the schools.

[15] | 02/21/08 02:14PM

justjack - I completely agree. Regardless of my horror at the thought of *denying* kids a language, which is awful for so, so many reasons already stated, I think the bigger issue is fixing the Counselor mess. Their JOB is to guide these kids' futures, and if they can't do something as simple as plan a course schedule, something is very, very wrong.

[16] | 02/21/08 02:40PM

Gee, i wish my child had a counselor in his DCPSshool. What school does yours go to? BTW, regarding music, language and anything else taught in school, I would rather have the subject NOT taught to my child at all then to have it taught by an ineffective teacher.

[17] | 02/21/08 02:54PM

Subtitle it "or, why the middle class is still leaving DC..."

[18] | 02/21/08 03:05PM

I think generally that's a myth and so is the quality of the education in the surrounding counties with a few notable exceptions.

[19] | 02/21/08 03:17PM

>"No other subject pushes logical thinking ... and provides a tangible skill set more than foreign languages"
- Aaron Seligman, former high school Spanish teacher

Now, I'm all for teaching foreign languages and just as horrified as anyone that DC would forbid it of freshmen, but is this guy serious? Foreign language better at teaching logic and more tangible than science or math?

Puh-leaze. Get your head out of your ass, Aaron.

[20] | 02/21/08 03:42PM

let's be honest - when so many of the students in DCPS speak in a form of ebonics that can only be understood by their peers, shouldn't schools be focusing on teaching students to use proper English in order to actually have a sporting chance at achieving something, anything outside of the ghetto

[21] | 02/21/08 03:54PM

dg1, I'm in total agreement.

[22] | 02/21/08 04:13PM

what neighborhood are you from dg1? Are you speaking from first-hand experience? Do you walk the streets of ward 8? I personally have a more difficult time understanding spanglish then any other mix of english.

[23] | 02/21/08 04:27PM

ooohhh. a street-cred pissing contest. i love these. all right, i'll bite erahk0. no, i don't have the misfortune of living in ward 8, but i do live in a little corner of dc called east columbia heights, right off of georgia ave. i have lived there for years, and i have seen and heard more than my share of ghetto culture. i know what gunfire sounds like, and i know when listening to the drug boys on the corner "speak" that they don't have a chance in hell of navigating society outside of their neighborhood. so, sorry if i hurt your feelings, but the truth does sometimes hurt.

[24] | 02/21/08 04:49PM

Shouldn't DC be concentrating on training the guidance counselers to correctly schedule classes rather than hamperstringing the high-performing students?

[25] | 02/21/08 05:03PM

I know the city pretty well (30 years) .. your assertion sounded like a small sampling - i know of a couple "zones" (or little corners) in the city but your claim seems more like over-generalizations imho.

[26] | 02/21/08 05:08PM

Yes i think you are correct karoot12, and i think/hope Rhee will do that - but based on the progress so far i think it will be 2-3 years before anything will be noticed.

[27] | 02/21/08 05:15PM

I've taught in 2 struggling districts, and I cannot possibly convince you how hard it is to get 2000 students into 5 or 7 classes a day in a way that:

a) fulfills all the graduation requirements
b) has an acceptable student-teacher ratio
c) accomodates all the other classes in a child's schedule
d) has teacher prep periods built in so that teachers can plan/work together on curriculum
e) has lunches planned so that lunch periods--often there are 3 or 4--can occur with a controlled amount of student movement (such as, having all students on one floor eat lunch together)...

also, you have to be able to:

a) accurately project staffing
b) accurately project enrollment
c) get the kids who are enrolled to turn in their books and clear up any other "enrollment holds' so that the can get their schedule before school starts and fix any issues

and the barriers to achieving all those things are sizeable. So it's actually a very difficult thing to do in a city, even in a good school system. So I am VERY sympathetic to the counselors. However, each school usually has one master scheduler who builds a schedule (it could be block or tradtional, or have a modified A day, B day plan...) and the other have to fill it. And in a system like DC, counselors might move around all the time, so even the good ones may not have time to learn who the kids are and place them in schedules accordingly--and this is universally true of counselors of 9th graders, who are new to the building.

Also, there is a persistent and pervasive culture in many urban districts that "9th grade doesn't matter," which is a lie, but many kids cannot be convinced otherwise. So giving them a class that, if they fail it, requires summer school, or night school, or a 10th grade retake, is actually a way to have a meaningful consequence for failure in 9th grade--and there are precious few real consequences in DCPS, I can assure you.

I say all of this to nuance some of the simplistic comments: it's a very complicated system, and removing the guesswork for counselors might be a very good thing here. It gives them a year to learn who kids are, folks (and don't bring up using student records--just don't).

Do guidance counselors need to be better? Yes. Absolutely. But the training and opportunities for counselors of 9th graders to do an excellent job just aren't there.

Perhaps Rhee will be able to put them in place so that this is merely a strategy for one or two years. And I doubt very seriously that this decision will cost any child a Marshall scholarship.

So, I ask you to think about the possible benefits to 9th graders _as a class_ across the city before you decide about this policy based on your off-the cuff estimation of possible potential harm to one imagined 9th grade overachiever.

[28] | 02/21/08 05:16PM

I've taught in 2 struggling districts, and I cannot possibly convince you how hard it is to get 2000 students into 5 or 7 classes a day in a way that:

also, you have to be able to:

Do guidance counselors need to be better? Yes. Absolutely. But the training and opportunities for counselors of 9th graders to do an excellent job just aren't there.

Perhaps Rhee will be able to put them in place so that this is merely a strategy for one or two years. And I doubt very seriously that this decision will cost any child a Marshall scholarship.

[29] | 02/21/08 05:33PM

I cannot possibly convince you how hard it is to get 2000 students into 5 or 7 classes a day in a way that [meets a bunch of conditions none of which are unique to DC or urban schools] . . .

And yet pretty much every other high school in the country somehow manages to accomplish this task every year. Shocking, isn't it?

Putting together a functional whole-school schedule for a couple thousand high school students is indeed a logistical nightmare of a task, and one that I would never want to have on my to-do list. That said, it's the kind of thing that is being done constantly, all over the country, and there are a lot of tools, techniques, software, and other such aids that make it more manageable. Creating a blanket policy prohibiting 9th grade foreign language just seems like a clumsy, blunt instrument that will leave the core scheduling problem intact while removing one, minor variable from the equation.

Oh, and to the commenter who brought Ebonics into the conversation all I have to say is that your avatar is very appropriate.

[30] | 02/21/08 10:22PM

It would be nice if writers were more familiar with their native tongue.

A school can be said to "graduate students," but students do not "graduate high school" (unless they are marking the building's height); they "graduate FROM high school."

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0147.html

[31] | 02/22/08 10:26AM

This sucks for kids that want to study a foreign language, but when I was at Deal I found those classes to be a waste of time. I seem to recall my 9th grade French teacher grading papers for her English classes while we sat around talking.

[32] | 02/22/08 10:57AM

A couple of points:
1) I'll probably get yelled at for saying this, but these kids need to focus on learning correct english first. I'm sorry, but you just can't function in today's society and expect to succeed with speaking standard English.

2) 10th grade is way to late to start learning a language. I was lucky enought to be sent to a school where foreign language education began at Kindergarten. At that age you soak up language like a sponge, including the correct accent so you don't end up sounding like a gringo.

3) If you're a guidance counselor who can't guide your student to graduation, you should be fired.

[33] | 02/22/08 12:43PM

As a graduate of MoCo schools, I gotta call bullsh*t on this one. I took my first Spanish class in eighth grade, although I could have started in seventh. I continued through high school and am glad every day I did. Today, you can start a language in sixth grade in MCPS.

I think the main difference here is involved parents, a plan for all four years of high school, and two check-overs from counselors each registration to make sure I was college-ready and graduation eligible. And this was in the early eighties - we used index cards, not fancy-pants computers (which should make this WAY easier).

Sorry - I don't buy that DC kids are too stupid to do this themselves. Their counselors need to be held accountable.

[34] | 02/25/08 04:59PM

And yet pretty much every other high school in the country somehow manages to accomplish this task every year.

Actually, no, they don't. In most urban school systems, you will find that scheduling is a herculean task. And in schools that do it successfully, they have a lot of things in place that aren't in place in urban schools, including (gasp!) the things I said aren't in place.

Should I be surprised that a glib response was made?