Immigrant Populations: Seattle versus the Eastside
Great article in Crosscut about what is happening over on the Eastside with immigrant populations.
What draws immigrants to the Eastside and keeps them there, even when, like Tushara, they go to work in Seattle? Lee could be speaking for all of them when he answers, emphatically, with a single word: “School! I needed to raise kids, and Bellevue’s the place to do it.”
It wasn’t just the Bellevue schools’ celebrated instructional quality (its average test scores place it among the top 10 districts statewide in math and science and the top 30 in reading and writing) or their ample tax base, which includes the wealthy lakeshore municipalities of Medina, Clyde Hill and the Points.
It was the counter-intuitively congenial social environment of what was then an upscale, predominately white, monocultural community. In Bellevue and Newport, Pham found, he didn’t have to worry about his three kids
What draws immigrants to the Eastside and keeps them there, even when, like Tushara, they go to work in Seattle? Lee could be speaking for all of them when he answers, emphatically, with a single word: “School! I needed to raise kids, and Bellevue’s the place to do it.”
It wasn’t just the Bellevue schools’ celebrated instructional quality (its average test scores place it among the top 10 districts statewide in math and science and the top 30 in reading and writing) or their ample tax base, which includes the wealthy lakeshore municipalities of Medina, Clyde Hill and the Points.
It was the counter-intuitively congenial social environment of what was then an upscale, predominately white, monocultural community. In Bellevue and Newport, Pham found, he didn’t have to worry about his three kids
Second Civil Rights Investigation by Feds
The Times updates the civil rights investigation by the DOE in SPS by noting there is now a second investigation into ELL students and school closures.
From 2009 through the end of last year, the civil-rights office has launched about 100 civil-rights investigations involving at least one school district in nearly every state.
Those investigations, known as compliance reviews, are just part of the office’s caseload, most of which stems from complaints filed by parents or community members.
The department’s proactive efforts have won praise from those who say there was a drought of education civil-
From 2009 through the end of last year, the civil-rights office has launched about 100 civil-rights investigations involving at least one school district in nearly every state.
Those investigations, known as compliance reviews, are just part of the office’s caseload, most of which stems from complaints filed by parents or community members.
The department’s proactive efforts have won praise from those who say there was a drought of education civil-
Making Sense of Funding Foreign Language Immersion
To start, I think that foreign language teaching is great and should be started in every elementary school. I would advocate for foreign language several times a week in every elementary versus what we have now which are four foreign language immersion elementary schools that are ONLY open to neighborhood children.
I did a previous post on this subject that covers some of the history. JSIS started as a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "hey kids, let's open a foreign language school to honor a beloved superintendent." But, where was the discussion about funding, where those kids go AFTER elementary and how to expand the program? Nowhere.
Guess what? John Stanford International School was a wild success and left other parents clamoring for more.
It took the district nearly eight years to bring a couple more schools on-line and then McDonald in the last couple of years. (They did also finally get around to figuring out a pathway to middle and high school although those paths are not immersion.)
Next, I have absolutely nothing against the parents in the JSIS or McDonald schools. They didn't create their schools or how people get assigned there. (JSIS/McDonald are more closely matched than Concord and Beacon Hill.)
