A Language/culture based charter school is a Charter school whose curriculum is based on the language and culture of a specific ethnic nation or group of nations, although the schools are open to students of all ethnic backgrounds.
A review by the Washington advocacy group, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, found that among the more than 4,600 charters nationwide, 113 have mission statements specifying such ethnic cultural themes. These include the Amber Charter School in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, the Eugenio Maria de Hostos Charter School in Rochester, New York, both of which feature instruction in Spanish and in Hispanic cultures, the Ben Gamla Charter School, the country’s first Hebrew language charter school, which opened in Hollywood, Florida, in 2007, the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School, where by grade six all subjects except English language arts will be taught in Chinese, and the Hellenic Classical Charter School in Brooklyn, New York.
A language/culture based charter school is similar in many respects to a religious charter school. Lawrence D. Weinberg, in his book Religious Charter Schools: Legalities and Practicalities, argues that a charter school can be religious in many ways and that charter schools may accommodate religious beliefs, but not endorse religious beliefs. Religious charter schools would include Catholic schools that converted to charters as happened in Washington, D.C. and some Hebrew or Arabic language schools.
Famous quotes containing the words language, culture, based, charter and/or school:
“English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“Any reductionist program has to be based on an analysis of what is to be reduced. If the analysis leaves something out, the problem will be falsely posed.”
—Thomas Nagel (b. 1938)
“The recent attempt to secure a charter from the State of North Dakota for a lottery company, the pending effort to obtain from the State of Louisiana a renewal of the charter of the Louisiana State Lottery, and the establishment of one or more lottery companies at Mexican towns near our border, have served the good purpose of calling public attention to an evil of vast proportions.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“The happiest two-job marriages I saw during my research were ones in which men and women shared the housework and parenting. What couples called good communication often meant that they were good at saying thanks to one another for small aspects of taking care of the family. Making it to the school play, helping a child read, cooking dinner in good spirit, remembering the grocery list,... these were silver and gold of the marital exchange.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)