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:
“It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“A woman does not have to make decisions based on the need to survive. She can cut through issues, call shots as she sees them.... Many bad decisions are made by men in government because it is good for them personally to make bad public decisions.”
—Dianne Feinstein (b. 1933)
“When Britain first, at Heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.”
—James Thomson (1700–1748)
“For millions of men and women, the church has been the hospital for the soul, the school for the mind and the safe depository for moral ideas.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)