Bilingual Education
- What is a Charter School?
A public charter school is a publicly funded school that, in accordance with an enabling state statute, has been granted a charter exempting it from selected state or local rules and regulations. A charter school may be newly created, or it may previously have been a public or private school. Charter schools are typically governed by a group or organization (e.g. a group of educators, a corporation, or a university) under a contract or charter with the state.
- What is Dual Immersion?
Dual immersion, sometimes referred to as two-way immersion, establishes an academically challenging learning environment which brings children from two different language groups together to learn from and with each other in an integrated setting. Instruction through the minority language is viewed as an enriching experience for all, not as remedial or compensatory education for the language minority students in the program.
An essential characteristic of dual immersion is that both language groups are learning together, and from each other, as opposed to the segregation of Spanish-dominant students that is typical of transitional bilingual or English as a Second Language programs.
Ideally, a 1:1 ratio of students from each language group is maintained in a dual immersion program, but a minimum of one-third of each language group (i.e., a 2:1 ratio) is essential.
Note that children in a dual immersion environment are learning the same level of math, science, social studies, and language arts as students in traditional public schools. In other words, Spanish is not taught as a language per se; rather, Spanish is used to teach traditional subject content.
Students of Nuestro Mundo Community School learn 90% of their core curricula in Spanish in both kindergarten and first grade. In second grade, 80% of the core curricula is taught in Spanish, 70% in third grade, 60% in fourth grade and 50% in fifth grade. The ratio of native Spanish and native English speakers among NMCS students is roughly 1:1.
This model follows the best available research, which demonstrates that optimal dual-language proficiency and academic achievement occur when Spanish literacy is taught before English literacy.
- Will participation in a dual-language model result in a lower level of achievement in both languages?
No!! Dual-language immersion education produces students who achieve high levels of proficiency in two languages. In fact, research shows that students from dual-language immersion programs perform at or above the level of their English monolingual peers by 5th grade, when assessed by traditional English language skills testing.
- Who should attend NMCS? Isn’t it just for Spanish-speaking kids?
Dual language immersion is for all children! At NMCS, children of all ethnic and linguistic backgrounds are succeeding in our dual immersion model!