Thread: CA-Oakland high school is just for immigrants

Oakland high school is just for immigrants
Trevor Hunnicutt, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, August 3, 2008


The students at Oakland International High School form a real-life melting pot.

There's Esteban Rojas, 17, who arrived from Mexico three years ago and still speaks mostly Spanish.

French-speaking Valerie Ndong, 16, who goes by Grace, emigrated from her West African home in Gabon to be with her mother in Oakland.

And there's Qi Ruan, an 18-year-old native of China who arrived here less than a year ago, speaks Cantonese and struggles with English.

In the school's auditorium, student drawings of their homelands colored the walls recently. In one, a row of shanties sits along a snaking river.

"Hi. My name is Antonio," an accompanying placard read. "I am 17 years old. I am from Thailand and made a mural about it. I was born in a refugee camp because my people are Karen, and we don't belong to Thailand. My mom is from Burma but we aren't allowed to be there, so we have to be in camps in Thailand. My mural has pictures of the camp I lived in."

The school opened its doors a year ago at a former middle school on Webster Street in the Temescal neighborhood to serve a diverse group of high school students with some things in common: They are all relatively new to the country, they are trying to become fluent in English, and nearly all qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch, an indicator of low socioeconomic status.

In regular high schools, students who are new to English don't always get the attention and college-prep academics they need, said Alison McDonald, an Oakland district administrator who oversees high school principals.

"They're not sidelined there," she said. "It has to be rigorous because they are preparing these kids to pass the exit exam, to get a diploma and to go to college."

A radical approach
It is a different model - a somewhat radical approach - that keeps the immigrant students together for their entire time in high school. Unlike at newcomer high schools where students are there only briefly, the International High students already feel a sense of ownership in their school, McDonald said.

The school started with 100 students last year and expects to grow to 400 over the next few years. The school reaches out to churches, refugee groups and other organizations to recruit families, some of whose children do not go to school.

The school boasts a college-prep curriculum and English classes and strives to keep the students there until they graduate. It's a relatively untested approach and marks a departure from "newcomer" high schools, where recent immigrants typically study for several months or a year before transferring to a mainstream school.

Oakland International is the 10th school to open in the Internationals Network for Public Schools, which receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The other nine schools are in New York City, and there are plans to open one in San Francisco next year.

"They serve an incredible niche of young people who come from all over the world and are English-language learners," said Michelle Fine, a psychology and education professor at the City University of New York, who studied the schools in New York. "Somehow in these schools, they've figured out how to create a community that values difference but that also values trust and support."

Yet some education experts think Oakland International's melting pot is missing an ingredient seemingly required for assimilation in American society: a mix of American teenagers.

Separate - and unequal?
"Review of the history of racial segregation in this country confirms that separate schooling has meant unequal schooling," Rosa Castro Feinberg, an education professor at Florida International University, wrote in a 2000 study of newcomer schools. "Thus, we have many good reasons to be wary of the consequences of segregation on the basis of language, no matter how good the plan or how benign the intentions."

Comprehensive data on immigrant academic performance are difficult to obtain, but experts say that immigrant students have an advanced battery of needs - economic, cultural and educational.

Teachers at Oakland International specialize in one academic area but are all considered language instructors. They speak primarily in English to students and rely on students to translate if necessary.

English integration
Language-building activities are a part of every activity at the school. For a rock-climbing outing late in the school year, for example, students read about the basics and history of the sport and then filled out a response sheet that tested reading comprehension. Then they went rock climbing.

Oakland International's principal, Carmelita Reyes, said she would characterize the school's model not as experimental but as an option that can have great benefits for students with advanced needs.

"There is one to two hours of English language development at mainstream schools," said Reyes. "For some students that works, but for others it's frightening, confusing and frustrating."

Student Qi Ruan, however, questioned the isolation from native English speakers at the school. The 18-year-old lives in Oakland's Chinatown with her parents and has little opportunity to practice English.

"I want to study in a school that many people speak English well," Ruan said. "The United States citizens, they study in different school, right? So it's hard to speak more English in my life."

Chronicle staff writer Jill Tucker contributed to this report. E-mail Trevor Hunnicutt at thunnicutt@sfchronicle.com.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 11QT9U.DTL

Did I miss something? I don't see anything about them being illegal aliens.

Teachers at Oakland International specialize in one academic area but are all considered language instructors. They speak primarily in English to students and rely on students to translate if necessary.

This idea could work. Get these students speaking English and once they are proficient, they can be intergrated into regular American high schools. The english speaking students are not being slowed down to accommodate the non-english speaking and the non-english speaking can have their own intensive assimilation into English without feeling inadequate.

The one thing I saw that will make it work is that the students are taught in ENGLISH.

"Hi. My name is Antonio," an accompanying placard read. "I am 17 years old. I am from Thailand and made a mural about it. I was born in a refugee camp because my people are Karen, and we don't belong to Thailand. My mom is from Burma but we aren't allowed to be there, so we have to be in camps in Thailand. My mural has pictures of the camp I lived in."


Is this family legally here? Just wondering since they seem pre-disposed to turning up in countries where they "don't belong" according to the kid.

I think this could work, too. But immersion really is the best way to learn a foreign language.

I think what they should do is have the immigrants learning English at this slower pace, thus not holding back native English speakers. But each year, there needs to be a review of each student to see if and when they are ready to integrate into a native English speaking school. They have to meet certain English competency levels and make good grades in their classes to transfer. Those are the students, like the one mentioned, who really wants to be able to be involved in American teenage culture and be immersed in the language. Those are the students we WANT in our regular schools, the ones who want to integrate and learn English. And this kind of system would keep out the kids who refuse to integrate and speak English.

This would be no different than applicants for citizenship needing to be proficient in reading, writing, and speaking in English. This is just aimed at the under 18 crowd.

This would mean no more ESL programs at normal schools!! (Yay!)

I know, racial profiling and integration accusations would fly like crazy if this type of school became popular, but I think it can be a great idea!

American students are already having their educations diluted down to the point where we're going to be one of the dumbest Western countries in the world, all due to "immigrants" demanding we teach classes in their native languages (mainly Spanish).

TexasGal

Originally Posted by miguelina

Teachers at Oakland International specialize in one academic area but are all considered language instructors. They speak primarily in English to students and rely on students to translate if necessary.

This idea could work. Get these students speaking English and once they are proficient, they can be intergrated into regular American high schools. The english speaking students are not being slowed down to accommodate the non-english speaking and the non-english speaking can have their own intensive assimilation into English without feeling inadequate.

The one thing I saw that will make it work is that the students are taught in ENGLISH.

I'm with you on that one Miguelina.

The ESL programs are definitely not working. I know that at my daughter's school, where we also know people who teach, the programs are a joke.

Basically 4 hours of free time for the students where they talk and text on their phones, listen to music, dance, do hair and make up, sit around on desks talking.....everything but learn anything. Then they go to the required regular classes and sit there listening to their ipods and MP3s with headphones while texting

According to one guy we know who is a teacher there, it's not that nobody wants to teach them but they have no interest in learning and the parents are the first to go raising hell if their little darlings are expected to do anything remotely resembling learning. So, they get passed with B's in the ESL and earn straight F's for the mainstream classes.

If the idea of International schools is effective, then I say go for it. We're already forced to pay for their education whether they learn or not and this way, the ones who want to learn will, the ones who don't, won't and it will not have the adverse effect on American students who are being dragged down by the requirement that these kids be in school.

This topic is being moved to "Other Topics" since nothing in the article is about illegal aliens.