<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">"Alexander, Jennifer" <<a href="mailto:jalexan3@houstonisd.org">jalexan3@houstonisd.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">June 23, 2008 10:55:21 AM CDT</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">"Kim Potowski" <<a href="mailto:kimpotow@uic.edu">kimpotow@uic.edu</a>>, "Beatriz Ponce de Leon" <<a href="mailto:beatrizpdl@comcast.net">beatrizpdl@comcast.net</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>RE: Houston: shuttering Houston's only full-time dual language program?</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </div> <div style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; webkit-nbsp-mode: space; webkit-line-break: after-white-space"> <div><span class="972133415-23062008"><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2">Dear All,</font></span></div> <div><span class="972133415-23062008"><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"></font></span> </div> <div><span class="972133415-23062008"><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2">Suffice it to say that there are some very serious misrepresentations in this article. This school was not ever slated to close. EVER. It was slated to be moved due to several reasons- including needed repairs, and the fact that it is so successful that the parents of the programs have demanded that the school now be K-8 not just a K-6 grade campus.There is no room to accomodate those grades at the present location. Latest information is that the school will be moved to a neighboring school within only a few blocks. It is wonderful though when a school can make a group (actually a parent group) so inspired like this one has to save this one historic campus.</font></span></div> <div><span class="972133415-23062008"><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2"></font></span> </div> <div><span class="972133415-23062008"><font face="Arial" color="#0000ff" size="2">Jennifer</font></span></div> <blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <div></div> <div class="OutlookMessageHeader" lang="en-us" dir="ltr" align="left"><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Tahoma" size="2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10px;"><br></span></font></div><div><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> <blockquote type="cite"> <div> <div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica; COLOR: #000000" face="Helvetica" color="#000000" size="3"><b>From: </b></font><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">"Harold Schiffman" <<a href="mailto:hfsclpp@gmail.com">hfsclpp@gmail.com</a>></font></div> <div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica; COLOR: #000000" face="Helvetica" color="#000000" size="3"><b>Date: </b></font><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">June 17, 2008 7:51:10 AM CDT</font></div> <div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica; COLOR: #000000" face="Helvetica" color="#000000" size="3"><b>To: </b></font><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3">lp <<a href="mailto:lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu">lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu</a>></font></div> <div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica; COLOR: #000000" face="Helvetica" color="#000000" size="3"><b>Subject: </b></font><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3"><b>Houston: shuttering Houston's only full-time dual language program?</b></font></div> <div style="MARGIN: 0px"><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica; COLOR: #000000" face="Helvetica" color="#000000" size="3"><b>Reply-To: </b></font><font style="FONT: 12px Helvetica" face="Helvetica" size="3"><a href="mailto:lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu">lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu</a></font></div> <div style="MIN-HEIGHT: 14px; MARGIN: 0px"><br></div></div> <div>Summing up a school<br>Wharton Elementary is a high-performing school with community backing.<br>Why shutter it?<br><br><br>Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle<br><br>Houston Independent School District officials probably reckoned they<br>made a thrifty choice when they planned to close William Wharton<br>Elementary. Because many Wharton students come from neighborhoods<br>outside its zone, administrators must have assumed that shuttering the<br>school, consolidating its student body with that of a bigger facility,<br>and perhaps selling the pricey Montrose real estate was a winning<br>formula.<br><br>They failed to do their homework. A small army of Montrose residents<br>organized to save the school. The residents have spoken out at public<br>hearings, met with Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra and launched a<br>tidy new Web site called <a href="http://www.friendsofwharton.org">www.friendsofwharton.org</a>. In the process, the<br>coalition revealed the central role a healthy school plays for its<br>community. Wharton, the Montrose activists argue, is not only an<br>academic success story. It is a catalyst for political participation,<br>as neighbors return there year after year to vote. With cozy,<br>mini-Alamo style architecture, it's one of a handful of HISD<br>elementary schools considered architecturally significant. And it<br>hosts an Urban Harvest community garden, a neighborhood playground and<br>a baseball field, which cost the Neartown Little League more than<br>$400,000.<br><br>HISD, of course, is not the park service. Much as neighbors like<br>Wharton, administrators could argue, the district must pass only one<br>exam in deciding its fate: whether it benefits Houston students. Yet<br>Wharton, it turns out, educates well. Uniquely well. Home to Houston's<br>only full-time dual language program, Wharton offers a carefully<br>calibrated program that immerses native and non-native speakers in a<br>mix of languages. By the time these children get to secondary school,<br>all of them — native speakers or not — are bilingual. Intriguingly,<br>the system enhances the test scores of both English- and<br>Spanish-speaking children.<br><br>Wharton, which has 378 students in its 397 available slots, just<br>finished educating its second set of dual-language sixth-graders.<br>Here's how they did on TAKS. In reading, 94 percent met the district<br>standard; 32 percent achieved Commended Performance. In math, 100<br>percent met the district standard; 68 percent achieved Commended<br>Performance. All these students, moreover, have the language skills to<br>take the TAKS in English or in Spanish. As one school administrator<br>put it in a letter to activists, "Those are clearly 'Exemplary'<br>results. ... Wharton is going to be a Recognized School again this<br>year. And our reward is ... ?"<br><br>HISD, of course, isn't hunting down good schools to persecute. The<br>district needs to economize: Recent state legislation essentially<br>flattened the district's revenue, and overall enrollment is ebbing.<br>According to HISD policy, Wharton fits the category of schools too<br>small to be cost-effective. Renovating the 1929 building will<br>certainly cost more than tweaking the new construction funded by<br>recent bond issues.<br><br>But the district neglected several critical calculations. The first:<br>unilaterally uprooting an institution in a community fast changing<br>from renters to homeowners, and from largely single, transient<br>residents to young families who are firmly committed to the community.<br>Consistently, Montrose activists and at least one school board member<br>complain that HISD refuses to act with transparency and respond to<br>local input. When, how and where the planned consolidation will occur<br>remains a mystery.<br><br>HISD also failed to set a clear protocol for closing small schools.<br>The district has chosen not to shutter several small facilities,<br>typically underperformers, partly because of their historical meaning<br>to their neighborhoods. Throughout Houston — and Montrose is no<br>exception — many neighborhoods have two schools serving the same age<br>group, puzzlingly close together. This is a legacy of past educational<br>segregation, when blacks and whites went to separate, decidedly<br>unequal schools. HISD has rightly avoided shutting down some small<br>institutions that faithfully served their neighborhoods as community<br>centers over generations. Though Wharton was originally a white school<br>(it's now mostly Hispanic), it plays a similar role in the surrounding<br>neighborhood.<br><br>Least forgivable, HISD wants to dismantle a school that is succeeding.<br>How many other successes can the district claim? According to recent<br>research, Wharton probably plays a role in its students' scores. If<br>so, closing it is no economy. It's easy to imagine why parents cherish<br>this school. It's far less ordinary to have a school inspire equal<br>support and gratitude from neighbors without children there. If<br>Wharton's closing goes forward, the district will rob Houston — and<br>itself — of a badly needed success story.<br><br><a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5839456.html">http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5839456.html</a><br>-- <br>**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to<br>its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner<br>or sponsor of<br>the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who<br>disagree with a<br>message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br>*******************************************<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br> <div apple-content-edited="true"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="WORD-SPACING: 0px; FONT: 12px Helvetica; TEXT-TRANSFORM: none; COLOR: rgb(0,0,0); TEXT-INDENT: 0px; WHITE-SPACE: normal; LETTER-SPACING: normal; BORDER-COLLAPSE: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; webkit-text-stroke-width: 0"> <div style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; webkit-nbsp-mode: space; webkit-line-break: after-white-space"> <div> <div style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; webkit-nbsp-mode: space; webkit-line-break: after-white-space"> <div style="WORD-WRAP: break-word; webkit-nbsp-mode: space; webkit-line-break: after-white-space"> <div> <div><br></div></div></div></div></div> <div><br></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></div><br></div></blockquote></div> </blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>_________</div><div>Kim Potowski</div><div>Associate Professor of Spanish</div><div>Director, Spanish for heritage speakers</div><div>The University of Illinois at Chicago</div><div>Department of Spanish, French, Italian & Portuguese</div><div>1722 UH, MC-315, 601 S. Morgan St.</div><div>Chicago, IL 60607</div><div><a href="mailto:kimpotow@uic.edu">kimpotow@uic.edu</a></div></div></div></div></div><div><br></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></body></html>