Where DC's dual language schools are
Another map!
Dual language schools are one topic the boundary study committee is thinking about. To better get my head around this, I was looking for a good map of all the dual language programs as well as the neighborhood boundaries for those programs.
I didn’t find something that combined both, so I made it:
On the interactive version, you can also click to see which DCPS school boundary is which and how the feeder patterns fit together.
You can see a kind of donut of neighborhoods with rights to dual language DCPS programs, and then the donut hole in the center (representing Tubman, Raymond, and H.D. Cooke elementary schools, and Garrison to the south).
Then charter dual language schools are almost all north and west of there, especially clustered in Brookland.
A small cluster with DCPS’ Houston Elementary and two charters is in the northeast quadrant portion east of the river, and Tyler is the only dual language school south of the Capitol.
Some of the questions the committee may tackle include:
Should the city aim to expand dual language programs in other areas?
Is there a fairness problem around all the dual language boundary schools, where people on one side of a street are in a dual language school (most of them not taking people from out of boundary) and people on the other side aren’t?
Should feeder patterns more strongly account for dual language schools feeding into dual language secondary schools, or is that less of a priority compared to other things (like neighborhood cohesion)?
Do there need to be more predictable feeder patterns for students at dual language charter schools? (Right now only some of the schools on the map have rights to feed DC International, and since most have expanded, those that do have DCI rights could potentially exceed the numbers DCI can take.)
Should feeder patterns integrate between DCPS and charters as opposed to keeping them totally separate? Is that something anyone is asking for?
What do you think should be done with dual language programs? What do you notice from this map?
Personally, I think it would be better if students had a 'right' to attend a dual language school in their language if they speak a language other than English at home. I realize that it would require a lot of language evaluation and probably wouldn't fit the district's idea of equal access, but I think if 'fairness' is the criterion we are considering, it isn't very fair to deprive children of the right to study in English and in their native language. All research on the topic has concluded that, when done right, education in one's native language has a positive effect on school outcomes. By letting boundary, at-risk, random, or whatever students in before bilingual students who have the most to gain and lose seems unfair to me.
Now overlay with the percentage of Black students in the DCPS neighborhood schools, and that will tell you everything you need to know about the supply of dual language schools.