By Tara García Mathewson, US News, July 31, 2017
This article raises the very important issue of who should have priority in the expansion of bilingual education at a critical time, as DCPS is about to issue its strategic plan which will include the expansion of dual language programs. For our views on this issue, see here.
“The DC Language Immersion Project has been one of the loudest voices in favor of expanded dual-language education for the last few years. It formed in 2014 as a grassroots collective of parents, educators and community members interested in the broad goal of multilingual literacy for all.
The co-founders of the group are Italian and African-American, and they made their first major campaign the creation of a Spanish-English dual-language program at Houston Elementary. The school, on the city’s east side in an almost entirely black, English-speaking neighborhood, provided a strategic opportunity, according to co-founder and executive director of the project, Vanessa Bertelli: If they could successfully advocate for a dual-language program in this neighborhood, with these demographics, it would be an easier sell everywhere else.”
See full article in English here and Spanish here (Univision Noticias).