Note: I contacted the Board and the Superintendent asking for comments or objections to this post. They did not provide any. So, now Wiley. Two months after the district managed to avoid turning Leal school into a dual language castillo, the administration is at it again, with all the attendant drama. I will bracket out […]
I am not sure Rodney Davis deserves a political epitaph. His political career was defined by blandness, so he wouldn’t complain. His time in the Congress served as the rank and file Party soldier, he tried at all cost to avoid any controversy while making sure to create enough inconsequential partisan babble to remain in
on ideological affinities and gratuitous trolling Read More »
I have to admit that my initial analysis of the Urbana School District 116 drama’s most dynamic plotline of 2022 season – the consolidation of the dual language programs in one school, – was wrong. I surmised, from the general principles, that the main tension is created by the dual mandate of the dual language
reflections on the past season Read More »
It’s January, meaning I am busy plowing through hundreds of application to our PhD program. The process made me think once again, how writing the recommendation letters is an act of sheer altruism, and how much our job depends on acts like these. I mean, sure, there is a lot of unpaid work we do
graduate admissions and predatory capitalism Read More »
The meetings of the Board of Education of the Urbana school district on October 11 and 18 were fascinating spectacles of the school bureaucracy handling (thus far, successfully) the populace around the contentious issue of converting the Leal school into the sole home of the district’s Dual Language (DL) program, ending its neighborhood school status.
civil rights: English Learners edition Read More »
The gothic saga of Dual Language is approaching a (provisional) climax, to be reached at the Board meeting on October 18, where the proposal of the “Spanish DL Committee” (of, by, and for the USD116 administration) will be discussed. The outcome we were predicting for some time now, – the consolidation of all Spanish DL
choosing your lens Read More »
The long predicted Fall campaign by the Urbana School District 116 to sell the decision they made, to merge all Dual Language classes in one school (codeword: “whole school model”) started. The crew of administrators responsible for the program (Directors Ricconi and Wiemelt) are working the parents, as usual, by triangulation. There are several intrinsic
DL: means and goals Read More »
Last Tuesday, the Urbana School District 116 held public hearings on the budget proposal for the next fiscal year. If you live in Urbana, you certainly should’ve heard about it, because it is a big deal. At $109 million of proposed expenditures, it is a third bigger than what the whole town of Urbana spends
the budget, the public and the hearing Read More »
I wrote that we don’t really know how our district’s Dual Language program serves the immigrant families. Well, now we do, kind of. Recall that the district’s Dual Language web page asks (themselves), How are students currently doing in the Dual Language program? and immediately replies: “Current assessment data suggest the following: Dual language students
“like we have never seen before” Read More »
The business meeting of the USD116 Board addressed many issues, but its focal point was, unmistakably, the report of the Spanish Dual Language (DL) program committee, which recommended to consolidate into one building the program, now spread over Leal and Dr. Williams schools, where it is colocated with the traditional, monolingual classes. A shrewd administrator
board meeting: dual language duplicity Read More »