Expanding Mandarin programs has it obstacles as a NY Times article "Palo Alto Board Rejects Classes in Mandarin" illustrates. One wonders what world these nay-saying Palo Alto parents think their children will live in.
...But after weeks of debate occasionally tinged with racial overtones, the Palo Alto Unified School District decided early Wednesday against a plan for Mandarin language immersion, citing practical concerns as well as whether the classes would give the small group of students in them an unfair advantage.
The proposal, which was voted down 3 to 2 after a marathon six-hour meeting of the district school board, would have established two classes taught mostly in Mandarin — the world’s most spoken language, used by nearly one billion Chinese — to 40 kindergarten and first-grade students at a local elementary school...
The idea for a Mandarin immersion program was first floated here four years ago. The most recent plan was proposed to the board in December and then modified earlier this month. If approved, Palo Alto would have joined two other Bay Area cities with Chinese language immersion programs in schools. They are Cupertino, a Silicon Valley neighbor, and San Francisco, which has two Mandarin immersion programs and five in Cantonese, another Chinese dialect.
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