The Online Debate
The WW-P News’ July 9 story, “Technicality Delays PIACS Charter School Hearing,” has generated more than 70 comments online at www.wwpinfo.com. Among the threads from both proponents and opponents of the new charter school was the following exchanges focusing on whether or not the proposed new school would be a public re-creation of the private YingHua Language School, which currently operates on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville and which — some surmise — might cease operations if the public charter school were in operation.
Robert Smyth, an Edison resident who said his family was active the YingHua school posted the following: “We were also among many stakeholders at YingHua who were left out of the loop last year when PIACS was planned and the fate of YingHua decided. We heard some rumors about what was going on… but not much. Soon after filing the charter school application last October, Dr. Bonnie Liao [principal of YingHua and also a founder of PIACS] presented the wider YingHua community with a fait accompli, and then accepted questions. And I must say that I felt Dr. Liao treated adversely affected families and teachers with breathtaking insensitivity. So, yes, I admit I view Dr. Liao’s ventures with an unfavorable bias.”
“The PIACS founders are effectively using the interest of a relatively large number of families in a publicly funded Mandarin immersion/IB education to rescue the mission of a private school that’s floundering because recruitment efforts have yielded too few tuition-paying families. This strategy was explicitly discussed at YingHua. Many of us worked hard for YingHua’s recruitment initiatives. The dominant view was that there really is a substantial amount of local interest in YingHua’s mission, but that, unfortunately for us, many of the interested families didn’t prioritize the same way we did, and others just couldn’t afford it.
“I’m not against publicly funded language immersion programs. I think many people could be swayed through the analysis of evidence and respectful discussion. But I am against the fast track process that was used to obtain PIACS’ charter.”
Later Smyth posted that “the PIACS mission is indeed an extension and continuation of the core of the YingHua mission. It was always my understanding that key people at YingHua hoped that economically advantaged families would be sufficiently generous in their support of the school to enable less economically fortune families to participate. And to some extent, this really happened. YingHua was conscientious with accommodations. We all would have liked to see the teachers paid better, and … well … in the end, there just wasn’t enough money.”
Parker Block, a spokesman and co-founder of PIACS, argued otherwise: “Only 11 of the 170 students registered are currently enrolled at the YingHua International School (YHIS). Over 90 percent of the families that comprise PIACS have nothing to do with YHIS.
“The majority of children registered with PIACS are currently enrolled in the public school system. The parents of these children have chosen PIACS because they want a dual-language immersion and an inquiry-based framework within the public system just as there are in many top public school districts around the country.
“In a tough economy, it is a luxury to be able to pay property taxes and send children to a private school, particularly if you have more than one child. While PIACS is not a re-incarnation of a private school (there are many differences in the curriculum) parents believe these types of programs should not be reserved for the economic elites. PIACS offers an education that should be available to all children.”
To see more of the comments online, click to last edition’s story at: https://www.wwpinfo.com/index.php?option=com_us1more&Itemid=6&key=07-09-2010_charter
