Ask the Ann Arbor School Board to Vote No on Tuition-Based Program

I was surprised--and not happily--to see this headline from the Ann Arbor News:

Tuition-based Program Would Bring Chinese Students to Ann Arbor High Schools.

The key things to know, from the article:

A new plan* proposed to the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education Wednesday evening would place up to 200 students from China in the city's high schools each year...The district is considering a partnership with BCC International Education Group, a Chinese-American company that has already created similar programs bringing Chinese high school students to Dexter and Saline.

*This idea (or something quite similar) was actually discussed, and rejected, a few years ago in the Pat Green era.

Here's the letter I just sent to the school board. You can send emails to the school board at: boe@aaps.k12.mi.us.

Dear Board of Ed-- 

I'm writing to ask you to oppose the proposed contract with a firm to bring in up to 200 Chinese tuition-paying students.  

We already have at least two exchange programs in the schools--Youth for Understanding and AFS--both programs devoted to bringing students from around the world, including--among many other countries--China. Did you know that YFU started in Ann Arbor as an exchange program with Germany post-World War II? Or that AFS's origins lie in the aftermath of World War I with a similar goal of inter-cultural understanding?  

Ann Arbor also hosts the USA's U-18 hockey program.  

I'm not sure exactly how many students come through these three programs but I think it's something in the range of 100 students.  

All of these programs rely on host family volunteers, and it's not so easy to find them. I know intimately what is involved, because we hosted a student from Sweden last year and a student from Uruguay the year before, both with YFU. Both were great experiences but it does involve a fair bit of work, and (I know I'm repeating myself) it's not easy to find host families.  

I asked several families this year if they could take a student, and none of them felt they were in a position to do it. And, in fact, just today I got an email asking for a host family for a student who needs to leave his current family--and that happens too, sometimes, in the middle of the year. 

I do understand the desire to bring in money for the district, but I don't think this is a good way. And I would say this even if I hadn't heard, today, that the Oxford School District has had a very negative experience with this company.  

With the current exchange programs the student in my house brought in the same per-pupil funding as every other student in the district, thus adding to the district's census.  

I'm asking you to vote no on this. 

Best, 

Ruth Kraut

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Exchange Student: Question #1

As I've mentioned, we have an exchange student living with us. Occasionally, I will share some of her questions about the U.S. educational system.

A recent question:

Why do American teachers give extra credit on tests and for homework?

Readers?

The Hikone Exchange & My Blog Post Exchange: They're About Developing Relationships

Back in June, when I was doing the post-a-day blog-a-thon, I arranged to exchange blog posts with a former Ann Arborite, Joan Lambert Bailey, currently living in Japan. Joan wrote about language learning as an adult--specifically, her efforts to learn Japanese! You can read that post here. (I asked her to write about this because I am personally very interested in language learning.) Joan's blog is Japan Farmer Markets.

Meanwhile, I offered to write about Ann Arbor's educational exchange with Hikone, Japan. Hikone is in Shiga Prefecture and it turns out there are several other exchanges with Shiga Prefecture that are still going on.

In any case, my guest post on Joan's blog is titled

44 Years as Sister Cities: Ann Arbor, Michigan and Hikone, Shiga Prefecture

I start the blog post like this: 

In November 1968, the State of Michigan and Shiga Prefecture in Japan became sister provinces.

A few months after that, in February 1969, Ann Arbor Michigan invited Hikone Japan to be a “Sister City.” At the time, Ann Arbor already had sister city relationships with Tuebingen, Germany and Belize City in Belize. Ann Arbor has the University of Michigan, and Tuebingen and Hikone both have universities.

In fact, the first article about Hikone in the Ann Arbor News from February 9, 1969, starts out:

“Watch out for the monkeys,” signs warn drivers near Hikone, Ann Arbor’s new sister city in Japan. Michiganians traveling in their sister state, Shiga Prefecture, may be reminded of the “watch out for deer” signs back home.

Read the rest of my blog post on Joan's blog here.

And I didn't mention this on Joan's blog, but I got a lot of the information for this post from the Ann Arbor District Library's Old News feature, which you can find here. There are lots of great articles there!

The Ann Arbor Public Schools exchange program is coordinated by AAPS Rec & Ed.

Oh, and one more thing: Next time you drive down Packard Road and you see the street labeled Hikone, recognize that that street is named after Hikone, Japan--even though in Ann Arbor we pronounce the street Hi-Kone, and in Japan, they pronounce the city Hee-Koh-Nee!