Chinese immersion program is renamed after parent pushback
The parents are correct – immersion programs are at least 50% in the target language through fifth grade, generally shifting to around 30% in middle school and one (or in exceptional cases, two) classes per day in high school. Cambridge no longer has a true Mandarin immersion program, they have “Mandarin immersion lite.”
Cambridge school district acknowledges reduction in Mandarin instruction time.
Since 2021, a Mandarin Chinese immersion program that has been a draw for Cambridge families has cut down on its Chinese instruction hours and changed its curriculum. Now, after months of debate between the school district and parents, the program is being renamed.
Parents of students at both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School and Putnam Avenue Upper School (PAUS) have been embroiled in conversations with school and district officials about changes to the immersion program’s curriculum and instruction hours. Parents say the program offers full immersion only from kindergarten to 2nd grade. After that, they say, the 50/50 split the program advertises becomes more like 33/67.
AXIS International Academy is a K-5 charter school that offers 50/50 immersion programs in Mandarin, Spanish and French.
An article about their new building (partly behind a paywall) is here.
Info about the school is here. The school’s enrollment seems to be climbing (figures here.)
Again, it baffles me that charter schools keep opening that offer immersion and do well while school districts keep trying to cut popular immersion programs.
Want to know what’s up with Mandarin immersion programs in the US? Looking for information on how to help your child’s school? Trying to convince your school district to open a new Mandarin immersion program? There’s a new report out for you.
It’s a the first big effort from Nexus Mandarin, a new non-profit dedicated to Mandarin language education in Pre-K through college. [Note: I’m on the board]
The authors sent out a survey to Mandarin immersion programs and got 102 responses from 22 states plus Washington, D.C. One of the starting-off points they used for their initial list was the Mandarin Immersion school list here.
Some of the interesting data [Note this is only from the 102 schools that responded, not all MI schools]
68% of schools public, 15% charter, 16% private
55% strand, 33% stand-alone, 12% strand in a multi-lingual school
2011-15 was the Golden Age for Mandarin immersion year starts, 36% of the nation’s schools started during that time.
81% of MI programs are in K – 6, 48% in middle school and 20% in high school. (I think that’s a little high for high, probably a result of who answered the survey.]
Chinese language arts and math are the classes most commonly taught in Mandarin.
92% of schools use simplified characters, 6% use traditional and 2% use both.
Students in MI programs tend to have high academic achievement.
Use Mandarin immersion as a way to sell your school
For parents fighting to keep programs going or to get their school district to start a new one, there’s useful data.
The authors say that “programs should brand MIPs as an innovative alternative to traditional educational programming.” It is a “value-added education with the same amount of funding and effort as for monolingual education.”
Students in Mandarin immersion programs develop the knowledge, skills, grit, and a broader worldview. ”
Not only that, but Mandarin immersion “is value-added education with the same amount of funding and effort as for monolingual education.”
What is Nexus Mandarin?
Nexus Mandarin is meant to fill some of the gap when the Asia Society moved away from focus on Chinese language learning in Kindergarten through high school in the United States. That included shutting down the Chinese Early Language and Immersion Network, which has done a lot of work on immersion programs in the U.S.
The Asia Society did this in part because those programs were funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education and it wanted to get away from any government funding.
Hopefully Nexus Mandarin can take on some of the important work the Asia Society was doing up until 2022.
Note that this is long and pretty research-heavy, and much of it is about Spanish immersion programs. But still, some interesting thoughts on how immersion programs function compared with bilingual programs, which are focused on English-language learners so that they can learn English while retaining their home language.
I will say there are counter-arguments made by some that immersion programs can too easily be inequitable because they’re focused on students who already speak English and, often, who are socio-economically more privileged than the English-language learners in their programs.
To that, I would reply two things: Public schools are meant to support all students. And, immersion programs bring families in districts and schools they might otherwise not choose, which brings federal per-student funding up and also brings in families eager to support the school. With districts struggling as student populations drop, bringing in more students is a win.
The Century Foundation March 13, 2025 By Conor Williams
Dual-language immersion (DLI) programs are increasingly popular in communities and states across the country. Their number is growing largely on the strength of two key shifts: one in the research on bilingual education’s efficacy and a subsequent change in public demand for multilingualism. These programs can be a powerful way for education leaders to support English learners’ success while also growing access to diverse learning environments for all students. This report explores the DLI ecosystem in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region blessed with extraordinary linguistic, racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity, but also a region wrestling with gentrification and significant wealth inequality.1
From a paper published in Development Science for May.
Compared musical pitch perception of young US children enrolled in Mandarin-language immersion education to their peers enrolled in English-only education at the same school. Mandarin-immersion education is associated with children’s enhanced ability to discriminate musical pitch, even when differences in working memory are controlled for. Mediation analyses revealed lexical tone accuracy for the most discernable trials mediated the relationship between immersion education and musical pitch sensitivity. These results provide support for language-to-music perceptual near transfer, grounded in shared pitch-processing mechanisms.
Utah has the best statewide language immersion program in the nation.
The Salt Lake Tribune
Parents of students in Utah’s dual language immersion programs in Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish should be concerned about the Utah State Board of Education’s decision to eliminate the entire state team of DLI directors and coordinators.
This is the team of language specialists who, since 2008, has worked with international immersion experts to develop language-specific curriculum, assessments and professional development for DLI teachers, making Utah’s DLI program a model that has been admired and replicated throughout the world.
By Tucson Local Media Staff Apr 15, 2026 Updated Apr 16, 2026
Both Sunrise Drive Elementary School and Ventana Vista Elementary School have been named 2026 A+ Schools of Excellence by the Arizona Educational Foundation. The two Catalina Foothills School District schools are among 48 public schools across the state to earn the designation this year.
Sunrise Drive Elementary School
Under the leadership of Principal Andrea Davidson, Sunrise Drive Elementary School serves approximately 490 students in grades K through 5, with families enrolling from across the Tucson metro area through open enrollment.
Mandarin Immersion Parents Council 