Y*****2
发帖数: 38613 | 1 MILLINOCKET, Me. — Faced with dropping enrollment and revenue, the high
school in this remote Maine town has fixed on an unlikely source of
salvation: Chinese teenagers.
Never mind that Millinocket is an hour’s drive from the nearest mall or
movie theater, or that it gets an average 93 inches of snow a year. Kenneth
Smith, the schools superintendent, is so certain that Chinese students will
eventually arrive by the dozen — paying $27,000 a year in tuition, room and
board — that he is scouting vacant properties to convert to dormitories.
“We are going full-bore,” Dr. Smith said last week in his office at the
school, Stearns High, where the Chinese words for “hello” and “welcome”
were displayed on the dry-erase board and a Lonely Planet China travel guide
sat on the conference table. “You’ve got to move if you’ve got something
you believe is the right thing to do.”
On Friday, Dr. Smith left for China, where he is spending a week pitching
Stearns High to school officials, parents and students in Beijing, Shanghai
and two other cities. He has hired a consultant to help him make connections
in China, lobbied Millinocket’s elected officials and business owners to
embrace the plan and even directed the school’s cafeteria workers to add
Chinese food to the menu.
“We get some commodity pasta, and it makes a great lo mein,” said Kathy
Civiello, the school’s nutrition director, one of the many staff members
who appeared equally excited and bemused by the plan.
With China’s emergence as an economic juggernaut, colleges, universities
and private secondary schools have tried to recruit students from China and
have even opened campuses there. But Millinocket’s plan may be
unprecedented among public schools, even as they scramble for new sources of
revenue.
“This is the first we’ve even heard of it,” said Alexis Rice, a
spokeswoman for the National School Boards Association.
There is one hitch. Under State Department rules, foreign students can
attend public high school in the United States for only a year, a system
that Dr. Smith considers unfair, given that they can attend private high
schools for four years. He is pressing Maine’s Congressional delegation to
seek a change, but in the meantime, he intends to recruit a handful of
Chinese students to attend Stearns next year.
They would come to Millinocket for a year, Dr. Smith said, then perhaps
transfer to a private school or enroll in an American college or university.
Dr. Smith, a native of Maine who has traveled outside New England only
rarely, conceded he did not know much about China. But from what he had
heard and read in recent months, he said, two things were clear: China had a
large middle class with money to spend, and its students wanted to study
here.
“They want to learn English, and they want a college education,” he said.
“If we can get them into a college here, they will have achieved their
major goal.”
Dr. Smith is so certain of success that it almost feels wrong to ask: Why
would Chinese parents spend $27,000 to send their children to Stearns High,
which is housed in a 1960s building, has only one Advanced Placement course
and classroom maps so outdated they still show the Soviet Union, and where
more than half of the 200 students are poor enough to qualify for free lunch
?
“Our performing arts program is one of the best anywhere,” Dr. Smith said.
“We have a tremendous music department and small classes with plenty of
room. In China, you’re elbow to elbow.”
Fair enough. But why Millinocket, a town of 5,000 about 200 miles north of
Portland, Me., that fell on hard times after its paper mill filed for
bankruptcy in 2003? Vacant storefronts pock Penobscot Avenue, the main
street, and the most popular hangout for teenagers is a supermarket parking
lot.
“We’re a community full of assets,” Dr. Smith said, pointing to Mount
Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak, which looms just beyond the town, and the
abundant hunting, fishing and snow sport opportunities that the locals love.
“There’s the beauty, No. 1, and the fresh air. And the roads are good.”
Terry Given, an English teacher who was born here, was more blunt.
“I don’t want to sound flip,” Ms. Given said, “but why not? We won’t
know until we get the opportunity to know them and give them the opportunity
to know us. There’s something to be said for putting ourselves out there
to see if we can be the prize that’s claimed.”
for complete article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/education/27students.html?pagewanted=1&hpw | Y*****2
发帖数: 38613 | 2 very interesting article.
学费有点贵了，不过越来越多的中国父母送孩子出国读高中是必然的趋势。 | L******k
发帖数: 33825 | |
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