Involving mom and dad

"My parents are very happy I'm learning Chinese," said Angelique Torres, 11, who also is conversant in Spanish. "The hardest things in Chinese are the tones and characters and the pronunciation of the characters."

"They are bowled over with the Chinese, just blown away," said Adilifu, the assistant principal, who has been at the school for eight years. "The parents support us 100 percent on back-to-school night and we have an 'Attend School With Your Child' day."

Wu said the students "read to the parents even if they don't understand, so they involve the parents and extend the learning when they're home. A lot of them want to go to China to study."

With only two Chinese students in the school, the parents can't help their children with their language learning. "They don't go home and listen to Chinese, so they have to hear it in the classroom and have it repeated often," said eighth-grade teacher Baozhong Ye, who tries to teach real-life applications such as the weather and food price comparison.

How program works

The Confucius Classroom program, which is almost 2 years old, reaches nearly 25,000 students in 27 states and the District of Columbia. It is only in schools that already have Asian language studies.

Resources such as DVDs, professional development, free interaction, a newsletter with 7,000 subscribers, and a National Chinese Language Conference provide growth opportunities, according to Livaccari, the Asia Society's education director.

Programs are flourishing in such unlikely places as Oklahoma and Utah, Iowa and New Hampshire, West Virginia and Texas. "That's the great sea change," Livaccari said. "It's become incredibly diverse, available to all students across the board. There are great opportunities and challenges to a wider audience in the last five to six years."

Livaccari said the Confucius Classroom program is focused on the big picture. "China is going to be very important in the future, and what I like about the Chinese language is its interesting features (characters, tones) and the cognitive skills needed. In addition, the tradition of culture is an alternative to the eurocentric vision of the world."

Livaccari, who speaks Chinese, Japanese and some Korean, said, "The basic grammar is very simple to learn. It's easier than Spanish, French and German. You can learn any language if it's presented in the right way."

Each of the Confucius Classroom programs also works with a sister school in China on various projects. The Medgar Evers counterpart is in Jinhua in East China's Zhejiang province.

What makes Medgar Evers a perfect environment is its unique approach. "We don't follow the traditional middle school model," Adilifu said. "We focus on an accelerated high school prep-early college program where students can take six to 15 credits at (neighboring) Medgar Evers College. We have our kids prepared to take the high school Regents (exam) in the eighth grade, which is not common in the city."

Nor is such performance common in a school, like Medgar Evers, where 80 percent of the students qualify for a free or reduced-price school lunch. These children do not come from privileged backgrounds.

Livaccari said he thinks learning Chinese "empowers students greatly" and is an asset in applying to colleges. "It also can raise their self-esteem to achieve across the board. Doing well in Chinese can redefine them and the image they have of themselves."