tired of "diversity for Deal and Wilson" as an argument

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Money, in a word. I guess we can get into a debate about whether upper and upper-middle class students tend to be better prepared for school, but for the sake of argument let's just assume that that point is settled. So the question is how do we, as a city, use these upper and upper-middle class students to our advantage in improving educational opportunities for everyone. I think the answer is innovating schools that will entice these students to spread out (and maybe even entice some of the families using private schools to come back to public schools). The answer is NOT carving out space for 10 or 20 or even 100 OOB students to attend the one coveted middle school. Where does that leave the rest of the OOB population?

I understand what you are saying, and agree with it, for the most part. But the bolded sentence makes me cringe (even though I generally agree with it). My kid is not a tool to be used for social change. She's a 7 yo who deserves the best public education possible (as do all 7 yos, and all kids). And I'm fortunate to be able to provide her (within reason) with those opportunities. I wish all kids had the same opportunities, but I'm not willing to sacrifice her on the alter of social engineering so DCPS can "improve." Call me selfish, but that's how I view my responsibility as a parent. I'm not talking about being in a lily-white, rich school - she goes to a charter now, and the diversity there, both racial and SES, whould make many JKLMM parents run for the hills. But the minute I feel like she's being disadvantaged to further some political agenda is the minute I start screaming bloody murder, and either move to the 'burbs <shudder> or start applying to privates.

+1000,000 Totally agree. It is not my kid's job to fix other kids. That would be the schools' and parents' jobs!

Yeah but if we don't fix other kids, we pay for it dearly later on when they are adults.

I did not say that these poor kids should not be helped. I said it was not my kid's job. It is the parents' and the schools' job to fix these kids. I would like to see DCPS offer safe schools with curricula that actually challenges every student and has high expectations for behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To 16:49. I do not dispute that they were neighborhood schools. I believe I stated that they were neighborhood schools that were essentially abandoned by the people who lived in the neighborhoods. To elaborate, the people in those neighborhoods preferred to send their children to private school rather than the neighborhood school.

This is such a tired trope.

There is an excellent history here: http://dme.dc.gov/DC/DME/Publication%20Files/Policy%20Brief%201%20-%20DC%20Student%20Assignment%20and%20Choice%20Policy%20DRAFT.pdf

It's chock full of facts.

Here's one: DCPS enrollment went from 147,000 in 1966 to 72,000 in 2006. In 1966 the system was 91% black and 9% white. In those 40 years, the whole system population collapsed, losing more than half of its students. The system lost 9,600 white students and 74,000 black students. To say that Deal and Wilson neighbors abandoned their schools is a gross distortion. The entire city abandoned their neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. I am a native Washingtonian who in the early 80's traveled from Columbia Heights across Rock Creek Park to attend a quality elementary school and then Deal Jr high school. Back then there were plenty of spaces since these schools were not in vogue with those who lived in the neighborhood. It was easier to manage this OOB process than try to deal with the fact that DC in the 1980s remained as segregated (in terms of housing and education) in the 80s as it had been in the 60s. Fast forward to today, I think DC still does not want to (or does not know how to deal) with fact that DC was never truly integrated and the discriminatory practices employed in the 50s, including redlining and covenants prohibiting sales of Ward 3 homes to African-Americans/Black, were never ameliorated. Now as a result of this inaction, DC is still de facto segregated and now thanks to gentrification, economically segregated.

If the Ward 3 schools become neighborhood schools, essentially a "separate and unequal" school system has been created - with the best public schools being in Ward 3 with great facilities, test scores, innovative classes/course work, teaching staff etc and the other schools across the park with low test scores, inferior facilities and classes, teachers etc . DC has begun to improve on the physical plants of its East of the Park schools but test scores are still dismal compared to Ward 3 schools. This is why I think that a legal challenge to any boundary revisions that cuts out diversity in Ward 3 has a chance of success. The history of racial discrimination in DC is distinguishable from the facts of the PICS and might lead to a different outcome. I agree with jsteele in that the threat of being branded as the govt that brought back a separate system for elite Whites in Ward 3 vs AA/Blacks in the Wards across the park means that diversity at Deal and Wilson will be somehow be retained.

I appreciate your comments and think that your remark about DCPS never really dealing with meaningful desegregation is an important one. OOB created a de facto desegregation using a path of least resistance kind of approach (let the AA kids come west). However, DCPS benefited from a quirk of timing -- the mass exodus of whites from the city. Had DCPS schools remained popular with large numbers of white families, DCPS would have had to develop a less laissez faire approach that ultimately might have proven more fruitful. DCPSs inattention leaves what little desegregation the system does have vulnerable as whites, through matter of right enrollment, squeeze out minority students in WOTP schools. The schools that await them back home are less than palatable at the moment. I am saddened by a system that promoted an integration scheme whereby 30 years worth of AA children have had to travel to the white part of town to receive their due.

As a parent in your family's shoes I might very well have done what they did by sending my kids across town to a better school. However, while OOB undoubtedly yields private benefits, these benefits come at the expense of the overall public good in that OOB enrollment has the effect of clustering the majority of the system's motivated families into just a few schools, leaving the others to wither on the vine. The natural growth of IB students in this tiny fraction of schools means that DCPS approach to desegregation needs to be revisited. I suggest using a series of carrots to entice reticent families into other schools. Massive redistricting or blowing up the system to save it a la the removal of neighborhood schools will serve as sticks that send nervous parents scurrying for safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:17:10 here, I meant to say create a school WOTP families want their kids to attend.

There is Hardy. An option many EOTP famiiles would love to have.

What I meant to say was a school EOTP that families WOTP and EOTP want to send their kids to. That would open up space at Deal and provide another good option for kids from all over the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I am a native Washingtonian who in the early 80's traveled from Columbia Heights across Rock Creek Park to attend a quality elementary school and then Deal Jr high school. Back then there were plenty of spaces since these schools were not in vogue with those who lived in the neighborhood. It was easier to manage this OOB process than try to deal with the fact that DC in the 1980s remained as segregated (in terms of housing and education) in the 80s as it had been in the 60s. Fast forward to today, I think DC still does not want to (or does not know how to deal) with fact that DC was never truly integrated and the discriminatory practices employed in the 50s, including redlining and covenants prohibiting sales of Ward 3 homes to African-Americans/Black, were never ameliorated. Now as a result of this inaction, DC is still de facto segregated and now thanks to gentrification, economically segregated.

If the Ward 3 schools become neighborhood schools, essentially a "separate and unequal" school system has been created - with the best public schools being in Ward 3 with great facilities, test scores, innovative classes/course work, teaching staff etc and the other schools across the park with low test scores, inferior facilities and classes, teachers etc . DC has begun to improve on the physical plants of its East of the Park schools but test scores are still dismal compared to Ward 3 schools. This is why I think that a legal challenge to any boundary revisions that cuts out diversity in Ward 3 has a chance of success. The history of racial discrimination in DC is distinguishable from the facts of the PICS and might lead to a different outcome. I agree with jsteele in that the threat of being branded as the govt that brought back a separate system for elite Whites in Ward 3 vs AA/Blacks in the Wards across the park means that diversity at Deal and Wilson will be somehow be retained.

Probably the best remark I've read on DCUB in a LONG time. +1000

yep, great post. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Except, that the pp is incorrect. The schools EofTP receive MORE resources (fed and DC) than do WofTP Schools, the physical plants are on par if not more modern (Dunbar/Cooledge), there is better programing (zero charters in Ward 3 and zero ps-3), the political leadership of the city is AA AND the schools are close and not overcrowded. This is certainly NOT a pre Brown v Board situation. I would welcome a legal challenge to a logical boundary system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. I am a native Washingtonian who in the early 80's traveled from Columbia Heights across Rock Creek Park to attend a quality elementary school and then Deal Jr high school. Back then there were plenty of spaces since these schools were not in vogue with those who lived in the neighborhood. It was easier to manage this OOB process than try to deal with the fact that DC in the 1980s remained as segregated (in terms of housing and education) in the 80s as it had been in the 60s. Fast forward to today, I think DC still does not want to (or does not know how to deal) with fact that DC was never truly integrated and the discriminatory practices employed in the 50s, including redlining and covenants prohibiting sales of Ward 3 homes to African-Americans/Black, were never ameliorated. Now as a result of this inaction, DC is still de facto segregated and now thanks to gentrification, economically segregated.

If the Ward 3 schools become neighborhood schools, essentially a "separate and unequal" school system has been created - with the best public schools being in Ward 3 with great facilities, test scores, innovative classes/course work, teaching staff etc and the other schools across the park with low test scores, inferior facilities and classes, teachers etc . DC has begun to improve on the physical plants of its East of the Park schools but test scores are still dismal compared to Ward 3 schools. This is why I think that a legal challenge to any boundary revisions that cuts out diversity in Ward 3 has a chance of success. The history of racial discrimination in DC is distinguishable from the facts of the PICS and might lead to a different outcome. I agree with jsteele in that the threat of being branded as the govt that brought back a separate system for elite Whites in Ward 3 vs AA/Blacks in the Wards across the park means that diversity at Deal and Wilson will be somehow be retained.

Probably the best remark I've read on DCUB in a LONG time. +1000

yep, great post. Thanks.

OK as great as this might be as a statement of personal history it does not reflect current law following the dismantlement of urban desegregation laws and policies following the Supreme Court cases of the 1990s. The law will not require DC to allow African-American children from East of the Park to get into Deal and Wilson. Anyone can sue and cause PR headaches for the Mayor, but the law will not require an ironclad route to Deal and Wilson as the only possible solution to our desegregated past. That is not constitutionally or statutorily required now, if it ever was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Except, that the pp is incorrect. The schools EofTP receive MORE resources (fed and DC) than do WofTP Schools, the physical plants are on par if not more modern (Dunbar/Cooledge), there is better programing (zero charters in Ward 3 and zero ps-3), the political leadership of the city is AA AND the schools are close and not overcrowded. This is certainly NOT a pre Brown v Board situation. I would welcome a legal challenge to a logical boundary system.

+1. And, if there is an underrepresented minority in Wilson today, it is whites, so the legal pseudo argument is mostly an excuse for political gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DCPS wants to encourage higher SES and well-educated families (of all races) to consider EoftheP schools, then not only do they have to create G&T test-in/magnet options to ensure that the advanced kid will not be dragged down, but they also have to figure out how to get tough on the behavior/cultural issues that frighten higher SES families away. That means being a lot quicker to expel problem kids and/or create specialized KIPP-like models to redirect the behaviorally challenged kids into. No matter the quality of the magnet program, parents (both white and AA) are not going to send their kid to [Eastern/Coolidge/CHEC/Roosevelt/etc.] if they are afraid of their kid getting "jumped" in the hallway.

Following up on 11:19--if DCPS wanted to capture the higher SES families up 16th from Dupont to Colonial Villlage---then it should focus on CHEC/Bell or McFarland/Roosevelt and then feed Oyster Adams/Ross/Garrison/Bancroft/Shepard Park/West/Powell into it. (I'm probably forgetting an ES but you get the general idea).

I agree with this. I'm the product of a major city's G&T test-in magnet schools myself. That was a good model for encouraging diversity (I think there were racial quotas involved at the time) while maintaining very high academic standards for qualifying students. I'd very much like to see such options here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If DCPS wants to encourage higher SES and well-educated families (of all races) to consider EoftheP schools, then not only do they have to create G&T test-in/magnet options to ensure that the advanced kid will not be dragged down, but they also have to figure out how to get tough on the behavior/cultural issues that frighten higher SES families away. That means being a lot quicker to expel problem kids and/or create specialized KIPP-like models to redirect the behaviorally challenged kids into. No matter the quality of the magnet program, parents (both white and AA) are not going to send their kid to [Eastern/Coolidge/CHEC/Roosevelt/etc.] if they are afraid of their kid getting "jumped" in the hallway.

Following up on 11:19--if DCPS wanted to capture the higher SES families up 16th from Dupont to Colonial Villlage---then it should focus on CHEC/Bell or McFarland/Roosevelt and then feed Oyster Adams/Ross/Garrison/Bancroft/Shepard Park/West/Powell into it. (I'm probably forgetting an ES but you get the general idea).

I agree with this. I'm the product of a major city's G&T test-in magnet schools myself. That was a good model for encouraging diversity (I think there were racial quotas involved at the time) while maintaining very high academic standards for qualifying students. I'd very much like to see such options here.

We would all love to see such options. Quite frankly, the demographic shift in the population of DC over the past decade has made such an option feasible again. It is time for us to demand it.

[Anonymous]

This question of a G&T school has come up so many times. I remember writing to Rhee when she first came to DC asking about it. I'll be going to one of the focus groups about boundaries and will plan to bring it up, AGAIN.

Just need to come up with ways to make it work. Do you pilot it within an existing high school like Wilson or McKinley Tech and once it gets momentum, spin off on its own? Do you find an empy space and start from scratch? How would this test-in school differ from Walls which is humanities based?

How have other jursidictions started these lately? And please don't mention TJ or Stuyvesant - are there other more recent G&T models to follow.

[Anonymous]

+1000,000 Totally agree. It is not my kid's job to fix other kids. That would be the schools' and parents' jobs!

Could not agree more! Instead of all of this anonymous bickering, we should rise up a level and demand we get better principals to lead our schools. Deal was not attracting IB families before the school made academic and behavioral turnarounds with the lead of a good principal. Let's find out what worked well there and replicate that success for other schools. Deal cannot serve all of the MS kids in the city so there will always be losers unless we turnaround more schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1000,000 Totally agree. It is not my kid's job to fix other kids. That would be the schools' and parents' jobs!

Could not agree more! Instead of all of this anonymous bickering, we should rise up a level and demand we get better principals to lead our schools. Deal was not attracting IB families before the school made academic and behavioral turnarounds with the lead of a good principal. Let's find out what worked well there and replicate that success for other schools. Deal cannot serve all of the MS kids in the city so there will always be losers unless we turnaround more schools.

YES!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:+1000,000 Totally agree. It is not my kid's job to fix other kids. That would be the schools' and parents' jobs!

Could not agree more! Instead of all of this anonymous bickering, we should rise up a level and demand we get better principals to lead our schools. Deal was not attracting IB families before the school made academic and behavioral turnarounds with the lead of a good principal. Let's find out what worked well there and replicate that success for other schools. Deal cannot serve all of the MS kids in the city so there will always be losers unless we turnaround more schools.

I believe the secret has been a zero tolerance policy for behavioral bullshit plus a very strong emphasis on organization. Once a school has established basic functionality, it can start to think about accommodating diverse educational needs, including those of stronger students.

[Anonymous]

PP, That's exactly what happened at Deal. Dr. Kim did not tolerate behavioral disruption and set a higher bar for both student and teacher actions. At the same time she started integrating IB from her first year and set up middle school teaming to improve the academic programming. I believe she wrote her dissertation on integrating diversity within the school as well. This can be done elsewhere with solid leadership. DC needs to add more compelling schools to parent choice list.