Interesting article about school quality when demographics factored out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in.

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'm saying two things: first, of course it's not correct to say "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional". What poverty (and racism) means is that for a given student population--white or black--you're going to have a significantly higher number of kids who are struggling with issues caused by poverty. As you say "the EXACT SAME 'dysfunctional' behavior a white kid might engage in."

But we don't live in a city where large numbers of white kids are living in poverty. That's sad, and unfair, and an indictment of the larger system, and a slew of other things. But it's the reality we live in in DC in 2017.

So a school with a high number of very poor kids is a school in which a high number of kids are struggling under the weight of poverty. Not all of them are going to be dysfunctional, but certainly a higher number of them will be compared to a school in which no kids are struggling with poverty.

Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispel the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

That may be what the GGW article was meant to dispel, but really all it shows is that high-poverty schools can have better tests. Is it possible that our local middle school would have better test scores if it were run like a USMC boot camp? Possibly. If that's what it takes to get the test scores up, and that's what kids who are struggling with poverty need in order to succeed, that's a model worth pursuing. But that's not a school model that fits the educational values of our family. Maybe that's totally racist.

It's segregationist. So take that as you will.

The entirety of the US education system is segregationist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody's saying you need to send your kid from AU Park to Benning Terrace for elementary school. But if you chose to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, turning up your nose at the local schools for being "not a good fit" or "not yet flipped" is problematic.

Ah, okay. So now we're just haggling over the price?

Are you interested in engaging in this discussion in good faith, or not?

The question was a serious one. You said "nobody's saying you need to send your kid from AU Park to Benning Terrace" as though it was the most obvious distinction in the world. But it's not obvious at all. This entire dialog is about where (and how) people draw that line. You're begging the question.

Sure that article is about SE, but there were exactly the same concerns that were made in areas around Columbia Heights during the school consolidation effort 5-10 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in.

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'm saying two things: first, of course it's not correct to say "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional". What poverty (and racism) means is that for a given student population--white or black--you're going to have a significantly higher number of kids who are struggling with issues caused by poverty. As you say "the EXACT SAME 'dysfunctional' behavior a white kid might engage in."

But we don't live in a city where large numbers of white kids are living in poverty. That's sad, and unfair, and an indictment of the larger system, and a slew of other things. But it's the reality we live in in DC in 2017.

So a school with a high number of very poor kids is a school in which a high number of kids are struggling under the weight of poverty. Not all of them are going to be dysfunctional, but certainly a higher number of them will be compared to a school in which no kids are struggling with poverty.

Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispel the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

That may be what the GGW article was meant to dispel, but really all it shows is that high-poverty schools can have better tests. Is it possible that our local middle school would have better test scores if it were run like a USMC boot camp? Possibly. If that's what it takes to get the test scores up, and that's what kids who are struggling with poverty need in order to succeed, that's a model worth pursuing. But that's not a school model that fits the educational values of our family. Maybe that's totally racist.

It's segregationist. So take that as you will.

The entirety of the US education system is segregationist.

Yes. Well, that's what we're grappling with.

[Anonymous]

"Not a good fit" rarely means just that and everyone knows it and rolls their eyes when they hear it, but as someone who grew up in the era when everyone who couldn't afford private school had no choice but attend the local elementary, I'm glad that parents have options, even if some of them try to deceive others (and themselves) for the reasons why a school isn't a good fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

I'm curious what your take is on this article:

Minter said that if the children are bused from Kimball to Davis, there won’t be trouble, but that “if they have to walk through the community, there’s a good chance there could be a problem.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm not an expert on AA culture, but it seems to me this has less to do with AA culture, and more to do with the culture of poverty over multiple generations.

PP here. I read the article, but I'm not sure how that's directly related to my comments about applying anecdotal experiences to an entire culture? I do agree with you that violence and behavioral problems have more to do with concentrated, multigenerational poverty than anything else. I've gone to school with AA classmates from poor backgrounds, but the concentrated poverty and violence here in DC is like anything I've every experienced growing up in the South in a suburban area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

I'm curious what your take is on this article:

Minter said that if the children are bused from Kimball to Davis, there won’t be trouble, but that “if they have to walk through the community, there’s a good chance there could be a problem.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm not an expert on AA culture, but it seems to me this has less to do with AA culture, and more to do with the culture of poverty over multiple generations.

PP here. I read the article, but I'm not sure how that's directly related to my comments about applying anecdotal experiences to an entire culture? I do agree with you that violence and behavioral problems have more to do with concentrated, multigenerational poverty than anything else. I've gone to school with AA classmates from poor backgrounds, but the concentrated poverty and violence here in DC is like anything I've every experienced growing up in the South in a suburban area.

PP is an idiot for applying their anecdotal experiences to "black people". But we're not talking about "black people" here, we're talking about high-poverty populations, concentrated as the majority in DC public schools. People are definitely racist, but you don't have to be a racist to read 20 years of WaPo articles about poor kids struggling to make it through the day in hellish high-poverty schools and say, "No thanks." There's a threshold at which middle-class parents (of any color) will send their kids to the local public school. I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised it's as low a threshold as it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

Ugh. Drama llama. So many different types of AA and black cultures, just because you are black doesn't make YOU the voice for black culture either.

[Anonymous]

The Ludlow-Taylor/Two Rivers anectdote is lame. Everyone at LT knows it's a great school and it's no secret to others that no secret that LT earned the coveted "blue ribbon" status last year for performance (and not for the easier category of "most improved"). LT also has incredible arts and music programs, awesome teachers, and a dynamic, engaged principal. According to demographics data, the overall demographics for LT and TR are nearly identical (the article is misleading on that point), with white students accounting for 25% of student body - a statistic that refutes the obnoxious implication that white families are fleeing LT for the whiter arms of a charter school.

We left LT for Two Rivers because although LT is a great school, we were excited to try TR's Expeditionary Learning curriculum. If you haven't done so and are curious about the basis for TR's long waiting lists - read up on Expeditionary Learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in.

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'm saying two things: first, of course it's not correct to say "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional". What poverty (and racism) means is that for a given student population--white or black--you're going to have a significantly higher number of kids who are struggling with issues caused by poverty. As you say "the EXACT SAME 'dysfunctional' behavior a white kid might engage in."

But we don't live in a city where large numbers of white kids are living in poverty. That's sad, and unfair, and an indictment of the larger system, and a slew of other things. But it's the reality we live in in DC in 2017.

So a school with a high number of very poor kids is a school in which a high number of kids are struggling under the weight of poverty. Not all of them are going to be dysfunctional, but certainly a higher number of them will be compared to a school in which no kids are struggling with poverty.

Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispel the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

That may be what the GGW article was meant to dispel, but really all it shows is that high-poverty schools can have better tests. Is it possible that our local middle school would have better test scores if it were run like a USMC boot camp? Possibly. If that's what it takes to get the test scores up, and that's what kids who are struggling with poverty need in order to succeed, that's a model worth pursuing. But that's not a school model that fits the educational values of our family. Maybe that's totally racist.

It's segregationist. So take that as you will.

The entirety of the US education system is segregationist.

It's not racist or segregationist. It's choosing an educational program that is a good fit for your child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

I'm curious what your take is on this article:

Minter said that if the children are bused from Kimball to Davis, there won’t be trouble, but that “if they have to walk through the community, there’s a good chance there could be a problem.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm not an expert on AA culture, but it seems to me this has less to do with AA culture, and more to do with the culture of poverty over multiple generations.

PP here. I read the article, but I'm not sure how that's directly related to my comments about applying anecdotal experiences to an entire culture? I do agree with you that violence and behavioral problems have more to do with concentrated, multigenerational poverty than anything else. I've gone to school with AA classmates from poor backgrounds, but the concentrated poverty and violence here in DC is like anything I've every experienced growing up in the South in a suburban area.

PP is an idiot for applying their anecdotal experiences to "black people". But we're not talking about "black people" here, we're talking about high-poverty populations, concentrated as the majority in DC public schools. People are definitely racist, but you don't have to be a racist to read 20 years of WaPo articles about poor kids struggling to make it through the day in hellish high-poverty schools and say, "No thanks." There's a threshold at which middle-class parents (of any color) will send their kids to the local public school. I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised it's as low a threshold as it is.

"but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it." This. I've actually grown up in a middle class school district which was pretty much 50/50 black/white, in the midwest, and everything was fairly hunky-dory until high school. And even then, things weren't so stark, so segregated as here at all.

In DC I've noticed all the talk of inequality (black incomes vs white here are crazy different averages, etc) might manifest in the schools as a culture clash. That's sadly much worse than where I grew up, even with the middle class families here. I think there is more of a Southern tinge to race issues here perhaps? We are going to have to be more serious about addressing how the parents interact, or don't, rather than putting this all on the education system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in.

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'm saying two things: first, of course it's not correct to say "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional". What poverty (and racism) means is that for a given student population--white or black--you're going to have a significantly higher number of kids who are struggling with issues caused by poverty. As you say "the EXACT SAME 'dysfunctional' behavior a white kid might engage in."

But we don't live in a city where large numbers of white kids are living in poverty. That's sad, and unfair, and an indictment of the larger system, and a slew of other things. But it's the reality we live in in DC in 2017.

So a school with a high number of very poor kids is a school in which a high number of kids are struggling under the weight of poverty. Not all of them are going to be dysfunctional, but certainly a higher number of them will be compared to a school in which no kids are struggling with poverty.

Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispel the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

That may be what the GGW article was meant to dispel, but really all it shows is that high-poverty schools can have better tests. Is it possible that our local middle school would have better test scores if it were run like a USMC boot camp? Possibly. If that's what it takes to get the test scores up, and that's what kids who are struggling with poverty need in order to succeed, that's a model worth pursuing. But that's not a school model that fits the educational values of our family. Maybe that's totally racist.

It's segregationist. So take that as you will.

The entirety of the US education system is segregationist.

It's not racist or segregationist. It's choosing an educational program that is a good fit for your child.

ok betsy de vos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Ludlow-Taylor/Two Rivers anectdote is lame. Everyone at LT knows it's a great school and it's no secret to others that no secret that LT earned the coveted "blue ribbon" status last year for performance (and not for the easier category of "most improved"). LT also has incredible arts and music programs, awesome teachers, and a dynamic, engaged principal. According to demographics data, the overall demographics for LT and TR are nearly identical (the article is misleading on that point), with white students accounting for 25% of student body - a statistic that refutes the obnoxious implication that white families are fleeing LT for the whiter arms of a charter school.

We left LT for Two Rivers because although LT is a great school, we were excited to try TR's Expeditionary Learning curriculum. If you haven't done so and are curious about the basis for TR's long waiting lists - read up on Expeditionary Learning.

Agree that LT is a great school. More and more parents are staying put past K, including my family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Ludlow-Taylor/Two Rivers anectdote is lame. Everyone at LT knows it's a great school and it's no secret to others that no secret that LT earned the coveted "blue ribbon" status last year for performance (and not for the easier category of "most improved"). LT also has incredible arts and music programs, awesome teachers, and a dynamic, engaged principal. According to demographics data, the overall demographics for LT and TR are nearly identical (the article is misleading on that point), with white students accounting for 25% of student body - a statistic that refutes the obnoxious implication that white families are fleeing LT for the whiter arms of a charter school.

We left LT for Two Rivers because although LT is a great school, we were excited to try TR's Expeditionary Learning curriculum. If you haven't done so and are curious about the basis for TR's long waiting lists - read up on Expeditionary Learning.

Agree that LT is a great school. More and more parents are staying put past K, including my family.

Finally, now keep going to the middle school and gasp even Eastern. If yall would stay those schools would be fine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

I'm curious what your take is on this article:

Minter said that if the children are bused from Kimball to Davis, there won’t be trouble, but that “if they have to walk through the community, there’s a good chance there could be a problem.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm not an expert on AA culture, but it seems to me this has less to do with AA culture, and more to do with the culture of poverty over multiple generations.

PP here. I read the article, but I'm not sure how that's directly related to my comments about applying anecdotal experiences to an entire culture? I do agree with you that violence and behavioral problems have more to do with concentrated, multigenerational poverty than anything else. I've gone to school with AA classmates from poor backgrounds, but the concentrated poverty and violence here in DC is like anything I've every experienced growing up in the South in a suburban area.

PP is an idiot for applying their anecdotal experiences to "black people". But we're not talking about "black people" here, we're talking about high-poverty populations, concentrated as the majority in DC public schools. People are definitely racist, but you don't have to be a racist to read 20 years of WaPo articles about poor kids struggling to make it through the day in hellish high-poverty schools and say, "No thanks." There's a threshold at which middle-class parents (of any color) will send their kids to the local public school. I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised it's as low a threshold as it is.

"but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it." This. I've actually grown up in a middle class school district which was pretty much 50/50 black/white, in the midwest, and everything was fairly hunky-dory until high school. And even then, things weren't so stark, so segregated as here at all.

In DC I've noticed all the talk of inequality (black incomes vs white here are crazy different averages, etc) might manifest in the schools as a culture clash. That's sadly much worse than where I grew up, even with the middle class families here. I think there is more of a Southern tinge to race issues here perhaps? We are going to have to be more serious about addressing how the parents interact, or don't, rather than putting this all on the education system.

Ding Ding Ding

Its the underlying culture.

Cussing and yelling at kids
hitting kids
not reading to kids

3 things that are done way too much in the poor areas (also mainly black in DC). No Middle Class or above person is going to want to interact with people like this and will work the charter system, go private, or move before attending a school with kids raised in culture described above

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thomson has a lot of OOB siblings from before it was "cool" to live downtown. So it's impossible to get in even with proximity (which we had).

Don't forget the MD kids still going there. Since DCPS doesn't care about residency issues (check the MD plates in the am...) no one is getting into Thomson for years to come.

I go by there all the time. I haven't seen any MD plates.

I have two kids at Thomson. Ditto.