“We need to preserve diversity and mitigate the projected whitening of the feeder pattern”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^ And I say this as an Upper SES W6 resident who could get my kid into Deal/Wilson one way or the other if I wanted to, but would MUCH prefer to remain where I am and attend diverse, non-terrible local schools. S-H may work for us; Eastern will not. Eastern is terrible.

I assume your judgement of Eastern as "terrible" is based on test scores and nothing else, right?

It’s terrible for test scores and, based on the amount of metal detectors and police involved, would be terrible for a child looking for a stable, safe environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ward 3 parent here- I have zero problem with the language. In fact, I applaud it.

I assume that you send your child EOTR for school so that you can be part of the solution

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of white kids in the Deal/Wilson feeder pattern here: I don't have a problem with this language. It's a little clumsy, obviously, but I'm fine with the goal of diverse schools.

OP here:
If you want to promote equity, you discuss the positives - seats for OOB, at risk preferences, benefits for those populations, etc.
You don’t talk about an entire ethnicity as if it’s a “problem” to be solved. This isn’t clumsy; it’s hostile.

So now, what, we're going to be all up in arms about whatever proposal they make because of some dumb language in a PowerPoint? I don't think it's hostile, anyway.

Substitute black for white here and you’d be all over this. Hypocrite.

Gee, can you think of any reasons why, in a majority-white country that allowed black people to be owned and sold as property for hundreds of years and still has massive race-driven structural inequities in place, it would seem worse to talk about growth of a minority black population in schools as a problem than it is to talk about the opposite of that? If not, perhaps you should talk to whoever ran the history classes in whatever school district you attended for high school.

Most people who work hard, and make tons of money, and live in NW, and send they’re kids to public schools, which in of itself is a good thing, don’t have the time to worry if their every step is focused on countering the “centering of whiteness” or to dismantle the horrifying legacy of slavery, the hangover of which permeates so many facets of Black existence in America today.

The simple matter of the fact is if DC public schools keeps up, or if social pressure from wokeness causes pressure to enact policies like ending AP classes, or lowers testing standards, or placing low performing cohorts with high performing cohorts in class room settings, which causes the high performing cohorts to retrogress academically, then wealthy parents, who are open minded enough to willingly put their children in the DCPS system to begin with, will simply pull them out and put them in private schools. This scenario will see the quality of dc public schools fall across the board. No one has time for their kids to be social experiments. America is too fast paced. There is too much pressure and no has time for this sht. That’s not racist. Normal people just want their kids to get into good schools and learn to read and write at level. There is no simple fix to any of this. I am just laying out the facts. We are in a time of racial reckoning and that is fantastic. Police reform would be great. School reform would be great as long as educational vigor is maintained.

Social experiment?! You think having your white child attend schools with black students is a social experiment?! You are insane. These are children and families who want the same things as you. Get outside of your toxic bubble dude.

Do you even reading comprehension, brah?

Not integration. That is not the problem. The problem is penalizing advanced students OF ANY RACE by eradicating advanced placement classes in a social experiment. America doesn’t need meh students. It’s needs great students. You don’t have to mix students who are at proficient at a grade level with kids who are performing above a grade level in some socialistic attempt at equity. It’s not good for anyone.

The delusion that so many hold of the supremely gifted white child is absurd. No one is penalized. It isn’t a zero sum game. Plus we are talking education not economics so why trot socialism into the discussion? You sound like Fox News/Republican talking points. This discussion was on feeder patterns, not the Wilson AP for all covered in another thread.

Again, you are adding anecdotal hyperbole to this conversation where none is necessary.

My child is 1) not white. 2) while I like to think they are supremely gifted, all I know is they should not have the quality of academic rigor at their school lowered by making “ap for all” classes, by canceling neutral entrance exams required for their school to prove the child can handle the classes and pace of learning.

Also, stop stop using platitudes and euphemisms for the process of obtaining a quality education by saying education is “not a zero sum game”. This isn’t a fking joke and you’re using cloying, aloof and clinical terms to describe a subject that is of supreme importance to many people. It’s not a zero sum game. Children who are smart, and work hard should nor be held back or punished in a ham fisted attempt to foster equality of outcome. We need to provide equality of opportunity, not try to dumb everyone down by cancelling advanced classes out of “fairness”. That is the mixing I
Talking about. It’s not integration. It’s just all these attempts to hold advanced learners back of any race. That is real racism.

Do you want astronauts riding a spaceship built by engineers who had the rigor of their education lowered? Do you want China to eclipse our country because they worried more about getting the best educated populace and not about cancelling advanced classes for their kids so other kids who weren’t doing well didn’t feel bad?

Again this thread is not about AP for all...that’s is a different thread. AP should be for all because it isn’t hard! I took numerous AP classes and do not understand why parents cling to the idea that it is so rigorous. But that’s a discussion for another thread. This thread is covering resource hogging.

AP for All and “mitigating whitening” come out of the same screwy thinking, as if we can just solve education by sticking below-grade students in schools and classes with “white” kids and that ‘magical melanin’ will do the trick. It’s Wizard of Oz stuff.

Education is hard. It’s about teacher-to-student (and parent-to-student) interactions, and about the student’s motivation and hard work, over years.

I have no problem that the system allows for OOB — that’s great for creating options.

I have a big problem with a system that (1) allows severe overcrowding to accommodate OOB, as though overcrowding doesn’t meaningfully degrade educational quality and (2) that can’t come up with a better way to close the achievement gap than to hold back high achievers.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting how people view whiteness as a race. The very fact that people believe this is the very reason that white supremacy continues to thrive.
To be classified as 'white' one must have certain characteristics absent, it is not an actual ethnic group. Many East Asians used to be considered white too until racism change the standard.

If this language bothers you take a deeper dive in what it means to be white in this country and not British, Russian, Greek, etc.

Because I can assure you, there is no white culture. White is the absence of characteristics. Unlike Black or 'African American,' which is the presence of characteristics. Same thing with Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how people view whiteness as a race. The very fact that people believe this is the very reason that white supremacy continues to thrive.
To be classified as 'white' one must have certain characteristics absent, it is not an actual ethnic group. Many East Asians used to be considered white too until racism change the standard.

If this language bothers you take a deeper dive in what it means to be white in this country and not British, Russian, Greek, etc.

Because I can assure you, there is no white culture. White is the absence of characteristics. Unlike Black or 'African American,' which is the presence of characteristics. Same thing with Asian.

Slide 7 assumes "white" is a demographic group to be managed. It's DCPS's language, not mine.

Here's the 2020 Census, which lists "white" as race:
https://2020census.gov/en/about-questions/2020-census-questions-race.html

Clearly the government views that categorization through a racial lens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how people view whiteness as a race. The very fact that people believe this is the very reason that white supremacy continues to thrive.
To be classified as 'white' one must have certain characteristics absent, it is not an actual ethnic group. Many East Asians used to be considered white too until racism change the standard.

If this language bothers you take a deeper dive in what it means to be white in this country and not British, Russian, Greek, etc.

Because I can assure you, there is no white culture. White is the absence of characteristics. Unlike Black or 'African American,' which is the presence of characteristics. Same thing with Asian.

Ma’am this is a Wendy’s.

[Anonymous]

So fix the WOTP boundaries to match the IB population minus 15% for at-risk OOB and make everyone else go to their IB school. But remember, if the the city community development plan goes forward, in another 4-5 years, there will be more affordable housing in W3 and the IB population will grow, causing the at-risk set aside to shrink.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that quibbling over the word choice feels a bit like dodging the issue, though. A clumsy word choice is a small issue -- the educational inequities across the city are a big issue, and I'd encourage folks to keep that perspective.

I for one am glad to be parenting a (white) child in a school system that values equity and recognizes that there's work to do on that front.

If they valued equity they’d try to figure out what’s wrong with Ward 7 and 8 schools.

This.

LMAO. They KNOW what's wrong but won't put in the money to figure it out because funnily enough some White parents would complain. People seriously already complain about at risk funding but at risk funding won't even buy a school ONE extra aide.
Of course it's not just money and resources there are also issues the mayor isn't solving, that are DC issues.

I don’t think anyone begrudges at-risk funding. It only comes up when people make digs about WOTP schools being “rich” and hogging resources, as though they get more funding.

I am happy for tax dollars to support at-risk students. Makes more sense then spending all the money on fancy buildings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If DC concentrated on making other MSes and HSes not TERRIBLE, then it wouldn't have this problem. Upper SES people can afford housing in UNW. Upper SES people can make a one hour commute for a year or two work, so they can get their kid into a Deal feeder -- any Deal feeder -- for 1-2 years. In DC, Upper SES is very white relative to the city's population, so the Wilson feed is white -- and getting whiter -- and the OOBers are actually white and getting whiter. The problem is not how to best shoehorn non-white people into Wilson, it's how to make ANY OTHER IB DCPS MS or HS as attractive TO ANYONE as Deal and Wilson. Concentrate on that DCPS.

And I say this as an Upper SES W6 resident who could get my kid into Deal/Wilson one way or the other if I wanted to, but would MUCH prefer to remain where I am and attend diverse, non-terrible local schools. S-H may work for us; Eastern will not. Eastern is terrible.

I combined your comments PP, to make it easier to respond.

I am a Ward 5 parent and very much agree. One thing that DCUM has taught me is that for a significant portion of the high SES population DC, there simply is no DCPS outside of the Deal/Wilson triangle. As someone whose kid attends a Title 2 DCPS in Ward 5, this is exhausting to me and has so little to do with my experience with the city's schools as to be laughable. You might as well be talking about MoCo or Fairfax schools. It just has nothing to do with my experience.

But to the PP, yes, we are a family with the resources to get our kid into Deal/Wilson if it's what we really wanted. It's just not want we want, at all. Why would I want my child to go to a school on the other side of town? That sounds miserable. I want my kid to go to schools in the perfectly great neighborhood where we currently live. I've always been anti charter but as a Ward 5 parent it feels like the city has all but said "just send your kid to a charter" because we have a billion charters here and all the IB DCPS schools are struggling, especially in the upper grades. It feels like we have been abandoned to the charter schools and enough parents are game for that because they are persuaded by the promise of bilingual or Montessori education that they roll with it. Until MS.

It is the same pattern over and over. Parents of young kids say "well I just need to make the right choice for our family." They choose charters or OOB schools as the lottery allows. Then they complain about declining performance in the upper grades and MS options. They try the "competitive" charter MSs but usually find them to be a poor fit for their kids, and then they move or go private for HS. The end. Or they are fine with their MS (like S-H) and then move for HS or their kid gets a spot at one of the application HSs. Over and over. That's what you witness as a parent outside the Deal/Wilson system. It is very defeating.

We need a system that does not simply encourage parents to make the right "choice" for their family. We need a functional school system. I'm not an education expert and I don't know how that is best accomplished. I just know that as things stand, the best "choice" for my kid is currently to move out of DC to somewhere that it's possible for them to get a perfectly middle-of-the-road education from a public school where homes do not cost upwards of a million dollars to start. That's not my preference, but it's probably my "choice".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ward 3 parent here- I have zero problem with the language. In fact, I applaud it.

I assume that you send your child EOTR for school so that you can be part of the solution

The solution is to have good schools in every neighborhood so no kid has travel across the city to get a good education. Do you disagree?

[Anonymous]

There are all of the distinct cultures and subcultures, there is also a white culture. You often have to come at it sideways or from a different cultural perspective to see what it is sometimes though, because in this country it's basically the conventional wisdom below the conventional wisdom in a country by and for white people. I'm no expert, but think about literary culture, sports culture, work culture, housing preferences, the legal system, banking and entrepreneurship, electioneering, voting, hiring, medical care . . . . if you can think of a major aspect of American culture, you can see that there are parts to it that are not just a generic American culture, that there are parts of it that are a "white" culture. One into which many have been assimilated to greater or lesser degrees, but you couldn't transplant it somewhere else and say it's a generic "democratic" or "meritocratic" or "liberal" or "conservative" or "Christian" or "colonialist" or "hierarchical" or "capitalist" culture as there are many examples in other countries' cultures that don't work as ours does. And similarities in other places that share some aspects of white culture.

I think it's important to keep in mind for cross-cultural communication in this country. We all have a culture and our norms aren't universal even if within-culture they are often easily understood, logical or not to those outside the culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how people view whiteness as a race. The very fact that people believe this is the very reason that white supremacy continues to thrive.
To be classified as 'white' one must have certain characteristics absent, it is not an actual ethnic group. Many East Asians used to be considered white too until racism change the standard.

If this language bothers you take a deeper dive in what it means to be white in this country and not British, Russian, Greek, etc.

Because I can assure you, there is no white culture. White is the absence of characteristics. Unlike Black or 'African American,' which is the presence of characteristics. Same thing with Asian.

Slide 7 assumes "white" is a demographic group to be managed. It's DCPS's language, not mine.

Here's the 2020 Census, which lists "white" as race:
https://2020census.gov/en/about-questions/2020-census-questions-race.html

Clearly the government views that categorization through a racial lens.

The government has also sanctioned the killing of innocent lives. It has certainly upholded the foundation of white supremacy.

I'll say it again, white is not a race.

Go ahead and tell me, what is white culture? I'll wait. Oh and by the way, if you say Starbucks and anything of the like you're sorely mistaken about what culture is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how people view whiteness as a race. The very fact that people believe this is the very reason that white supremacy continues to thrive.
To be classified as 'white' one must have certain characteristics absent, it is not an actual ethnic group. Many East Asians used to be considered white too until racism change the standard.

If this language bothers you take a deeper dive in what it means to be white in this country and not British, Russian, Greek, etc.

Because I can assure you, there is no white culture. White is the absence of characteristics. Unlike Black or 'African American,' which is the presence of characteristics. Same thing with Asian.

Slide 7 assumes "white" is a demographic group to be managed. It's DCPS's language, not mine.

Here's the 2020 Census, which lists "white" as race:
https://2020census.gov/en/about-questions/2020-census-questions-race.html

Clearly the government views that categorization through a racial lens.

The government has also sanctioned the killing of innocent lives. It has certainly upholded the foundation of white supremacy.

I'll say it again, white is not a race.

Go ahead and tell me, what is white culture? I'll wait. Oh and by the way, if you say Starbucks and anything of the like you're sorely mistaken about what culture is.

ok ... then what does “projected whitening” mean to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are all of the distinct cultures and subcultures, there is also a white culture. You often have to come at it sideways or from a different cultural perspective to see what it is sometimes though, because in this country it's basically the conventional wisdom below the conventional wisdom in a country by and for white people. I'm no expert, but think about literary culture, sports culture, work culture, housing preferences, the legal system, banking and entrepreneurship, electioneering, voting, hiring, medical care . . . . if you can think of a major aspect of American culture, you can see that there are parts to it that are not just a generic American culture, that there are parts of it that are a "white" culture. One into which many have been assimilated to greater or lesser degrees, but you couldn't transplant it somewhere else and say it's a generic "democratic" or "meritocratic" or "liberal" or "conservative" or "Christian" or "colonialist" or "hierarchical" or "capitalist" culture as there are many examples in other countries' cultures that don't work as ours does. And similarities in other places that share some aspects of white culture.

I think it's important to keep in mind for cross-cultural communication in this country. We all have a culture and our norms aren't universal even if within-culture they are often easily understood, logical or not to those outside the culture.

Those are not examples of culture, those are examples of systems and such systems are not all created by whites. Those systems are upheld in most countries. The fact that you think banking is part of 'white culture' signals to be a deep rooted sense of bias. You likely have many implicit or bias you're quite aware of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting how people view whiteness as a race. The very fact that people believe this is the very reason that white supremacy continues to thrive.
To be classified as 'white' one must have certain characteristics absent, it is not an actual ethnic group. Many East Asians used to be considered white too until racism change the standard.

If this language bothers you take a deeper dive in what it means to be white in this country and not British, Russian, Greek, etc.

Because I can assure you, there is no white culture. White is the absence of characteristics. Unlike Black or 'African American,' which is the presence of characteristics. Same thing with Asian.

Slide 7 assumes "white" is a demographic group to be managed. It's DCPS's language, not mine.

Here's the 2020 Census, which lists "white" as race:
https://2020census.gov/en/about-questions/2020-census-questions-race.html

Clearly the government views that categorization through a racial lens.

The government has also sanctioned the killing of innocent lives. It has certainly upholded the foundation of white supremacy.

I'll say it again, white is not a race.

Go ahead and tell me, what is white culture? I'll wait. Oh and by the way, if you say Starbucks and anything of the like you're sorely mistaken about what culture is.

ok ... then what does “projected whitening” mean to you?

Well, in DC it means anyone who is not Black. Strangely, here, anyone Asian or Middle Eastern or mixed race or even biracial gets lumped into “white.”

You see it all the time here on DCUM when posters talk about POC and then their context belies that they actually mean only Black.