Study: "Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum" (yes, this one)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is funny. The true wealthy people don't even bother with DC public schools. They go private.

What a DCUM comment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally everyone makes real estate and school decisions based on school test scores and quality of education ever since at least I was a kid.

My parents, immigrants, chose to scrape together enough money for a 2 bedroom apartment in a good school district in the city I grew up so that me and my sibling could have a high quality education. This has been happening ever since forever and in most cities.

So they spent 4 years to tell us what we already know except they threw the race card into it. Everyone knows that deal and Wilson are diverse or “integrated”.

Maybe judging the quality of education mainly on English and Math test scores isn't a good idea? And maybe basing who gets access to high quality schools on who can afford to live in certain places also isn't a good idea?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

I'm not at all blind to the fact that my kids have advantages that a lot of kids in DC don't have, including the ability to leave. I just reject to the pejorative framing of "privileged bubble." I grew up in a lot of ways not in a bubble, and it meant I saw and experienced stuff as a kid that I think most parents would want to protect their kids from. Yes, I want to keep my kids from that. But not enough that we're moving to Bethesda (or Tenleytown), just enough that we do put a lot of thought into how to, while following the rules in DC, make decisions that we think are good for our kids. Also, the schools I'm avoiding aren't schools which would be considered average or adequate in most parts of the country - it's not like I'm insisting that my kids have Mandarin or gifted classes and nothing else will do, I just want my kids to have an actual peer group and classes that reflect that.

But also, shouldn't you want to keep all kids from that? The study is pointing out that when white, upper income people act out of their individual self-interest, the result is racially segregated schools. Segregation perpetuates systemic racism, so either that's something that bothers you, or not.

+1

You can be a UMC person and send your kid to a school not worry about test scores etc. and still have a successful and challenged kid. You just have to do more work. And btw it looks better to colleges.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

What you say is true, but does not rule out that the study is still flawed and unfair. Even you are not completely willing to agree with the report's conclusion.

What this report "reveals" is that a group of largely white, largely affluent posters who primarily live in largely white, largely affluent neighborhoods mostly talk about their local schools which are are largely white, largely affluent. It is true that largely white, largely affluent posters do not spend a lot of time talking about schools in parts of the city in which they do not live and which have poor academic outcomes. Why it took them four years and a word frequency analysis of 10 years worth of posts to figure this out is beyond me.

[Anonymous]

I am the 8:10 poster and I do not think it is parents jobs to make DCPS better. It is the systems job to do that.

The liberal myth that parents can change schools is offered up by school districts so they do not have to provide structural supports to their schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

I'm not at all blind to the fact that my kids have advantages that a lot of kids in DC don't have, including the ability to leave. I just reject to the pejorative framing of "privileged bubble." I grew up in a lot of ways not in a bubble, and it meant I saw and experienced stuff as a kid that I think most parents would want to protect their kids from. Yes, I want to keep my kids from that. But not enough that we're moving to Bethesda (or Tenleytown), just enough that we do put a lot of thought into how to, while following the rules in DC, make decisions that we think are good for our kids. Also, the schools I'm avoiding aren't schools which would be considered average or adequate in most parts of the country - it's not like I'm insisting that my kids have Mandarin or gifted classes and nothing else will do, I just want my kids to have an actual peer group and classes that reflect that.

But also, shouldn't you want to keep all kids from that? The study is pointing out that when white, upper income people act out of their individual self-interest, the result is racially segregated schools. Segregation perpetuates systemic racism, so either that's something that bothers you, or not.

1) My kids live in a racially integrated neighborhood and go to a racially integrated school.
2) Me sending my kids to Eastern is not going to give all kids the things I want for my kids, it's just going to be a bad experience for my kids. And if a big group of white parents decided to get together and send their kids there, the same people who criticize us for not doing that would now be criticizing us for that.
3) If DCPS is interested in making more schools integrated, they have many tools at their disposal. They choose not to do that, and I make my choices accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

That may be so, but could be better proved in a multi-method study. We don't know who is posting on DC public schools forum, and how much of that echo chamber might be the same poster over multiple threads, a hundred people, or a thousand people. They have absolutely no idea if people continually use the board or if they dip in and out. I read the study, and it would carry a lot more weight (really any weight) if they had also done a survey, conducted interviews, included a content analysis on Twitter, or had attended DCPS community meetings. A report on completely anonymized data is meaningless.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

What you say is true, but does not rule out that the study is still flawed and unfair. Even you are not completely willing to agree with the report's conclusion.

What this report "reveals" is that a group of largely white, largely affluent posters who primarily live in largely white, largely affluent neighborhoods mostly talk about their local schools which are are largely white, largely affluent. It is true that largely white, largely affluent posters do not spend a lot of time talking about schools in parts of the city in which they do not live and which have poor academic outcomes. Why it took them four years and a word frequency analysis of 10 years worth of posts to figure this out is beyond me.

This is the heart of it. I don’t understand what they were trying to learn by studying DCUM? Wasn’t the above obvious from the beginning? Dcum is not representative of DC as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

I'm not at all blind to the fact that my kids have advantages that a lot of kids in DC don't have, including the ability to leave. I just reject to the pejorative framing of "privileged bubble." I grew up in a lot of ways not in a bubble, and it meant I saw and experienced stuff as a kid that I think most parents would want to protect their kids from. Yes, I want to keep my kids from that. But not enough that we're moving to Bethesda (or Tenleytown), just enough that we do put a lot of thought into how to, while following the rules in DC, make decisions that we think are good for our kids. Also, the schools I'm avoiding aren't schools which would be considered average or adequate in most parts of the country - it's not like I'm insisting that my kids have Mandarin or gifted classes and nothing else will do, I just want my kids to have an actual peer group and classes that reflect that.

But also, shouldn't you want to keep all kids from that? The study is pointing out that when white, upper income people act out of their individual self-interest, the result is racially segregated schools. Segregation perpetuates systemic racism, so either that's something that bothers you, or not.

+1

You can be a UMC person and send your kid to a school not worry about test scores etc. and still have a successful and challenged kid. You just have to do more work. And btw it looks better to colleges.

Oh really. How old is your kid and what school do you send them to? How much "extra work" do you do? How much do you spend on that "extra work"?

It really irks me that this self-satisfied study conducted, no doubt, by academics with no children or who raise them in wealthy white suburbs have the gall (like you) to flippantly presume that it's just sooo easy to give your kid a great education at a school where scores "etc" are low. Yes. Just do a little extra work! Just be the one that goes that extra mile! If you don't YOU are the cause of racist segregation in the school system (not, oh, a century or so of American history and failures). Have you read ANY of the many many threads on here detailing exactly what happens when parents try diligently - with no support from the school or city leadership I may add - to do just what you've said? Why should you ask parents to be individual martyrs out of our white guilt, or our wealth guilt. That's not how systemic change happens.

And again, class, not race is the primary driver here. I still haven't seen this article or anyone else refute that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

That may be so, but could be better proved in a multi-method study. We don't know who is posting on DC public schools forum, and how much of that echo chamber might be the same poster over multiple threads, a hundred people, or a thousand people. They have absolutely no idea if people continually use the board or if they dip in and out. I read the study, and it would carry a lot more weight (really any weight) if they had also done a survey, conducted interviews, included a content analysis on Twitter, or had attended DCPS community meetings. A report on completely anonymized data is meaningless.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with the article being bad.


The one question I have for everyone is if wealthy white parents don’t segregate then why is there such a low number of white kids at Banneker? In all my years of living in DC and reading DCUMs, this is the one school that supports the argument.

No one is saying white parents don't self-segregate. Just that the article has no bearing on this issue or any other. Pointless waste of time.

[jsteele]

There are so many problems with the report's methodology. They have lists of "low attention schools" and "high attention schools". Generally, the "high attention schools" are the schools in the neighborhood in which our users live and the "low attention schools" are in neighborhoods which few of our users live. Two exceptions on the low attention list are Duke Ellington and Banneker. Duke Ellington has about 550 students and is a specialized Arts school. Nobody should be surprised that it is not discussed as often as 1800 student Wilson. Banneker is a more complicated case. It may be true that white families avoid it due to racism or it may be true that white families avoid it due to respect for the black student body which has created a special place. It may be a mixture of both or neither. This report doesn't offer evidence in any case.

The report's word lists are useless in my opinion. There is no context. For example, if "diversity" gets mentioned is it being used as a positive or a negative? If posters are promoting a school due to its diversity, is that supporting segregation or opposing it? "Diversity" gets counted just as often as "no diversity". To the report's authors, none of this is important. It is enough that "diversity" comes up at all in relation to some schools. But, then they use this to form conclusions that I don't think can be supported without necessary context.

[Anonymous]

At the end of the day, who wants to send their kids to failing schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After reading through the “study,” I am left asking what the authors, the Walton people and Brookings expect from UMC families with children in DC public schools. We are to desegregate schools ourselves as the saintly parents we should be? We are to move to whiter school systems to avoid having to make difficult choices about schools? We are to post only on on-line fora primarily serving low-income families? We are to promote schools we know little or noting about amongst ourselves simply because almost all the students are AA and poor? What?

I can't answer your question, but I read the implication as being that if we don't straighten up and fly right (ie make exactly the decisions policy makers think we should make) then we will be forced to send our kids to our inbound schools no matter what (which is absurd in an area with 10 or so school districts within a six mile radius.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general, whenever you ask people to take a critical look at themselves- the reaction is defensive.

To ask DCUM users if a critique of DCUM users is accurate is naturally not going to end well. Asking people if they are in privileged bubble is not going to go well. Because if you are in a bubble, by definition you do not know that you are.

In general I have found many on this board to be totally blind to the realities of DC Public Schools and blind to your own motivations behind how you move in this space. Is it segregation- kinda sorta. But mostly in the way that we would all select calm.caring, and safe places for our own children.

I think the rub comes in with it is juxtaposed with the self identification as a liberal community with a strong NIMBY action plan.

What you say is true, but does not rule out that the study is still flawed and unfair. Even you are not completely willing to agree with the report's conclusion.

What this report "reveals" is that a group of largely white, largely affluent posters who primarily live in largely white, largely affluent neighborhoods mostly talk about their local schools which are are largely white, largely affluent. It is true that largely white, largely affluent posters do not spend a lot of time talking about schools in parts of the city in which they do not live and which have poor academic outcomes. Why it took them four years and a word frequency analysis of 10 years worth of posts to figure this out is beyond me.

This was my takeaway too:
A group of people on a forum talk about things that they know about.

If they had any kind of actual data - like demographics of who is posting, or how many posters there are, how many people dominate conversations, etc. that would have moved the needle somewhat to show something that was independent of self-reporting.