Is caring deeply about the quality of school a new construct?

[Anonymous]

I think it was much less of a consideration where I grew up because it was a small town with a whole lot of farmland around it. Since the school district stretched 30-40 miles in diameter and there weren't any good private options in town, everyone went to the same middle and high schools. There was absolutely some avoidance of the one "bad" elementary school, but the other 10 were considered fine. Moving out of the district entirely was a big undertaking so most people didn't consider it.

Yes, and suburbs used to be more like small towns. Now they are urbanized and much more like cities where you have greater disparities in wealth. This causes more disparities in the schools.

As population grows and we become more urbanized, we will feel the pressures of economic competition even more. Everyone is trying to get whatever edge they can. Life is much more stressful than it was when I grew up. I do not envy the coming generations. I am in my late 50's.

[Anonymous]

It has existed since modern public school boundaries began, OP, in every country.

My husband begged his war refugee parents to move out of their low-income, crime-ridden neighborhood so that he could change middle school and stop getting bullied every day. He threatened to stop attending school. They couldn't afford to move, so they fudged their address to make him attend a better and safer school. He ended up with an MD/PhD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up poor and my mother jumped through tons of hoops to get us into the best school within driving distance. this was in the 80s.

exactly. it is a kind of white/class privilege to assume that the school will be fine just because it is your zoned school.

Not in my expereince. My parents and my DH and I made sure we bought in good school districts. My parents in the late 60's and us in the 90's. The decision is definitely part of my UMC college educated peer group and my parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it was much less of a consideration where I grew up because it was a small town with a whole lot of farmland around it. Since the school district stretched 30-40 miles in diameter and there weren't any good private options in town, everyone went to the same middle and high schools. There was absolutely some avoidance of the one "bad" elementary school, but the other 10 were considered fine. Moving out of the district entirely was a big undertaking so most people didn't consider it.

This is the way it was where I grew up as well. But my husband grew up in the DC area, and his family moved when he finished elementary to get into "better" schools. I also work with a partner who relocated here in the early 80's- he told me that he was advised by people at the firm that the only acceptable places to buy were in those areas zoned for Whitman, Churchill and Langley high schools. So I don't think it's a new thing around here.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in NOVA in the 70/80s when a lot of subdivisions were new. They attracted white, middle income families so people didn't worry about the school quality because they assumed that white, middle income families would all have wonderfully behaved, smart kids.

[Anonymous]

I went to school in the 70s and my father commuted 2 hours each way--granted not every day--so that we could live in a top-flight school district outside NYC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up poor and my mother jumped through tons of hoops to get us into the best school within driving distance. this was in the 80s.

exactly. it is a kind of white/class privilege to assume that the school will be fine just because it is your zoned school.

Not in my expereince. My parents and my DH and I made sure we bought in good school districts. My parents in the late 60's and us in the 90's. The decision is definitely part of my UMC college educated peer group and my parents.

How does that contradict my point? my point is that buying in a bad school district and assuming it will end up fine just because you are UMC/white is a kind of white privilege. That doesn't sound like what you did. (Although of course we know that being able to afford an expensive house in the US bespeaks an amount of privilege, but that's not what I was talking about.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an Upper Middle Class DC family, and it was definitely a thing when I was a kid in the 70's.

I think this is something closely associated with SES. Families with resources have options, which leads them to obsess about those options. Families with fewer resources don't obsess about options they don't have.

My impression is that many families in this area have families who grew up in true middle class, or even working class families. The parents get rich (or at least UMC) and find that their new social circles do things differently. They then attribute those differences to the time period, whereas for me, the ways that UMC raise their kids in DC is very similar to the way I was raised.

My family was middle class (not upper middle class) in the 70's and they chose their housed based on the quality of the local schools. So no this is not new nor is it exclusively a concern of the Upper Middle Class. There was probably less talk about it only because there was less information - no easy way to know that one school had a few more honors/ap classes or a slightly higher #of students heading to the state flagship than another. Therefore there was less to obsess over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Middle class anxiety. Today's young adults are the first generation that will have a lower standard of living and a lower life expectancy than their own parents, on a US population level.

People think they can inoculate their kids against this trend by isolating them in a middle class bubble and stressing out over the "best" schools.

Oh please. I'm in my mid-forties and I heard this same prediction about my generation when I was growing up. Our kids will be just fine.

[Anonymous]

Grew up in DC in the 80s and my parents cared. My mom hated public schools and still does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It has existed since modern public school boundaries began, OP, in every country.

My husband begged his war refugee parents to move out of their low-income, crime-ridden neighborhood so that he could change middle school and stop getting bullied every day. He threatened to stop attending school. They couldn't afford to move, so they fudged their address to make him attend a better and safer school. He ended up with an MD/PhD.

If you read " A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" which takes places in the early 20th Century, the lead character fudges her way into a better/higher SES school. This is not a new phenomena.

[Anonymous]

My family was workinf class in the midwest.

We bought near grandma

Our parents did send six kids through Catholic K-8 and the youngest to Catholic HS.

Most people just bought the house they liked and sent their kids to whatever school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in an Upper Middle Class DC family, and it was definitely a thing when I was a kid in the 70's.

I think this is something closely associated with SES. Families with resources have options, which leads them to obsess about those options. Families with fewer resources don't obsess about options they don't have.

My impression is that many families in this area have families who grew up in true middle class, or even working class families. The parents get rich (or at least UMC) and find that their new social circles do things differently. They then attribute those differences to the time period, whereas for me, the ways that UMC raise their kids in DC is very similar to the way I was raised.

+1

+2 Grew up here in the 70s/80s. Same obsession with one cut around buying houses in particular school zones for the 'top' publics, and other cut focused on the privates. With the same level of intensity. Differences now is that there are a lot of schools that are considered 'higher' quality in the region -- and a lot more money (tech money totally swamps lobbyist money), so the privates have become much higher percentage filled with uber rich, vs. doctors, lawyers, etc families... and the NIH and two-govt salary families that used to be Bethesda are now in Silver Spring/Tacoma Park often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Middle class anxiety. Today's young adults are the first generation that will have a lower standard of living and a lower life expectancy than their own parents, on a US population level.

People think they can inoculate their kids against this trend by isolating them in a middle class bubble and stressing out over the "best" schools.

Oh please. I'm in my mid-forties and I heard this same prediction about my generation when I was growing up. Our kids will be just fine.

The first generation with lower standard of living was the theme of my college's commencement address in 1992. (It was a big theme then: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Great-Powers/dp/0679720197).
There's no study that says that life expectancy is going down - except among lower/middle class whites due to substance abuse -- technology/pharma keeping everyone alive longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I think it was much less of a consideration where I grew up because it was a small town with a whole lot of farmland around it. Since the school district stretched 30-40 miles in diameter and there weren't any good private options in town, everyone went to the same middle and high schools. There was absolutely some avoidance of the one "bad" elementary school, but the other 10 were considered fine. Moving out of the district entirely was a big undertaking so most people didn't consider it.

Yes, and suburbs used to be more like small towns. Now they are urbanized and much more like cities where you have greater disparities in wealth. This causes more disparities in the schools.

As population grows and we become more urbanized, we will feel the pressures of economic competition even more. Everyone is trying to get whatever edge they can. Life is much more stressful than it was when I grew up. I do not envy the coming generations. I am in my late 50's.

Where did you grow up? Bethesda did not feel like a 'small town'. It was not its own mini-toon-town-city like it is today (only around 5 restaurants) but is was in no way a small town vibe.