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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Another huge flaw. On page 23 there is a section specifically looking at Brookland. It says this:

The conversations about Brookland schools on DC Urban Moms illustrate one mechanism by which this self-segregation occurs. Nearly three thousand forum conversations, almost one-fifth of the total, mention at least one Brookland elementary school, and total attention to these schools has grown over time. But DC Urban Moms participants focus heavily on a few schools in the neighborhood. On average, elementary schools in Brookland that are less than 50 percent Black are mentioned more than four times as often per year as schools that are more than 50 percent Black. Figure 8 plots this correlation.

On the face of it, this supports the argument that DCUMers are a bunch of Klan members. But, then look at which schools are being discussed. The frequently-mentioned schools are all charters. Charters are open to students regardless of where they live in the District. So, any of our posters might be interested in those schools. The less-talked-about schools are public and therefore have residency restrictions. Fewer of our posters have a reason to discuss those schools.

This data simply cannot be taken seriously.

Except that in Brookland, most of the in-bounds schools have enough open spaces to accept many if not most external applicants, so, while I totally and completely agree that this study is terrible, this particular point doesn't quite hold up.

More polite way of saying this point is wrong.

My point is not wrong. The assertion I quoted above about which Brookland school are mentioned more frequently appears to be the justification for this statement in the "Discussion" section of the report:

Even within a gentrify-ing neighborhood, and even when other local schools have similar test scores, the schools with more white students receive much more attention.

This again ignores the fact that the schools that received more attention are charter schools that don't have residency requirements. It is quite possible that a poster who is inbounds for a top DCPS school would be interested in one of the charters, but unlikely that the same poster would be interested in a Brookland DCPS. There is simply a larger pool of users who would be potentially interested in discussing the charter schools than there is for the DCPS schools. The only way such a comparison could be legitimate is if only mentions of the schools by Brookland residents were analyzed and that is not possible with the data available to the researchers.

Why would someone inbounds for a "top" DCPS school be interested in one of the charters? It's pretty funny how you're spinning a fantasy "larger pool" instead of admitting you're wrong.

Are you familiar with charters at all? Do you even have kids in these schools? People choose charters for a variety of reasons. Language immersion is a common one. Potentially, someone could choose Lee because they want a Montessori school. Do you really deny that there is a larger pool of people who might discuss charters than there is for a poorly-performing inbounds school? Just look at how many students attending charters live in other neighborhoods.

So now the Brookland inbounds schools are "poorly-performing" - Burroughs is a 4-star school, higher than the greatly-discussed Stokes PCS. By "poorly-performing" do you mean mostly Black? Or do you have some other metric to dismiss Burroughs as poorly-performing?

If it's only about charter vs inbound, then how come the majority-Black charters (like the 4-star DC Prep) in Brookland aren't discussed here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Another huge flaw. On page 23 there is a section specifically looking at Brookland. It says this:

The conversations about Brookland schools on DC Urban Moms illustrate one mechanism by which this self-segregation occurs. Nearly three thousand forum conversations, almost one-fifth of the total, mention at least one Brookland elementary school, and total attention to these schools has grown over time. But DC Urban Moms participants focus heavily on a few schools in the neighborhood. On average, elementary schools in Brookland that are less than 50 percent Black are mentioned more than four times as often per year as schools that are more than 50 percent Black. Figure 8 plots this correlation.

On the face of it, this supports the argument that DCUMers are a bunch of Klan members. But, then look at which schools are being discussed. The frequently-mentioned schools are all charters. Charters are open to students regardless of where they live in the District. So, any of our posters might be interested in those schools. The less-talked-about schools are public and therefore have residency restrictions. Fewer of our posters have a reason to discuss those schools.

This data simply cannot be taken seriously.

Except that in Brookland, most of the in-bounds schools have enough open spaces to accept many if not most external applicants, so, while I totally and completely agree that this study is terrible, this particular point doesn't quite hold up.

More polite way of saying this point is wrong.

My point is not wrong. The assertion I quoted above about which Brookland school are mentioned more frequently appears to be the justification for this statement in the "Discussion" section of the report:

Even within a gentrify-ing neighborhood, and even when other local schools have similar test scores, the schools with more white students receive much more attention.

This again ignores the fact that the schools that received more attention are charter schools that don't have residency requirements. It is quite possible that a poster who is inbounds for a top DCPS school would be interested in one of the charters, but unlikely that the same poster would be interested in a Brookland DCPS. There is simply a larger pool of users who would be potentially interested in discussing the charter schools than there is for the DCPS schools. The only way such a comparison could be legitimate is if only mentions of the schools by Brookland residents were analyzed and that is not possible with the data available to the researchers.

Why would someone inbounds for a "top" DCPS school be interested in one of the charters? It's pretty funny how you're spinning a fantasy "larger pool" instead of admitting you're wrong.

I was zoned for a “top” JKLM DCPS elementary school. I looked at charters because I didn’t think the school was a good fit for my kids culturally. The families are pretty intense. We ended up sending them private. We moved to another neighborhood and sent them public for late ES and MS. There are folks like me but we are rare. We can also easily afford the top privates but prefer the kids attend public because there are many things you deal with in public that you don’t in private, which DH and I feel are beneficial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

Good then your precious child won't be affected by these truants because they won't be around them. But yet they bring down the average so your child can look like a rockstar?

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly. And I do think there is definitely some nuance in what makes UMC white parents think a school is acceptable. When you dig into it, you see that Beers Elementary and Miner Elementary have very, very similar PARCC scores. And yet, Beers is a total unknown to DCUM and most white parents wouldn't even consider it as an option, frankly in large part because it is black and in Ward 7. Whereas Miner is commonly discussed here as an acceptable option for ECE. Or is the lack of acceptance of school like Beers because there is no discussion of it on DCUM compared to Miner, which might actually indicate that the Brookings research is onto something?

This is an example of where the obvious explanation is simply missed. Miner is in a neighborhood where we have a lot of posters whereas Beers is in a neighborhood from which we have very few users. People simply talk about their local schools. Not a surprise.

we should change the name of the site to DC Rich White Urban Moms (and Dads) so there's no surprises

Miner is 78% black, yet it is commonly discussed here. I hope that doesn't surprise you.

from the report - "Discussions of [the Ward 6] cluster are especially likely to include terms that signify race and class, including “high SES [socioeconomic status],” “low SES,” “middle class,” “Black,” “white,” and “gentrifying,” among others. Despite these many terms that describe demographic groups of people, there is an absence of words like “moms” or “kids” or “children” that appear on the High-Attention ES list. There are also few terms associated with school subjects, extracurriculars, or facilities."

so no the way Miner is discussed is not surprising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:Another huge flaw. On page 23 there is a section specifically looking at Brookland. It says this:

The conversations about Brookland schools on DC Urban Moms illustrate one mechanism by which this self-segregation occurs. Nearly three thousand forum conversations, almost one-fifth of the total, mention at least one Brookland elementary school, and total attention to these schools has grown over time. But DC Urban Moms participants focus heavily on a few schools in the neighborhood. On average, elementary schools in Brookland that are less than 50 percent Black are mentioned more than four times as often per year as schools that are more than 50 percent Black. Figure 8 plots this correlation.

On the face of it, this supports the argument that DCUMers are a bunch of Klan members. But, then look at which schools are being discussed. The frequently-mentioned schools are all charters. Charters are open to students regardless of where they live in the District. So, any of our posters might be interested in those schools. The less-talked-about schools are public and therefore have residency restrictions. Fewer of our posters have a reason to discuss those schools.

This data simply cannot be taken seriously.

Except that in Brookland, most of the in-bounds schools have enough open spaces to accept many if not most external applicants, so, while I totally and completely agree that this study is terrible, this particular point doesn't quite hold up.

More polite way of saying this point is wrong.

My point is not wrong. The assertion I quoted above about which Brookland school are mentioned more frequently appears to be the justification for this statement in the "Discussion" section of the report:

Even within a gentrify-ing neighborhood, and even when other local schools have similar test scores, the schools with more white students receive much more attention.

This again ignores the fact that the schools that received more attention are charter schools that don't have residency requirements. It is quite possible that a poster who is inbounds for a top DCPS school would be interested in one of the charters, but unlikely that the same poster would be interested in a Brookland DCPS. There is simply a larger pool of users who would be potentially interested in discussing the charter schools than there is for the DCPS schools. The only way such a comparison could be legitimate is if only mentions of the schools by Brookland residents were analyzed and that is not possible with the data available to the researchers.

Why would someone inbounds for a "top" DCPS school be interested in one of the charters? It's pretty funny how you're spinning a fantasy "larger pool" instead of admitting you're wrong.

Are you familiar with charters at all? Do you even have kids in these schools? People choose charters for a variety of reasons. Language immersion is a common one. Potentially, someone could choose Lee because they want a Montessori school. Do you really deny that there is a larger pool of people who might discuss charters than there is for a poorly-performing inbounds school? Just look at how many students attending charters live in other neighborhoods.

So now the Brookland inbounds schools are "poorly-performing" - Burroughs is a 4-star school, higher than the greatly-discussed Stokes PCS. By "poorly-performing" do you mean mostly Black? Or do you have some other metric to dismiss Burroughs as poorly-performing?

If it's only about charter vs inbound, then how come the majority-Black charters (like the 4-star DC Prep) in Brookland aren't discussed here?

+1

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:These folks apparently spent 4 years studying DCUM and never contacted me once. I think they made fundamental errors in their analysis. I strongly reject their primary conclusion. I also suspect that their scraping of the site may be behind some of the strange performance issues we have occasionally had.

There's a footnote that says you ok'd them doing this.

Sort of. See my later post where I included the email the sent me. Their email does not really represent what they ended up doing.

I read the footnote and the email Jeff posted, and based on that, in my opinion they misrepresented themselves, which is problematic and disappointing.

I think Jeff should write a response based on that alone. Regardless of any shoddiness of the research (which I think is a separate issue), the actions of the researchers at the outset were not good (at least in my opinion and based on what I've seen here). That raises significant questions about the work itself to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

Good then your precious child won't be affected by these truants because they won't be around them. But yet they bring down the average so your child can look like a rockstar?

'Looking good' is not my goal for them, I want them to learn, and I believe that high attendance rates create a better learning environment. Crazy, I know. But if you have any other suggestions for metrics for evaluating schools, please offer them.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It won't sink in here. It never does. I don't see any opinions being changed here. The only way to counteract them is through engaged political action.

Fk that noise. I’m doing what’s best for junior. Keep your social engineering to yourself.

I send my kids to a Title 1 elementary school because it's a good place for them. Make schools appealing to the parents you want to attract and they'll come. Not complicated, and not "engaged political action." There was a thread about ms/hs recently and so many parents would be happy to send their kids to existing dcps middle schools that aren't hardy or deal if they just committed to a curriculum that would be appropriate/challenging.

But this is where things break down because no they won’t send their kids to challenging schools with majority minority students, see Banneker! They claim they want challenging but they don’t.

This comment isn't reasonable. For many years, Banneker's average SAT scores have only been a tad higher than the national average, in the low 500s. Those scores don't work for us. 30 years ago, my spouse and I scored in the 700s on SATs, without any formal/paid test prep, coming from high schools ranked in the bottom third in our states. Why should the likes of us be sufficiently impressed with Banneker to send our children there, if the kids were to clear the application bar?

Why do people continue with this narrative? Why compare Banneker’s SATs with nationwide SATs and not nationwide black SATs since Banneker is an all black, majority low income school? Do you honestly think your smart white kid will automatically get an average SAT score by going to school with low income black kids? You think the teachers are inadequate of teaching your snowflake?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Come on. You know that’s bullsh*t. This whole conversation is about unequal school quality and race. If you can’t accept that a HS that is 100% black with ZERO kids meeting math goals is failing black kids and the whole reasom we’re having this discussion, I don’t know what we’re even talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

Sounds like your kid would get great small group instruction! Seriously, why do we think its okay to turn our back on schools with bad stats? You know what makes those stats better? Parents that clearly care this much start sending their kids to these schools.

[Anonymous]

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jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Please do, since I'm already seeing this study get trotted out on neighborhood facebook as great scholarship.

I am considering writing a response. One irony I guess is that the report will probably generate more traffic to DCUM. Hopefully it won't be a bunch of racists coming to find out how to get into an all white school.

The racists would quickly discover that there aren't any all-white public schools in the DC system, not even close.

Um, doesn’t Janney come close, for one?

Yes, if by “all-white” you mean reflecting national averages.

It's a bit more. "White students, on average, attend a school in which 69% of the students are white" - from "Harming Our Common Future: America's Segregated Schools 65 Years after Brown".
At Janney, it's 74%, and the next-biggest group is Multiracial, which I would guess is also different.

Yes, and Janney (Key, Mann, Murch, Brent etc.) parents could move to the burbs, or a different part of the country, or go private in the District, to enroll their children in schools that are even more white.

This study is coming at the wrong jurisdiction and the wrong parents.

This is the problem I had with the "Nice White Parents" podcast as well- concentrating on a small number of white people who remain in the center jurisdictions, meanwhile 85-90% of the white kids in the region are in the suburbs. Many, many of those people are more explicit about their locational choices being based on school racial makeup (I have talked to some people in Fairfax who have heard these comments from neighbors, barely coded). Not saying white people in the District should be let off the hook- there is something interesting there about liberal hypocrisy (liberal in the streets, conservative in the sheets, so to speak) and about how far white people are really willing to go in terms of the racial makeup of their kids' school. But there are 90k kids in public school in the District, something like 15% are white- you are literally talking about less than 15,000 white kids. Total enrollment in the five closest school districts (PG, Arlington, Montgomery, Fairfax, Loudon) is 595,000, of which around 35% are white, so over 200,000 white kids in those public schools. Forest for the trees here.

There are some really unusual racial dynamics going on in this area- it has probably the largest middle and upper middle class black population of any metro area in the country. The District has almost zero poor white people. You have the ways the middle ring suburbs are changing and becoming more heavily Hispanic. The large Middle Eastern-American and Asian-American populations now in Fairfax and Loudon. School options/choice layer on to this. But it's gonna take a LOT more work and nuance to analyze all that.

Exactly. And I do think there is definitely some nuance in what makes UMC white parents think a school is acceptable. When you dig into it, you see that Beers Elementary and Miner Elementary have very, very similar PARCC scores. And yet, Beers is a total unknown to DCUM and most white parents wouldn't even consider it as an option, frankly in large part because it is black and in Ward 7. Whereas Miner is commonly discussed here as an acceptable option for ECE. Or is the lack of acceptance of school like Beers because there is no discussion of it on DCUM compared to Miner, which might actually indicate that the Brookings research is onto something?

Another aspect is the unrelenting escalation of parenting in general. In the past, a school where 25% of the kids are on-target in test scores might be considered just fine. Your kid will be at the top of the class, maybe a little bored, NBD. It's ELEMENTARY school. Now on DCUM you have parents insisting that "my kid has got to be in a cohort of high performers by 3rd grade!!!111!!!" I don't think that sentiment is largely or even mostly based on race (although there is some of that), but rather on the intensive parenting culture we have now and the sense that we have to fight for every single advantage. Where I disagree with the thrust of the Brookings paper is that this attitude by the privileged is somehow always harmful to the underprivileged. And if it is, how is policy going to effectively intervene? Unless you make giant societal interventions that make parents less anxious, like, say making college and housing actually affordable for the middle class ...

There are micro-moments where the "must maximize" culture of DCUM does probably hurt the underprivileged. Most notably, in boundary discussions where parents "lose" the school they believe they are entitled to. The collective freak-out over the idea of clustering Maury, Miner, and Payne was another one that surely did not reflect well on a group of parents that likely otherwise claim to be progressive. But that's the highly local exception, not the rule. Even if Maury parents could be browbeaten into clustering with Miner and Payne, that's THREE schools out of a total of how many? How is that going to help Wards 7 and 8?

So stupid. Beers is not acceptable because there is no way in f*ck I am commuting there to drop off my child and pick up every day as a single parent who works downtown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

Sounds like your kid would get great small group instruction! Seriously, why do we think its okay to turn our back on schools with bad stats? You know what makes those stats better? Parents that clearly care this much start sending their kids to these schools.

That is just absolutely not what that would mean. It means the teacher is constantly having to re-teach or review content that children are missing..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

Sounds like your kid would get great small group instruction! Seriously, why do we think its okay to turn our back on schools with bad stats? You know what makes those stats better? Parents that clearly care this much start sending their kids to these schools.

Why so flippant about a serious issue? I wonder how old your kids are...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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) 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.

What a disrespectful and uneducated comment about Eastern's teachers and staff, not to mention their student body.

Eastern literally had ZERO percent of kids meet Math targets in the last PARCC, and 7% for English. There is no way anyone with options sends their kids there. No way. I think it's terrible the school performs so terribly, but that's not disrespectful.

Maybe using test scores as a barometer for the student experience is the problem.

Cool. Let's use something else. Half the kids were absent 21+ days in 2019-2020, and 70% were in the broader "truant" category of 10+ absences. It was 20% at Wilson.

https://dcps.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dcps/publication/attachments/DCPS%20Annual%20Attendance%20Report%20SY%202019-2020.pdf

Sounds like your kid would get great small group instruction! Seriously, why do we think its okay to turn our back on schools with bad stats? You know what makes those stats better? Parents that clearly care this much start sending their kids to these schools.

And then if you're really successful at it, they make a podcast about how racist you are for starting a French program!

I'm not 'turning my back' on anything, because that implies that I am somehow responsible for the state of DCPS schools, and that my kids have some obligation to fix it. But I'm not and they don't- which is good, because they also can't. It's not like I want to move when we get to middle school if we don't lottery into a charter we like. That's not like, a fun or inexpensive thing for us. But my kids are actual people, and just like I don't consider my choice of where to work purely on the basis of 'how do I make society better even if it's terrible for me', neither am I going to treat their education like that. If DCPS cares about integrating a broader range of schools, they could do that in a heartbeat via different curricular choices. They are not, because they do not care. Why am I supposed to care more than they do?