Integration and DC Schools -- A high priority? Yay or nay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they think their kid should have just as much access to an appropriate education as yours.

Seriously! These people insisting they know the disabilities of other children and that "wealthy" parents are hell-bent on gaming the system are so bizarrely smug and confidant in their fact-less beliefs.

Pro tip: there are very few wealthy families in DCPS. There are UMC families, and probably what you'll find is a disproportionate number of UMC families struggling to afford private because DCPS won't implement their child's IEP or 5504

Uh, huh. There are multiple houses currently for sale near Janney that cost more than $7 million.

Yes, and those kids will almost certainly go to private by default.

You also have no idea if those children have IEPs, and if they do, there's a good chance they pay for outside services rather than begging DCPS to provide required services.

To recap: We can't lottery seats in schools like Janney because neighborhood/community vibe stuff but also no one who lives near Janney actually goes to Janney because they're so rich. Got it.

You are trying to be obtuse.

The vast majority of housing near Janney is not $7 million.

Mine is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they think their kid should have just as much access to an appropriate education as yours.

Seriously! These people insisting they know the disabilities of other children and that "wealthy" parents are hell-bent on gaming the system are so bizarrely smug and confidant in their fact-less beliefs.

Pro tip: there are very few wealthy families in DCPS. There are UMC families, and probably what you'll find is a disproportionate number of UMC families struggling to afford private because DCPS won't implement their child's IEP or 5504

Uh, huh. There are multiple houses currently for sale near Janney that cost more than $7 million.

Yes, and those kids will almost certainly go to private by default.

You also have no idea if those children have IEPs, and if they do, there's a good chance they pay for outside services rather than begging DCPS to provide required services.

To recap: We can't lottery seats in schools like Janney because neighborhood/community vibe stuff but also no one who lives near Janney actually goes to Janney because they're so rich. Got it.

You are trying to be obtuse.

The vast majority of housing near Janney is not $7 million.

It's totally normal for homes in that area to cost $5 million. Talk about being obtuse.

[Anonymous]

Wealthy in DC today gets = typical middle class life of 30-40 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they think their kid should have just as much access to an appropriate education as yours.

Seriously! These people insisting they know the disabilities of other children and that "wealthy" parents are hell-bent on gaming the system are so bizarrely smug and confidant in their fact-less beliefs.

Pro tip: there are very few wealthy families in DCPS. There are UMC families, and probably what you'll find is a disproportionate number of UMC families struggling to afford private because DCPS won't implement their child's IEP or 5504

Uh, huh. There are multiple houses currently for sale near Janney that cost more than $7 million.

List one. Show us a 7 million dollar listing in Janney's boundary.

[Anonymous]

Yet the at-risk kids take up even more resources and no one questions that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they think their kid should have just as much access to an appropriate education as yours.

Seriously! These people insisting they know the disabilities of other children and that "wealthy" parents are hell-bent on gaming the system are so bizarrely smug and confidant in their fact-less beliefs.

Pro tip: there are very few wealthy families in DCPS. There are UMC families, and probably what you'll find is a disproportionate number of UMC families struggling to afford private because DCPS won't implement their child's IEP or 5504

Uh, huh. There are multiple houses currently for sale near Janney that cost more than $7 million.

Yes, and those kids will almost certainly go to private by default.

You also have no idea if those children have IEPs, and if they do, there's a good chance they pay for outside services rather than begging DCPS to provide required services.

To recap: We can't lottery seats in schools like Janney because neighborhood/community vibe stuff but also no one who lives near Janney actually goes to Janney because they're so rich. Got it.

You are trying to be obtuse.

The vast majority of housing near Janney is not $7 million.

It's totally normal for homes in that area to cost $5 million. Talk about being obtuse.

Liars. What is the point of pressing this falsehood?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole line of conversation is ridiculous. One person after another saying,

"Those entitled people advocating for their spoiled kids to get an education even though the kids are already on grade level! So selfish! They should settle for whatever is right for my kid and people just like my kid. It's a public school, so how dare they expect it to meet all kids needs when it should just meet my kids' needs."

Nobody is criticizing accommodations that provide students with access to appropriate education. They're criticizing accommodations that give students a real or perceived advantage in selective admissions processes.

It's not easy to separate though, since the accommodations come from within the public school system and the selective admissions exist largely outside of it.

To be honest, I'm not even criticizing accommodations that give kids a "real or perceived advantage." I'm comfortable with where my kid is at and don't worry much that a kid is going to get "ahead" because of extra time for an ADHD diagnosis.

It's more that I am concerned about a culture where whenever a kid is struggling, the solution is to pursue a medical diagnosis and accommodations. And, to get back to the subject of the thread, I think this is one of the problems when wealthy and/or UMC families dictate how public schools work. Middle and working class kids need to learn resilience and how to adapt to the world around them. UMC and wealthy families often expect the world to adapt to their kid. It's a fundamental difference in approach that burdens middle/working class families.

Could you say more about how it burdens middle/working class families? Decreased resources for struggling students without an IEP? The need to teach and reinforce resilience and adaptability outside the school environment? Or something else?

I think we need to rethink accommodations to focus them back on access, not achievement.

The original point of disability accommodations was to ensure all kids had access to education. Whether that meant ensuring a school could provide a textbook in braille or providing an aide for a child with an intellectual disability that would meant the difference between that child being able to participate in school or not. The goal was to give kids an opportunity to get an education and "even the playing field" for kids who have bigger obstacles to overcome just to participate.

When that's been extended to kids with mild ADHD which in previous generations would not even have been diagnosed as a discernible disability, and when the accommodations are more about maximizing comfort and minimizing challenge than they are about making sure everyone can participate, this skews heavily in favor of wealthy students who's parents are willing to pay to get them tested and retested and who have the time and bandwidth to keep pushing the schools for more "accommodations."

I also think people should consider the degree to which this sort of accommodation, designed not to provide access but to provide achievement, is impacting curriculums in ways a lot of us hate. For instance, do schools stop assigning full books in favor of short passages because that's what teachers want, or what schools want, or does avoiding long texts just make it easier to accommodate the myriad of IEPs and 504s the schools are navigating? To what degree is the shift towards EdTech and using screens and apps in the classroom the result of schools looking to free teachers up for the extra time IEPs demand, or to make it easier for the students with IEPs at the cost of challenging other kids?

The problem is that wealthy parents often can't accept that their kids are average, and they look for medical explanations for their averageness, and then demand the school accommodate their "limitations" which I think sometimes are just the normal limitations of being a human being. When 30-40% of a school population has ADHD, can you really describe that as "neurodivergent"?

Anyway, waiting for the people who feel uncomfortably seen by this comment to yell at me in 3, 2, 1...

Love how your last line seeks to make anyone who wants to comment immediately suspect and disparaged before they even speak.

Well, I don't have kids in DCPS with ADHD, and my wonderful kids were pretty darn average, and I'm an empty nester. So let's get that "seen" bull pucky out of the way, shall we.

I disagree with your premise that these accommodations are not about accessing the curriculum. The fact that you say so makes clear you don't understand ADHD. I know what ADHD is, and that a kid with ADHD does need accommodations to access the curriculum consistently. Their brains randomly turn on and off or scramble. The best analogy I've heard from a person with ADHD is that it is like selective brain blindness and brain deafness that comes and goes randomly, and that's without the impulse control layer. Sometimes they are aware of what is going on around them in the classroom and sometimes they miss up to 70% of the content and don't even realise it. They think they heard it all, until they compare their notes to the accommodation provided notes and see just how much they didn't see or hear during class, even though they thought they were paying attention. So for them, studying means essentially re-doing the whole class on their own as homework via the accommodation of written or recorded notes. And it will take them twice as long as the kids who don't have accommodations because they face the same hurdles outside of class.

Accomodations are designed to prevent the brain from glitching as much as possilbe (seating, quite rooms for test, etc.), reset it when it happens (teacher awareness, reminders, intentional interruptions, tap on the shoulder, post it notes on teh desk, visual cues), and allow them to access the learning, to do the school work and show what they are learning or not learning in spite of that happening in their brains (class recording, provided notes, audio books, ability to take computer notes, extra time for tests, so they might get the full time even when their brain shuts off mid exam, etc.). So if you are OK with allowing access for those with vision and hearing impairments, seizure disorders, etc., then you should be OK with the same for kids with ADHD who sometimes can't see or hear or process what is going on around them, and sometimes can.


If you meet a person with ADHD who got good grades, you should be darn impressed with what they needed to do to achieve that. You cannot begin to understand how much harder their brains are working.

I know multiple people with ADHD who not only got good grades but have impressive graduate degrees and made lots of money in impressive careers BEFORE getting their ADHD diagnosis.

Let's accept the premise that these people had to work harder to do so well with no accommodations. So? Don't most people who get very good grades, gain admission to selective schools, and pursue demanding careers work hard? Sure, there might be the occasional savant who does all that easily, but most normal, non-disabled people who have those outcomes worked plenty hard to get where they were. So someone with ADHD works hard in another way. Ok. Lots of people with ADHD will also tell you that it helped them at times because it enabled them to hyper focus on academic interests. So ADHD can be an academic advantage.

Of course, this is all also the result of expanding the definition of ADHD to include anyone who ever struggles with things like procrastination, being on time, or organizing their thoughts or their lives. We've expanded the definition to the point where like half the population has ADHD. At that point, what does it even mean?

I am so tired of ADHD being this catch all excuse/justification for any and everything. If ADHD is truly debilitating and requires real accommodations just for people who have it to access an education, then a huge number of the people currently claiming ADHD do not have it. On the other hand, if ADHD is actually as widespread as current diagnosis indicates, it's not actually "neurodivergence" at all, is it? And since so many people have been very successful with undiagnosed ADHD for so long, then we shouldn't need to accommodate it. Certainly not on the basis of the diagnosis alone. Perhaps some people with really severe ADHD need accommodations, but most of the people who claim to have it do not.

You can't have it both ways. Time to pick one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole line of conversation is ridiculous. One person after another saying,

"Those entitled people advocating for their spoiled kids to get an education even though the kids are already on grade level! So selfish! They should settle for whatever is right for my kid and people just like my kid. It's a public school, so how dare they expect it to meet all kids needs when it should just meet my kids' needs."

Nobody is criticizing accommodations that provide students with access to appropriate education. They're criticizing accommodations that give students a real or perceived advantage in selective admissions processes.

It's not easy to separate though, since the accommodations come from within the public school system and the selective admissions exist largely outside of it.

To be honest, I'm not even criticizing accommodations that give kids a "real or perceived advantage." I'm comfortable with where my kid is at and don't worry much that a kid is going to get "ahead" because of extra time for an ADHD diagnosis.

It's more that I am concerned about a culture where whenever a kid is struggling, the solution is to pursue a medical diagnosis and accommodations. And, to get back to the subject of the thread, I think this is one of the problems when wealthy and/or UMC families dictate how public schools work. Middle and working class kids need to learn resilience and how to adapt to the world around them. UMC and wealthy families often expect the world to adapt to their kid. It's a fundamental difference in approach that burdens middle/working class families.

Could you say more about how it burdens middle/working class families? Decreased resources for struggling students without an IEP? The need to teach and reinforce resilience and adaptability outside the school environment? Or something else?

I think we need to rethink accommodations to focus them back on access, not achievement.

The original point of disability accommodations was to ensure all kids had access to education. Whether that meant ensuring a school could provide a textbook in braille or providing an aide for a child with an intellectual disability that would meant the difference between that child being able to participate in school or not. The goal was to give kids an opportunity to get an education and "even the playing field" for kids who have bigger obstacles to overcome just to participate.

When that's been extended to kids with mild ADHD which in previous generations would not even have been diagnosed as a discernible disability, and when the accommodations are more about maximizing comfort and minimizing challenge than they are about making sure everyone can participate, this skews heavily in favor of wealthy students who's parents are willing to pay to get them tested and retested and who have the time and bandwidth to keep pushing the schools for more "accommodations."

I also think people should consider the degree to which this sort of accommodation, designed not to provide access but to provide achievement, is impacting curriculums in ways a lot of us hate. For instance, do schools stop assigning full books in favor of short passages because that's what teachers want, or what schools want, or does avoiding long texts just make it easier to accommodate the myriad of IEPs and 504s the schools are navigating? To what degree is the shift towards EdTech and using screens and apps in the classroom the result of schools looking to free teachers up for the extra time IEPs demand, or to make it easier for the students with IEPs at the cost of challenging other kids?

The problem is that wealthy parents often can't accept that their kids are average, and they look for medical explanations for their averageness, and then demand the school accommodate their "limitations" which I think sometimes are just the normal limitations of being a human being. When 30-40% of a school population has ADHD, can you really describe that as "neurodivergent"?

Anyway, waiting for the people who feel uncomfortably seen by this comment to yell at me in 3, 2, 1...

Love how your last line seeks to make anyone who wants to comment immediately suspect and disparaged before they even speak.

Well, I don't have kids in DCPS with ADHD, and my wonderful kids were pretty darn average, and I'm an empty nester. So let's get that "seen" bull pucky out of the way, shall we.

I disagree with your premise that these accommodations are not about accessing the curriculum. The fact that you say so makes clear you don't understand ADHD. I know what ADHD is, and that a kid with ADHD does need accommodations to access the curriculum consistently. Their brains randomly turn on and off or scramble. The best analogy I've heard from a person with ADHD is that it is like selective brain blindness and brain deafness that comes and goes randomly, and that's without the impulse control layer. Sometimes they are aware of what is going on around them in the classroom and sometimes they miss up to 70% of the content and don't even realise it. They think they heard it all, until they compare their notes to the accommodation provided notes and see just how much they didn't see or hear during class, even though they thought they were paying attention. So for them, studying means essentially re-doing the whole class on their own as homework via the accommodation of written or recorded notes. And it will take them twice as long as the kids who don't have accommodations because they face the same hurdles outside of class.

Accomodations are designed to prevent the brain from glitching as much as possilbe (seating, quite rooms for test, etc.), reset it when it happens (teacher awareness, reminders, intentional interruptions, tap on the shoulder, post it notes on teh desk, visual cues), and allow them to access the learning, to do the school work and show what they are learning or not learning in spite of that happening in their brains (class recording, provided notes, audio books, ability to take computer notes, extra time for tests, so they might get the full time even when their brain shuts off mid exam, etc.). So if you are OK with allowing access for those with vision and hearing impairments, seizure disorders, etc., then you should be OK with the same for kids with ADHD who sometimes can't see or hear or process what is going on around them, and sometimes can.


If you meet a person with ADHD who got good grades, you should be darn impressed with what they needed to do to achieve that. You cannot begin to understand how much harder their brains are working.

ADHD is the new gluten allergy. When someone tells you they have it, it's probably safe to roll your eyes.

THIS. ADHD exists, the way gluten allergies exist. However, the percentage of people who have either convinced themselves, or for various understandable reasons (in the case of ADHD, the undeniable competitive advantages that come with the various accommodations). is many, many, many multiples of the actual figure. It's not just the famous "Stanford is suddenly now 40% disabled" figure - it's the fact that at many schools...there's a great rundown in the NYT from I think this week...that figure has spiked by 600-700% OR MORE over the past 10 years or so. Literally since 2015. I get that smartphones melted all our brains, but if we're talking about a legitimate medical diagnosis for a malady that doesn't spread via viruses or bacteria like a contagious disease - that's literally not possible. Even if we were talking past underdiagnosis - sorry, I do not believe that psychiatrists were unfamiliar with attention deficit disorder. They've been giving Ritalin to kids for this since the 1960s. No.

We all know what happened is, the incentives for diagnosis became so great that there's been a rush not to be the only poor rube who doesn't get unlimited test time and oh so much more, the end. The small fraction - let's assume it's close to the figure before the incentives were institutionalized and diagnoses started spiking - are sadly under unfair suspicion, which makes them another victim of these "new" cases (are the overdiagnosed cases self-deluded or just bad people? Benefit of the doubt - for most, probably some mix of both.) But now there's a greater than 90% chance doubting the diagnosis entirely fair.

(Oh and also: we know that 99% of people who claim a gluten allergy can eat regular bread just fine but convincing themselves they can't automatically results in a diet that makes them skinnier without Ozempic and so that's what they've done, and the rest of us are rolling our eyes behind their backs.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy in DC today gets = typical middle class life of 30-40 years ago.

Nope, but many of us are aware this is what you tell yourself to justify calling yourself middle class when you are not.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people grew up being told they were middle class by their parents, who were also not middle class. Like maybe they were for a minute when their parents were really young, but these are people with white collar parents who bought real estate and invested in the stock market in the 80s and now have a lot of money. None of their family is middle class. But they cling to this self perception of being middle class because they remember eating TV dinners when they were 6 and their dad was still a resident, or their parents didn't have real money until they were 14 or 15 and vacations went from road trips to the jersey shore to multi-week European vacations. It's like a weird self-delusion.

Yes there are richer people and those people do NOT send their kids to DCPS. But this idea that you are middle class because you don't own a vacation home in Aspen is freaking weird. Some of you need some perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God some of you are so grossly insufferable. No, kids aren’t ’faking it’ if they have a legal diagnosis. No, they do not have to cite they have had accommodations.
No, it does not teach students ‘grit’ to have no accommodations.

I am a teacher at a top high school and graduated from great universities, I also happen to have ADHD.

I won’t go into detail but I wish I had gotten an early diagnosis and accommodations. Yes, I made it but I have what is considered ‘low support’ needs. Maybe my late teens and very early 20’s wouldn’t have been full of suicidal ideation.

These are children. They aren’t cheating and if somehow they do not actually have a disability I would absolutely blame the doctor and the parent(s).

The takeaway is sit your grown ass down and stop talking about children and young adults in such a nasty way.

If there's a large and rapidly growing number of students demanding accommodations, then there's obviously something going wrong. Either people are lying and trying to game the system, or they've convinced themselves they have non-existent ailments. It's not the case however that suddenly a huge percentage of humans have disabilities.

Nearly 40 percent of students at Hampshire College claim to be disabled.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/colleges-see-spike-in-students-with-disabilities-including-elite-schools.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy in DC today gets = typical middle class life of 30-40 years ago.

Nope, but many of us are aware this is what you tell yourself to justify calling yourself middle class when you are not.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people grew up being told they were middle class by their parents, who were also not middle class. Like maybe they were for a minute when their parents were really young, but these are people with white collar parents who bought real estate and invested in the stock market in the 80s and now have a lot of money. None of their family is middle class. But they cling to this self perception of being middle class because they remember eating TV dinners when they were 6 and their dad was still a resident, or their parents didn't have real money until they were 14 or 15 and vacations went from road trips to the jersey shore to multi-week European vacations. It's like a weird self-delusion.

Yes there are richer people and those people do NOT send their kids to DCPS. But this idea that you are middle class because you don't own a vacation home in Aspen is freaking weird. Some of you need some perspective.

Yeah - talk to Gen Z - they are decidedly more downscale than previous generations at same income/education level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God some of you are so grossly insufferable. No, kids aren’t ’faking it’ if they have a legal diagnosis. No, they do not have to cite they have had accommodations.
No, it does not teach students ‘grit’ to have no accommodations.

I am a teacher at a top high school and graduated from great universities, I also happen to have ADHD.

I won’t go into detail but I wish I had gotten an early diagnosis and accommodations. Yes, I made it but I have what is considered ‘low support’ needs. Maybe my late teens and very early 20’s wouldn’t have been full of suicidal ideation.

These are children. They aren’t cheating and if somehow they do not actually have a disability I would absolutely blame the doctor and the parent(s).

The takeaway is sit your grown ass down and stop talking about children and young adults in such a nasty way.

If there's a large and rapidly growing number of students demanding accommodations, then there's obviously something going wrong. Either people are lying and trying to game the system, or they've convinced themselves they have non-existent ailments. It's not the case however that suddenly a huge percentage of humans have disabilities.

Nearly 40 percent of students at Hampshire College claim to be disabled.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/colleges-see-spike-in-students-with-disabilities-including-elite-schools.html

We need an MFN approach to accommodations. If anyone gets them, all must get them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wealthy in DC today gets = typical middle class life of 30-40 years ago.

Nope, but many of us are aware this is what you tell yourself to justify calling yourself middle class when you are not.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people grew up being told they were middle class by their parents, who were also not middle class. Like maybe they were for a minute when their parents were really young, but these are people with white collar parents who bought real estate and invested in the stock market in the 80s and now have a lot of money. None of their family is middle class. But they cling to this self perception of being middle class because they remember eating TV dinners when they were 6 and their dad was still a resident, or their parents didn't have real money until they were 14 or 15 and vacations went from road trips to the jersey shore to multi-week European vacations. It's like a weird self-delusion.

Yes there are richer people and those people do NOT send their kids to DCPS. But this idea that you are middle class because you don't own a vacation home in Aspen is freaking weird. Some of you need some perspective.

There are relatively few middle class people in DC. We have a ton of rich people and a ton of poor people and not many in the middle. If you live West of the park, and don't live in a tiny apartment, you almost certainly are not middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they think their kid should have just as much access to an appropriate education as yours.

Seriously! These people insisting they know the disabilities of other children and that "wealthy" parents are hell-bent on gaming the system are so bizarrely smug and confidant in their fact-less beliefs.

Pro tip: there are very few wealthy families in DCPS. There are UMC families, and probably what you'll find is a disproportionate number of UMC families struggling to afford private because DCPS won't implement their child's IEP or 5504

This is only true if you carefully define "wealthy" to exclude yourself. Here's a couple profiles of DCPS families I know:

Family 1: Real estate holdings worth around 3-4m, including two rental properties. Trusts for both kids, primarily funded by grandparents, to cover college costs up to current private college costs (both kids also have 529s). Not sure what they have in retirement exactly, but they have already received multi-million dollar inheritances, so I'm guessing it's a lot. Actual HHI isn't crazy high (maybe 250k), but real generational wealth in play. They would 100% describe themselves as "upper middle class" though.

Family 2: Until recently, both parents made in the ballpark of 200-300k, so combined HHI of 500k+, now reduced to 250-300k (higher earning spouse still working). Parents are upper 40s though, with high incomes for the last 20 years, so huge amount of savings in retirement and investment accounts (millions). Home, worth about 1.5m, is paid off. One child, 529 has been super funded by parents and grandparents. One set of grandparents is wealthy, likely to leave somewhere in the ballpark of 6m when they pass, until then regularly fund all vacations, summer camp, childcare expenses, and have provided substantial down payments for house purchases (in the 50-100k range). Would also describe themselves as upper middle class.

All kids in DCPS. There are plenty of wealthy families in DCPS, especially at the elementary level. These families would absolutely complain that they would "struggle" to afford private, but they don't mean it the way that, for instance, I would mean it. They mean that they might have to rein in extremely high vacation, dining, and entertainment budgets to something less extravagant, in order to afford private school tuition. And they almost certainly will do just that, when their kids are in MS or HS. And they will continue to claim the are upper middle class. And sure, okay, let's call that upper middle class.

UMC people in DC are often quite wealthy.

My wife’s family is pretty wealthy but they’re also deeply committed to public schools. It’s a very very midwestern thing. My family is working class Catholic and went parochial the whole way up (I broke away). Propensity to go private is IMO as much a regional thing as a wealth thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, they think their kid should have just as much access to an appropriate education as yours.

Seriously! These people insisting they know the disabilities of other children and that "wealthy" parents are hell-bent on gaming the system are so bizarrely smug and confidant in their fact-less beliefs.

Pro tip: there are very few wealthy families in DCPS. There are UMC families, and probably what you'll find is a disproportionate number of UMC families struggling to afford private because DCPS won't implement their child's IEP or 5504

This is only true if you carefully define "wealthy" to exclude yourself. Here's a couple profiles of DCPS families I know:

Family 1: Real estate holdings worth around 3-4m, including two rental properties. Trusts for both kids, primarily funded by grandparents, to cover college costs up to current private college costs (both kids also have 529s). Not sure what they have in retirement exactly, but they have already received multi-million dollar inheritances, so I'm guessing it's a lot. Actual HHI isn't crazy high (maybe 250k), but real generational wealth in play. They would 100% describe themselves as "upper middle class" though.

Family 2: Until recently, both parents made in the ballpark of 200-300k, so combined HHI of 500k+, now reduced to 250-300k (higher earning spouse still working). Parents are upper 40s though, with high incomes for the last 20 years, so huge amount of savings in retirement and investment accounts (millions). Home, worth about 1.5m, is paid off. One child, 529 has been super funded by parents and grandparents. One set of grandparents is wealthy, likely to leave somewhere in the ballpark of 6m when they pass, until then regularly fund all vacations, summer camp, childcare expenses, and have provided substantial down payments for house purchases (in the 50-100k range). Would also describe themselves as upper middle class.

All kids in DCPS. There are plenty of wealthy families in DCPS, especially at the elementary level. These families would absolutely complain that they would "struggle" to afford private, but they don't mean it the way that, for instance, I would mean it. They mean that they might have to rein in extremely high vacation, dining, and entertainment budgets to something less extravagant, in order to afford private school tuition. And they almost certainly will do just that, when their kids are in MS or HS. And they will continue to claim the are upper middle class. And sure, okay, let's call that upper middle class.

UMC people in DC are often quite wealthy.

My wife’s family is pretty wealthy but they’re also deeply committed to public schools. It’s a very very midwestern thing. My family is working class Catholic and went parochial the whole way up (I broke away). Propensity to go private is IMO as much a regional thing as a wealth thing.

There is also a generational difference. A lot of the well-off parents in DC grew up in families where their parents prioritized education over other things (like travel, dining out, and entertainment). So they may have gone to private schools and elite colleges, but they feel deprived because their childhoods didn't involve trips to Paris or going to concerts or eating at nice restaurants, all things they craved as teens. These parents will flip this dynamic -- send their kids to public school and then use the "savings" to do all the stuff they didn't do as kids. This has two effects -- it means you wind up with a lot of parents in DCPS who didn't go to public schools (and thus don't get how they work or the compromises inherent in them) and then those same parents are spending tons of money on travel and other experiences. This results in a huge cultural difference from the poor, working class, and middle class families who normally populate public schools. That's where a lot of the conflict comes from.