Powerful Letter to the Arlington County School Board about Diversity

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

One thing is clear - the demographics will head south if every school is supposed to be the same.

What does this mean?

Not the PP, but I would interpret this to mean that wealthy white people will flee the public schools if they become more diverse. I don't think it would come to this. I think it's a lot of bluster, but I doubt any significant number of families would decamp for private or another jurisdiction. Most people would not have this option even if their instincts were to flee. Then over time they would realize that their children weren't negatively affected, and perhaps even positively affected, by increased diversity. And for those that would flee, I say, let them leave. Buh-bye. We need the seats anyway.

Let's be honest - the bluster is pretending the school boundaries are going to change in significant ways, when those calling the shots in APS have made it clear they won't even take modest steps in this direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The irony is that Yorktown HS most closely mirrors the demographics of Arlington County.

Interesting- I got on here to debunk this- but when I looked it up apparently the poster is correct...
The county is approximately- 64% white; 15% Latino; 8% African-American; 10% Asian.
https://arlingtonva.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2016/04/2016ProfilePagesFINAL.pdf

Yorktown is - 64% white; 15% Latino; 6% African-American; 8% Asian.
http://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Civil-Rights-Table-1-2016-11-30-web.pdf

However- if you just go with students enrolled in APS- it would be 47% white; 28% Latino; 10%African-American; 9% Asian.


I guess the households without Children really do not mirror the demographics of households with children.

I think it makes sense for the schools to reflect the demographics of the school system, not the overall population.

Some would accuse you of moving the goal posts. Several people have insisted it mirror county demographics.

No, people have been saying all along that the schools should try and match the demographics of APS -- someone noticed that Yorktown's racial profile is similar to the county overall and has been pushing that, but it doesn't make any sense since a) the real issue is economic diversity, and b) mathematically, the demographics of APS students are so different from the county overall that you cannot have all three schools look like the county. W-L does in fact have close to the same economic and racial diversity as APS a whole.

If you're referring to the Facebook thread I think you're referring to, that comment was in direct response to someone else's insistence that the schools mirror county demographics. I don't think that person was "pushing" anything -- in fact he later noted how the school demographics were different than the school demographics and suggested the previous poster change her messaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

How on earth could it be a surprise? We have pushed a relentless agenda of affordable housing. Of course it has thrown off school demographics,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

How on earth could it be a surprise? We have pushed a relentless agenda of affordable housing. Of course it has thrown off school demographics,

APS is an exception to most local public school systems, in that the percentage of white kids is higher at the elementary and middle school levels than at the high school level.

With some area systems, such as Montgomery County today, it would be an exercise in futility to try and "balance" the demographics. There aren't enough higher-income and white kids left in MCPS, so any effort to balance the demographics probably would just cause more white flight to privates and other counties. Arlington might be the exception, given its demographics and small size, where the county actually could have three "balanced" high schools if the will and vision existed to give kids at Wakefield as good as experience as kids at the other schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

How on earth could it be a surprise? We have pushed a relentless agenda of affordable housing. Of course it has thrown off school demographics,

You'll have to explain how affordable housing throws off the school demographics relative to the overall county demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

How on earth could it be a surprise? We have pushed a relentless agenda of affordable housing. Of course it has thrown off school demographics,

You'll have to explain how affordable housing throws off the school demographics relative to the overall county demographics.

No, you will need to look at a map of committed and maket rate affordable housing in the county. It's really not that complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

How on earth could it be a surprise? We have pushed a relentless agenda of affordable housing. Of course it has thrown off school demographics,

You'll have to explain how affordable housing throws off the school demographics relative to the overall county demographics.

No, you will need to look at a map of committed and maket rate affordable housing in the county. It's really not that complicated.

And why do poor people have the right to live in nicer areas again? Make everything market rate and push them to Woodbridge

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say that demographics should reflect arlington, you should understand that to mean the school system.

That isn't clear at all. I don't think a reasonable person would "understand" that because, frankly, I don't think most people would expect the school demographics to be so dramatically different than county overall. That's a surprising discovery to most people.

How on earth could it be a surprise? We have pushed a relentless agenda of affordable housing. Of course it has thrown off school demographics,

You'll have to explain how affordable housing throws off the school demographics relative to the overall county demographics.

No, you will need to look at a map of committed and maket rate affordable housing in the county. It's really not that complicated.

And why do poor people have the right to live in nicer areas again? Make everything market rate and push them to Woodbridge

Ideally we want to create sustainable communities where people of all levels of wealth, race, and occupation can live and work together in a way that doesn't too heavily disrupt the environment, no?

[Anonymous]

13:45 does have a point, though. If lower-middle-class people can't afford to live as close-in to DC as they want, why is it a god-given right for a poorer person to get a subsidy (from the lower-middle-class taxpayer above) to live in Arlington? It can seem unfair. I remember graduating from college and making a teeny-tiny salary and looking for a rental apartment in Arlington. The nicest apartments in my price range were subsidized housing and I made too much to qualify. But people who made slightly less were able to live there, with tax help. And I had to spend the same amount to live in a really sh*tty apartment with cockroaches or spend my entire salary on a nicer place. Seemed unfair.

[Anonymous]

The county has/is commiting millions of dollars to these projects. They have put zero thought into the secondary effects. What's done is done.
Now we have to redraw lines and bus kids.

[Anonymous]

Busing does not work. I have worked in schools where kids were bused. The prosperous just send their kids to private-and you end up with a bunch of poor kids who live on the other side of town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Busing does not work. I have worked in schools where kids were bused. The prosperous just send their kids to private-and you end up with a bunch of poor kids who live on the other side of town.

Were the distances as short as the distance between, say, Yorktown HS and Nauck (6.7 miles) or Country Club Hills and Wakefield HS (5.4 miles)? Lots of kids in other counties travel further than that to get to their assigned schools.

Time for Arlington to cease with the talk about being progressive, and start walking the walk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Busing does not work. I have worked in schools where kids were bused. The prosperous just send their kids to private-and you end up with a bunch of poor kids who live on the other side of town.

Were the distances as short as the distance between, say, Yorktown HS and Nauck (6.7 miles) or Country Club Hills and Wakefield HS (5.4 miles)? Lots of kids in other counties travel further than that to get to their assigned schools.

Time for Arlington to cease with the talk about being progressive, and start walking the walk.

This was an elementary school. And, it was fairly short distance. However, because of traffic, it was not walkable and many had no transportation. But, all the people from the neighborhood who could afford it sent their kids to private schools. Busing does not work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Busing does not work. I have worked in schools where kids were bused. The prosperous just send their kids to private-and you end up with a bunch of poor kids who live on the other side of town.

Were the distances as short as the distance between, say, Yorktown HS and Nauck (6.7 miles) or Country Club Hills and Wakefield HS (5.4 miles)? Lots of kids in other counties travel further than that to get to their assigned schools.

Time for Arlington to cease with the talk about being progressive, and start walking the walk.

Your fixation on mileage is dumb because it infers it would take 5 or 6 minutes to drive 5.4 miles.

If you bus from CC Hills to Wakefield, that's a 30-minute bus ride in rush-hour traffic without making the stops to pick up and drop off students. 5 or 6 miles in Arlington is the equivalent of 15 or 20 in B.F. Iowa. Stop being so disingenuous.