Hope for DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about the quality of education at the predominantly-Black middle schools, full stop. There are thousands of white families in DC that live EOTP and would love to have a safe, challenging middle school to send their kids to. It just doesn't exist. Hell, even tons of Black and Brown families are opting out of DC's public middle schools.

The schools in fact exist (EH and SH) but people find infinite reasons to disparage them.

Two few kids on grade-level.

Yet, you have incorrect grammar. It's "too" few.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My white and Hispanic middle class child was just promoted from a DCPS EOTP middle school having enjoyed the experience and had a lot of academic success. I'm not sure it's worth identifying myself and the child on this site.

It is not. However, congrats to your child!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about the quality of education at the predominantly-Black middle schools, full stop. There are thousands of white families in DC that live EOTP and would love to have a safe, challenging middle school to send their kids to. It just doesn't exist. Hell, even tons of Black and Brown families are opting out of DC's public middle schools.

The schools in fact exist (EH and SH) but people find infinite reasons to disparage them.

Two few kids on grade-level.

Yet, you have incorrect grammar. It's "too" few.

Yeah, yeah. I made a typo. You can eye-roll all you want, but that doesn't change the key challenge of most DCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Except the percentage of DCPS students is actually 55% black and 17% white (Hispanic is 22% and the remaining categories are all less than 5%) so actually the demographics of schools make perfect sense in that context

You're missing the point.

Why do white parents abandon DCPS? That should be a question DCPS cares about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I honestly hate this entire debate as a white parent in the system. I feel like we are the villain no matter what we do. If I send my kid to a local public school, I'm a gentrifier. If I move and send my kids to an upper NW school, I'm segregating. And god help me if I put my kids in private. There is no "good" path so I've just given up trying. I'm sick of trying to treat my children's education like some sort of symbolic signifier of my morals.

I am a white parent with a non-white child at a majority black Title 1 school. I have never felt like the villain or not welcome at the school. To be fair I am also a teacher so I am not nearly as involved as many other parents at the school. What I have noticed is the white parents tend to just be more demanding. They constantly ask the AP and principal for things I would never ask for because they seem to overstep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Except the percentage of DCPS students is actually 55% black and 17% white (Hispanic is 22% and the remaining categories are all less than 5%) so actually the demographics of schools make perfect sense in that context

You're missing the point.

Why do white parents abandon DCPS? That should be a question DCPS cares about.

Why do more than 1/2 the families in DC abandon DCPS?!

Between charters and privates, DCPS has less than 1/2 the kids--and that's not counting all the families who move over the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about the quality of education at the predominantly-Black middle schools, full stop. There are thousands of white families in DC that live EOTP and would love to have a safe, challenging middle school to send their kids to. It just doesn't exist. Hell, even tons of Black and Brown families are opting out of DC's public middle schools.

The schools in fact exist (EH and SH) but people find infinite reasons to disparage them.

Two few kids on grade-level.

Yet, you have incorrect grammar. It's "too" few.

It's actually incorrect diction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I honestly hate this entire debate as a white parent in the system. I feel like we are the villain no matter what we do. If I send my kid to a local public school, I'm a gentrifier. If I move and send my kids to an upper NW school, I'm segregating. And god help me if I put my kids in private. There is no "good" path so I've just given up trying. I'm sick of trying to treat my children's education like some sort of symbolic signifier of my morals.

I am a white parent with a non-white child at a majority black Title 1 school. I have never felt like the villain or not welcome at the school. To be fair I am also a teacher so I am not nearly as involved as many other parents at the school. What I have noticed is the white parents tend to just be more demanding. They constantly ask the AP and principal for things I would never ask for because they seem to overstep.

What are they asking for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It feels so weird to say that DCPS "needs" white families. Yuck.

It does feel weird but if the goal is diverse schools then yes they "need" white families.

Here is a good place to note that diversity is not actually the goal of many of the non-white families in DCPS -- while white families in DCPS like the idea of sending their kids to diverse schools with plenty of non-white people not all black families dream of sending their kids to schools with a substantial percentage of white kids. Some black families are indifferent. Some are wary but generally see a benefit in more higher income students in a school in terms of the quality of education. But some are actually hostily towards it and worry that having more than 10-20% white families will change the culture of the school in a way that will diminish it as a place that black kids feel welcome and celebrated.

Understanding these attitudes is pretty central to any conversation about how we "improve" DCPS schools -- many white people enter DCPS with PK students and assume that everyone in the system wants the exact same things they do and that's just not the case. I would highly encourage anyone contemplating these issues to actually TALK to black DCPS families especially those who have sent generations of students to DCPS schools and have a different perspective on the city's public schools and their direction.

The goal is good schools. White families simply aren't ever going to move to all neighborhoods of DC. No chance. Ballou isn't going to become 'diverse.' We need it to be good. For the kids who live there.

"Ever" is a long time. It's clear that the city is getting whiter and more hispanic. Eventually (meaning in 70 years) I would be willing to wager that the schools will look very different than they do now. After all, 70 years ago, the DC schools were majority white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Except the percentage of DCPS students is actually 55% black and 17% white (Hispanic is 22% and the remaining categories are all less than 5%) so actually the demographics of schools make perfect sense in that context

You're missing the point.

Why do white parents abandon DCPS? That should be a question DCPS cares about.

Why do more than 1/2 the families in DC abandon DCPS?!

Between charters and privates, DCPS has less than 1/2 the kids--and that's not counting all the families who move over the line.

Yes. Exactly. This shows a failure. Whether it is a PR failure or a systemic school failure, it's a failure and should be adressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Yes, see this is my issue as a white parent. I don't think that the city sees my children as entitled to a good education. They see the DCPS job as primarily trying to decrease the achievement gap between black and white students and also meeting the educational needs of poor students in Wards 7 and 8.

Their obligation to my children is just as significant as the obligation to properly educate any other children in the city.

That said, they've been failing in their obligation to properly maintain school buildings for decades, and likely failing in many other ways.

I don't think this is actually true though I agree with you that DCPS is often more interested in appearing to be equitable than in actually education kids (any kids). This is not true of teachers but is often true of the district and the political leadership especially. It is frustrating.

I have always felt like the teachers in DCPS go above and beyond to educate my kids (who are white) and I have never gotten the sense that my kids are ignored in the classroom in favor of "decreasing the achievement gap."

However my kids attend a Title 1 elementary with a very high percentage of at risk kids (the vast majority of whom are black) and many of the school's resources are geared towards addressing the needs of kids in that category. Sometimes there are incidental benefits to my kids as a result (they get free aftercare for instance even though we'd happily pay for aftercare). But there are also funds that could go towards enrichment programs or other things my kids would benefit from (and that could also benefit at risk kids but it's harder to benefit from enrichment when you aren't getting your basic needs met). Instead these funds are often spent to try and meet those basic needs. But also -- these are Title 1 funds that are designated for that purpose. If the school was not Title 1 we'd have to raise all money for extra programming ourselves. As a middle class family (actual middle class not DCUm middle class) we don't have thousands of dollars sitting around to give to the school to pay for enrichment -- we actually do better just budgeting for enrichment ourselves where we can be thoughtfully frugal.

So when I see this complaint about how DCPS ignores the needs of white and upper income kids in order to artificially close the achievement gap it is hard for me to take them seriously. If you are upper income nothing is stopping you from providing enrichment to your kids yourself. And what is DCPS supposed to do just ignore the 45% of students who are designated at risk and genuinely need more help?

We will probably leave DCPS by middle either for a charter or leaving the district altogether because I can see how this focus on helping at risk kids will start to be something we can't compensate for at home by middle and high school. But I don't sit around shaking my fist at DCPS for it. The real issue is that the city has a lot of poverty and crime and kids suffer for it and schools are the place where city services can reach those kids and try to help. Unless you have some magical solution for endemic poverty and generational violence I am not sure you have a proposal that is goign to fix this situation beyond "I want my kid in advanced math in middle school."

There are still things DCPS could/should be doing to at least attempt to serve all families at the middle and high school level, like better/more differentiation and behavioral management.

No, it doesn't "fix" the situation. But it would give more kids the opportunity to actually learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Sure but that's oversimplifying the issue. Anacostia and other EOTR neighborhoods are not 40% white, and AU Park is not 40% black. Unless you plan to bus kids all over the city, the neighborhood schools are not going to reflect the city average.

Also, school-age demographics look different than total population demographics. Edscape report shows race/ethnicity breakdown for children in DC in 2022 was 52% black, 24% white, 18% hispanic/latino, whereas the adult population was 41%, 41%, 10%. https://edscape.dc.gov/node/1385386

Would be interesting to see which schools look most like their neighborhood demographics and which the least. My spatial data skills aren't good enough for this, but I think you could come up with a fairly solid answer using existing school demographic and census data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When the demographics of the city are 40% black and 40% white, then the public schools should reflect that. And they often don't.

Sure but that's oversimplifying the issue. Anacostia and other EOTR neighborhoods are not 40% white, and AU Park is not 40% black. Unless you plan to bus kids all over the city, the neighborhood schools are not going to reflect the city average.

Also, school-age demographics look different than total population demographics. Edscape report shows race/ethnicity breakdown for children in DC in 2022 was 52% black, 24% white, 18% hispanic/latino, whereas the adult population was 41%, 41%, 10%. https://edscape.dc.gov/node/1385386

Would be interesting to see which schools look most like their neighborhood demographics and which the least. My spatial data skills aren't good enough for this, but I think you could come up with a fairly solid answer using existing school demographic and census data.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? If we had consistently good schools that were well regarded, fewer young people would feel the need to move elsewhere before having kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I honestly hate this entire debate as a white parent in the system. I feel like we are the villain no matter what we do. If I send my kid to a local public school, I'm a gentrifier. If I move and send my kids to an upper NW school, I'm segregating. And god help me if I put my kids in private. There is no "good" path so I've just given up trying. I'm sick of trying to treat my children's education like some sort of symbolic signifier of my morals.

So, I feel you, but I feel like it's important to live my values. Not bumper sticker stuff.

DP but the challenge for me is when my values run up against my own kid's interest. I will just be totally honest and say that I think I was unrealistic and naive about my values before I had kids in the school system and I have considerably more sympathy for people I used to privately criticize for "abandoning local schools" or "being afraid of their kids going to school with poor kids" than I ever thought I would. It is more complex than I thought it was back then and I'm not embarassed to admit that it was appropriate to roll eyes and dismiss me back when I was a prospective PK parent who wanted to "live my values." I'm now a parent of middle elementary kids and I roll my eyes at former self every day. I didn't get it.

So, I definitely run up against this tension constantly, but I choose not to put what can benefit my kid ahead of what can benefit the community. I try to balance them. I ask myself, is this good enough? And it is. And there are benefits that come from participating, from my kid having different friends than I might ever have had myself, a very different school experience. Frankly, my kid would have gotten farther by going to a prominent private school (and I am sure the kid would've gotten in and all that blah blah blah and we coulda paid, etc.)

But my values are about community and not strictly about those closest to me. So I live with the tension. The fact that there are kids with trauma in my kids' school who act out and never learned how to deal with each other kindly (plus they are kids). That DCPS is just one more bureaucracy that can't get its forms together, keep buildings from breaking, all that. I feel nervous. I also know I'd just have different flavors of nervous WOTP or in SS or ARL. And I hear stuff from my kid like, "I feel good because I got my friend through X class" or that kids I would've probably given the side eye say "hi" walking down the street because they know my family.

I'm not saying it's all good or all bad, I just think that too often people vote with their feet and they get the self-perceived best for their kid while the community doesn't build up.

I've been having versions of this conversation for 20 years and it hasn't fixed things, but I do hope that a few examples of success can help people see that not putting your kid first, foremost, and only can still be a good choice and you can do what you value, stressful as it may be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is about the quality of education at the predominantly-Black middle schools, full stop. There are thousands of white families in DC that live EOTP and would love to have a safe, challenging middle school to send their kids to. It just doesn't exist. Hell, even tons of Black and Brown families are opting out of DC's public middle schools.

The schools in fact exist (EH and SH) but people find infinite reasons to disparage them.

Two few kids on grade-level.

Yet, you have incorrect grammar. It's "too" few.

'
Maybe it is two? In some schools, it may be one