Integrated Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People using their neighborhood schools instead of charters would help. There are plenty of integrated neighborhoods in DC, white people just don’t want to send their kids to the local school.

Our charter (Spanish immersion) is far more integrated than our neighborhood school. If everyone in my neighborhood right now started attending our neighborhood school, it would be pretty diverse, however. So, I get your point. With that said, our charter is truly diverse in terms of SES and race and ethnicity and that's what I want my kids to keep experiencing.

I understand that your charter school is integrated and you like that, but unfortunately that experience is not available to every student in DC. Yes, the lottery is fair but they absolutely contribute to segregated schools. Look at Brookland or Bloomingdale. White families in those neighborhoods reject traditional public schools in favor of charters, which makes the neighborhood schools segregated-even if the charters are integrated.

Newsflash- those neighborhood schools have ALWAYS been segregated, as have the neighborhood schools in Ward 3 ever since the people there started sending a higher percentage of their kids and slowly blocked out the out of boundary kids. Are charters perfect? Of course not. But it's a weird argument to knock down the biggest bright spot of integration over the last 20 years. I am all for anything which disconnects schools from the housing market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually SES integration that is more important. DC should aim for consistent FARMS rates across all schools. This is the root of the largest achievement gap.

If you read the very interesting report PP linked above, you will find:

"Students at public schools in D.C. have more exposure to peers from different economic groups than to peers in other racial and ethnic groups. Over half of schools have between 40 percent and 60 percent of students who are at-risk, meaning that many students are attending schools with a balanced share of students from another economic group (see Figure 2). However, 18 schools have very low proportions – less than ten percent – of at-risk students, while just three schools have more than 90 percent of at-risk students. By comparison, the distribution of African American students is extremely imbalanced. Half of D.C.’s public schools have a student body that is at least 90 percent African American, meaning that many students do not attend school with students from other racial or ethnic groups."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People using their neighborhood schools instead of charters would help. There are plenty of integrated neighborhoods in DC, white people just don’t want to send their kids to the local school.

Our charter (Spanish immersion) is far more integrated than our neighborhood school. If everyone in my neighborhood right now started attending our neighborhood school, it would be pretty diverse, however. So, I get your point. With that said, our charter is truly diverse in terms of SES and race and ethnicity and that's what I want my kids to keep experiencing.

This is what is preventing us from having more integrated schools. Individual families making choices for the benefit of their own child. Opportunity hoarding. I want what is "best" for my child.

Somewhere along the line we as a society decided to condition parents to "want what is best" for their child, at the expense of the community. As a society, we need to value our community above adding one more privilege for our child. We need to consider what is best for all children, more than adding one more benefit to our individual child. For most people on this thread, and many in our community, picking what is best for the community will not hurt our child one bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funny enough there are several very vocal black families who are angry that our elementary school has gone from basically 100% black to around 75% black over the past 5-7 years. They don't want white people coming to "their" school and they are not shy about it. They don't want an integrated school. They were happier with a less integrated neighborhood and a less integrated school.

This is a complex issue and its not just solved by UMC white families going to their neighborhood schools.

I'd guess that they wouldn't mind if there was a guarantee that it would remain majority black, or at least accessible to black families. Our school - which might be yours - has experienced the same trend. Today, the younger grades are majority white, the older grades majority black. In 5 years, I'd guess that the whole school will be majority white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It starts and ends with the liberal hypocrites in DC pulling their kids out of private schools, sending them to their assigned public schools, and advocating for changes in the Wilson and Deal boundaries.

Most of the DC families who use private schools live in WOTP. Going to the largely white elementary schools in that area won't do anything for integration.

If you truly want integrated schools you have to 1) have integrated neighborhoods and/or 2) not use geography to assign students to schools.

Ding ding ding!

https://www.the74million.org/article/74-interview-author-tim-deroche-on-the-inequity-of-school-attendance-zones-the-flaws-of-open-enrollment-and-why-the-government-should-drive-down-housing-prices/

Also remember that the housing and school "market" is regional in nature. Some stats:

Total kids in DCPS and charters: ~90,000
Arlington County: 28,000
Fairfax County: 188,000
Montgomery County: 163,000
Prince George's County: 89,000

So DC public school students make up about 16% of the total in the core of the region. To a certain extent, if changes aren't done across all the districts, making changes in DC probably won't do a whole lot. But it seems pretty obvious that moving away from fixed attendance zones is a key part of integrating schools.

But hasn’t DC already done that with the lottery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Funny enough there are several very vocal black families who are angry that our elementary school has gone from basically 100% black to around 75% black over the past 5-7 years. They don't want white people coming to "their" school and they are not shy about it. They don't want an integrated school. They were happier with a less integrated neighborhood and a less integrated school.

This is a complex issue and its not just solved by UMC white families going to their neighborhood schools.

I'd guess that they wouldn't mind if there was a guarantee that it would remain majority black, or at least accessible to black families. Our school - which might be yours - has experienced the same trend. Today, the younger grades are majority white, the older grades majority black. In 5 years, I'd guess that the whole school will be majority white.

Well, there still is the residency fraud issue to consider in your projection

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People using their neighborhood schools instead of charters would help. There are plenty of integrated neighborhoods in DC, white people just don’t want to send their kids to the local school.

Our charter (Spanish immersion) is far more integrated than our neighborhood school. If everyone in my neighborhood right now started attending our neighborhood school, it would be pretty diverse, however. So, I get your point. With that said, our charter is truly diverse in terms of SES and race and ethnicity and that's what I want my kids to keep experiencing.

I understand that your charter school is integrated and you like that, but unfortunately that experience is not available to every student in DC. Yes, the lottery is fair but they absolutely contribute to segregated schools. Look at Brookland or Bloomingdale. White families in those neighborhoods reject traditional public schools in favor of charters, which makes the neighborhood schools segregated-even if the charters are integrated.

Newsflash- those neighborhood schools have ALWAYS been segregated, as have the neighborhood schools in Ward 3 ever since the people there started sending a higher percentage of their kids and slowly blocked out the out of boundary kids. Are charters perfect? Of course not. But it's a weird argument to knock down the biggest bright spot of integration over the last 20 years. I am all for anything which disconnects schools from the housing market.

Actually, from the linked study:

"By sector, DCPS schools are more diverse racially and ethnically than are public charter schools. The median racial and ethnic diversity score for DCPS schools is 21 percent compared to five percent at public charter schools. This means that the plurality race or ethnicity comprises at least 79 percent of the student body at half of DCPS schools."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People using their neighborhood schools instead of charters would help. There are plenty of integrated neighborhoods in DC, white people just don’t want to send their kids to the local school.

Our charter (Spanish immersion) is far more integrated than our neighborhood school. If everyone in my neighborhood right now started attending our neighborhood school, it would be pretty diverse, however. So, I get your point. With that said, our charter is truly diverse in terms of SES and race and ethnicity and that's what I want my kids to keep experiencing.

I understand that your charter school is integrated and you like that, but unfortunately that experience is not available to every student in DC. Yes, the lottery is fair but they absolutely contribute to segregated schools. Look at Brookland or Bloomingdale. White families in those neighborhoods reject traditional public schools in favor of charters, which makes the neighborhood schools segregated-even if the charters are integrated.

True of Brookland I guess, but lots of white kids in Bloomingdale and Shaw go to Seaton. I know a 3rd grsder. And when Langley got a competent, permanent principal, high-SES folks started enrolling. Yes there is a long way to go, but it's not like people won't attend at all.

DCPS needs to cure its administrative failings before anything really changes.

[Anonymous]

L-T and Watkins on the Hill are both pretty integrated and diverse by any measure (race, SES, etc).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It starts and ends with the liberal hypocrites in DC pulling their kids out of private schools, sending them to their assigned public schools, and advocating for changes in the Wilson and Deal boundaries.

Most of the DC families who use private schools live in WOTP. Going to the largely white elementary schools in that area won't do anything for integration.

If you truly want integrated schools you have to 1) have integrated neighborhoods and/or 2) not use geography to assign students to schools.

Ding ding ding!

https://www.the74million.org/article/74-interview-author-tim-deroche-on-the-inequity-of-school-attendance-zones-the-flaws-of-open-enrollment-and-why-the-government-should-drive-down-housing-prices/

Also remember that the housing and school "market" is regional in nature. Some stats:

Total kids in DCPS and charters: ~90,000
Arlington County: 28,000
Fairfax County: 188,000
Montgomery County: 163,000
Prince George's County: 89,000

So DC public school students make up about 16% of the total in the core of the region. To a certain extent, if changes aren't done across all the districts, making changes in DC probably won't do a whole lot. But it seems pretty obvious that moving away from fixed attendance zones is a key part of integrating schools.

the interview you linked to is EXCELLENT. thank you!

[Anonymous]

We watched Ms. Virginia yesterday for some DL and local history and insight into race, economic status, and the education system in DC.
Don't know that it gives any answers but it brings a different prospective to what drives all types of parents to private schools. (We are not a private school family, we are a multiracial family, went to college, fairly "good" jobs and probably barely qualify as middle class by DC standards)
Anyhow, worth watching.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dcs-controversial-school-vouchers-get-the-star-treatment-in-a-new-movie/2019/10/13/4240fed4-eac4-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html

[Anonymous]

If you believe that systemic racism should be dismantled and that Black Lives Matter then your school choices should reflect those values. It's not complicated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some interesting background here:

https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/landscape-of-diversity-in-dc-public-schools/

Notably, 20% of kids in DC are white, but only 10% of public school (including charter) are.

This is interesting. So can we conclude that fully half of white people with kids in DC have chosen to enroll them in private schools?

It would have been a better statistic if it hadn't included 3 year olds.

Exactly!

So tired of younger people conflating Bright Horizons with “private school.”

These discussions should be limited to compulsory grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you believe that systemic racism should be dismantled and that Black Lives Matter then your school choices should reflect those values. It's not complicated.

Sorry but I don't believe sending my child into the void of incompetence is dismantling racism. If anything, it's propping up a school system that itself fundamentally racist in addition to being incompetent. When the adults in charge of DCPS learn to manage a school effecticely, then we can talk. The option of charter middle schools is the only reason people are willing to live EOTP at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you believe that systemic racism should be dismantled and that Black Lives Matter then your school choices should reflect those values. It's not complicated.

Sorry but I don't believe sending my child into the void of incompetence is dismantling racism. If anything, it's propping up a school system that itself fundamentally racist in addition to being incompetent. When the adults in charge of DCPS learn to manage a school effecticely, then we can talk. The option of charter middle schools is the only reason people are willing to live EOTP at all.

There is actually a lot of good data out there that suggests otherwise. You might find this book, which goes through a comprehensive economic study on segregation helpful: "Children of the Dream: Why School Integration Works" by Dr. Rucker Johnson. https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research/selected-publications/children-of-the-dream-why-school-integration-works