Diversity of schools - can this work both ways? Am I being unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:there are a lot of threads on middle school eotp where a segment of posters say nothing less than a fully segregated honors track school within a school set-up would be sufficient for them to opt into their neighborhood middle school and its like oh these posters may claim its just academics but really its in some part at bottom about socially segregating larlo from the very poor kids in the neighborhood.

Right! Separate but equal is still the MO of whites but now Asians have joined in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honors, shmonors…I refuse to jump on the band wagon for honors tracking until Banneker becomes more diverse. Until then, this constant claim is a red herring for true intent of further segregation.

A lot of Banneker families don't want it to get more diverse, though. Part of the appeal of Banneker for many black families is that it offers strong academics but is unabashedly focused on attracting black families. I know black families who think of it as akin to an HBCU. It's fine if white or Asian kids go there, but they are proud that it is a predominantly black school. I don't think they share your frustration that its is not diverse enough.

Look, I don't believe in the concept of "reverse racism." If you are not an historically oppressed group, you can't experience racism. White people cannot experience racism in the US. But if we are talking not about racism but self-segregation, it's worth discussing the fact that it goes both ways. A lot of the self-segregation in DC is initiated by black families. Often for good reasons! But this means that white families who go with the status quo and participate in this segregation aren't doing enough to diversify, but also white families that move to black neighborhoods or attend black schools are gentrifying interlopers. So..... this is why a lot of white families dream of a more diverse education option because they feel trapped between two options in which they are the problem and they want a third option in which they can at least feel like part of a solution.

Who are “a lot of Banneker families”?! You’re ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Where do your kids go to school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

No, that’s BS. The point was if the school isn’t even meeting their child’s needs, why the hell would they focus on other kids?

Answer that.

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:there are a lot of threads on middle school eotp where a segment of posters say nothing less than a fully segregated honors track school within a school set-up would be sufficient for them to opt into their neighborhood middle school and its like oh these posters may claim its just academics but really its in some part at bottom about socially segregating larlo from the very poor kids in the neighborhood.

I went to school in a school that was so white I can still name the 3 non-white kids in our graduating class of 400. And it wasn’t any more diverse socio-economically — everyone was UMC, in the 80s meaning of the term and not the DCUM version that actually means “sort of rich.” Almost everyone went on to college, but we all went to state schools. Even with that homogeneous population, we had tracking. The district proposed doing away with tracking at one point when I was in 11th or 12th grade, and the kids in the advanced classes all freaked out because we knew what it was like in earlier grades in non-tracked classes and didn’t want to go back to being bored all day.

Yes, tracking can get complicated because it intersects with issues of race and class. But there are good reasons for tracking that have nothing to do with race or class. The DCUM cohort tends to be made up of people who were once advanced students bored in non-tracked classes. Many of us now have children facing the same issue. There’s more to it than just “socially segregating.”

This, and not just bored. Many of us were very academically minded students who were bullied in non-tracked classes or had to deal with behavioral disruptions from students who didn't care to learn, refused to do the homework, and had little interest in the material. And I went to a majority white school that was like this. I want honors classes for my kid because I distinctly remember what it was like to be sitting in a classroom feeling enthusiastic about the material and barely able to discuss it because so much of the class was taken up with behavioral concerns and students goofing off and trying to distract the teacher. And then also being targeted by those same students for being lame enough to like school and learning.

I know black kids who are giant nerds like I was and I would also like them to have access to tracked classes that are filled with peers who care about the material and where they can move at a speed that matches their interests and ability.

Public schools have a lot of kids who just don't want to be there and don't want to learn. There are lots of reasons for that, but it's unclear to me why the kids who love school and love learning need to dumb themselves down to accommodate these kids when they could just be in another room actually learning. At least for a couple subjects a day. People who opposed honors classes or tracking are either willfully forgetting what public school was like for the academic students or they were not very academic themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

Exactly! Me, me, me, my kid. Entitlement and self-absorption is the norm. It’s gross. I want everyone’s needs to be met. PP kid is likely average and PP can’t handle it so she blames DCPS for not challenging her kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

Exactly! Me, me, me, my kid. Entitlement and self-absorption is the norm. It’s gross. I want everyone’s needs to be met. PP kid is likely average and PP can’t handle it so she blames DCPS for not challenging her kid.

This is just a discussion board. Saying you care here doesn't mean sh!t. Tell us where you send your kids to middle school or high school or sit and spin.

[Anonymous]

And please just stop. Anyone who has had kids in dcps for more than a hot second knows that any conversations with school leadership aimed toward the general good will go nowhere. Smart parents know to focus on what their kids need and how to leverage the available resources to get it. PP was correct that it is DCPS’s job to have the general good in mind. They often don’t do a good job of that, which is why parents need to be focused on our own kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

Exactly! Me, me, me, my kid. Entitlement and self-absorption is the norm. It’s gross. I want everyone’s needs to be met. PP kid is likely average and PP can’t handle it so she blames DCPS for not challenging her kid.

Take a seat. You are an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

Exactly! Me, me, me, my kid. Entitlement and self-absorption is the norm. It’s gross. I want everyone’s needs to be met. PP kid is likely average and PP can’t handle it so she blames DCPS for not challenging her kid.

I totally agree with the above PP. DCUM Conventional Wisdom is "the only reasonable choice is grab as much as you can" for yourself/your kids/your family, and fight anything that doesn't benefit me (sorry, my kid) before (or grudgingly, concurrently with) everybody else's.

There is a growing minority view that community benefit first, e.g., from joining low-income/nonwhite schools or avoiding self-segregation into racial enclave charters, is acceptable or even good for everyone, but this view is usually shouted down, typically with a "whatevs, I'm gonna get mine" or "since I'm not white, my culture says I need to get mine first" or something similarly head-scratching.

For my end, I want my kids in the low-income, "underperforming" schools and have them there now, where my kids are succeeding just fine, socially and academically. No, we are not a naive bleeding heart PK family though I'm not going to out myself to My Very Good Friends of DCUM. My goal is to be part of the community and support excellence as they grow rather than shout about it from outside or dismiss these schools as "non-options."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:+1. Asian families tend to be pragmatic about public schools, not chasing some ideal sounding ethnic breakdown.

Because they understand that the role of a school is to give their kids the best education available, rather than to advance some sort of progressive utopia.

Just another reason why Asians do well academically. For them, it's a purely transactional experience.

Hmm, but I don’t value the Asian model of learning. Diversity is important. A good school for all is an excellent goal. Injecting UMC who score well on exams improves lower income kids’ education and goals while improving UMC kids too. I reject that test scores and my kid’s outcomes are my entire focus. We live in a democracy and we need to improve public education for ALL kids. UMC families need to stop defeating schools and hoarding opportunities.

Yea no. My goal is for my kid, especially since DC is not meeting my kids academic potential by focusing on just the bottom.

It’s not families that are responsible for improving education for all kids, it’s the school district. And to that DC is failing miserably. DC can’t even meet my kid’s needs so why should I be concerned about other kids?

The purest distillation of DCUM. “I refuse to care about anyone else’s kids. Why doesn’t everyone else care about my kids!”

Exactly! Me, me, me, my kid. Entitlement and self-absorption is the norm. It’s gross. I want everyone’s needs to be met. PP kid is likely average and PP can’t handle it so she blames DCPS for not challenging her kid.

I totally agree with the above PP. DCUM Conventional Wisdom is "the only reasonable choice is grab as much as you can" for yourself/your kids/your family, and fight anything that doesn't benefit me (sorry, my kid) before (or grudgingly, concurrently with) everybody else's.

There is a growing minority view that community benefit first, e.g., from joining low-income/nonwhite schools or avoiding self-segregation into racial enclave charters, is acceptable or even good for everyone, but this view is usually shouted down, typically with a "whatevs, I'm gonna get mine" or "since I'm not white, my culture says I need to get mine first" or something similarly head-scratching.

For my end, I want my kids in the low-income, "underperforming" schools and have them there now, where my kids are succeeding just fine, socially and academically. No, we are not a naive bleeding heart PK family though I'm not going to out myself to My Very Good Friends of DCUM. My goal is to be part of the community and support excellence as they grow rather than shout about it from outside or dismiss these schools as "non-options."

Have your children reached middle school?

[Anonymous]

The neighborhood middle and high schools in DC apart from the obvious three have boundary participation rates ranging from 7% to 39%. That's not just UMC people deciding that these aren't the best schools for their kids. Avoiding schools where most kids are significantly behind and where there are attendence and disciplinary challenges is actually a totally normal thing across income and racial lines.

You want to do something different, no one can stop you. But consider that your narrative about how your kids are doing great and other families who prioritize their children are selfish makes it much less likely that your kids will share with you if something is going wrong for them.