Atlantic Article on Rolling Terrace and Outsized Role of Affluent White Parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

Our kid is in immersion at RT and never heard of parents providing gift cards for supplies at the beginning of the year or teacher appreciation week....

My child is also in the immersion program at RT and I remember seeing the call for teacher appreciation gift cards. I gave teachers gift cards directly and not through the PTA.

PP again, also the gift cards were for all of the teachers, not just the Spanish Immersion teachers. The article misrepresents the PTA in that aspect.

Yes, what the article states is simply not true. If it happened it was anecdotally....

What does happen is teachers typically hand out a list of things they want and parents sign up to provide it. But, that is coming on the end of the teacher not a push from the parents to make their particular class have more stuff than other classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

Our kid is in immersion at RT and never heard of parents providing gift cards for supplies at the beginning of the year or teacher appreciation week....

My child is also in the immersion program at RT and I remember seeing the call for teacher appreciation gift cards. I gave teachers gift cards directly and not through the PTA.

PP again, also the gift cards were for all of the teachers, not just the Spanish Immersion teachers. The article misrepresents the PTA in that aspect.

Yes, what the article states is simply not true. If it happened it was anecdotally....

What does happen is teachers typically hand out a list of things they want and parents sign up to provide it. But, that is coming on the end of the teacher not a push from the parents to make their particular class have more stuff than other classes.

It looks like the point being made in the article is that parents give generously in the Spanish-language classrooms, and the result is that the immersion classrooms are better resourced than the "Academy" classrooms. If true, that's a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

Our kid is in immersion at RT and never heard of parents providing gift cards for supplies at the beginning of the year or teacher appreciation week....

My child is also in the immersion program at RT and I remember seeing the call for teacher appreciation gift cards. I gave teachers gift cards directly and not through the PTA.

PP again, also the gift cards were for all of the teachers, not just the Spanish Immersion teachers. The article misrepresents the PTA in that aspect.

Yes, what the article states is simply not true. If it happened it was anecdotally....

What does happen is teachers typically hand out a list of things they want and parents sign up to provide it. But, that is coming on the end of the teacher not a push from the parents to make their particular class have more stuff than other classes.

It looks like the point being made in the article is that parents give generously in the Spanish-language classrooms, and the result is that the immersion classrooms are better resourced than the "Academy" classrooms. If true, that's a problem.

I know what the point being made is but its simply not true. The immersion classes simply don't have more significant "stuff". Furthermore, RT is partial immersion. What that means is that the non immersion kids are typically with immersion kids half of the day so even if immersion parents did provide more "stuff" non-immersion kids would have it too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My school in MCPS has a lot of FARMs children and I think the PTA is concerned about things that do affect all of the children regardless of income. For example nutrition in the cafeteria. It is the low income children who are more likely to be eating hot lunches and they are more in need of good nutritious food.

As for the chrome book issue at Rolling Terrace. I don't agree that Chrome books are especially good for children without computers at home. The concern of the PTA is too much screen time. I think lower income kids actually watch more television than the higher income children. The MCPS information sent home for new Kindergarten families actually recommends limiting screen time at home. And yet the kids watch movies, shows and animated lessons on the smart boards. In addition to that some of these kids have televisions in their bedrooms and stay up late watching things like (the walking dead and Law and Order SVU) both shows my DS came home from Kindergarten asking about. So I think there may be disagreement about screen time but I do not think it is fair to say that the fight about screen time is only important to high income children. There are studies showing time and time again that screen time isn't good for developing brains.

I just don't understand how the PTA is vilified for trying to help. Think about the state of the PTA without the immersion program.

I think you missed the issue surrounding the chrome books. Yes, low income kids can watch a lot of tv. But, they don't have access to computers, and now a days, kids need to know how to use computers. Having a chrome book in the school gives these low income kids exposure to computers that they otherwise don't get at home. That's why the low income parents were happy to have the chrome books in school.

PP here. I am not missing that point. I am saying that the PTA believes it is representing everyone. I definitely understand the alternative argument. I would argue however that chrome books are not the solution. Real computers are which are what people need to word process and eventually in an office. The PTA seems okay with the regular computers which are in classrooms and the computer lab. What I have heard about the chrome books is that the kids often play games on them in class! The main point of the chrome books are for testing. There were and are regular computers for the kids to use. Chrome books like iPads are essentially toys.

? You need to pull yourself into the 21st century. Everything is done in the cloud now, including word processing. "Real computers" are becoming obsolete. I work in high tech, and everything is moving to cloud computing. The hardware is just a shell.

Kids use chromebooks for research in class. It teaches them how to type, to use the internet, a to use a computer in general. I have volunteered in my DC's 2nd grade class and have seen them use it for this purpose.

My husband is IT and that's not true. For professional use, many things are in cloud, but not for home use yet. We have cloud for storage only.

This isn't home, this is school work. My high schooler and middle schooler both are required to use google classroom for various projects. They do it on chrome-books in the classroom or from our computers at home but they don't use any other editing software.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

Our kid is in immersion at RT and never heard of parents providing gift cards for supplies at the beginning of the year or teacher appreciation week....

My child is also in the immersion program at RT and I remember seeing the call for teacher appreciation gift cards. I gave teachers gift cards directly and not through the PTA.

PP again, also the gift cards were for all of the teachers, not just the Spanish Immersion teachers. The article misrepresents the PTA in that aspect.

You give gift cards to all the teachers, and not just your own child's teacher? That's very generous if it's true.

[Anonymous]

I know what the point being made is but its simply not true. The immersion classes simply don't have more significant "stuff". Furthermore, RT is partial immersion. What that means is that the non immersion kids are typically with immersion kids half of the day so even if immersion parents did provide more "stuff" non-immersion kids would have it too.

If folks like the PP are giving gift cards directly to the homeroom teachers, then the Spanish immersion kids could totally end up with more/better resources than their Academy peers, at least for the half of the day they are in immersion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I know what the point being made is but its simply not true. The immersion classes simply don't have more significant "stuff". Furthermore, RT is partial immersion. What that means is that the non immersion kids are typically with immersion kids half of the day so even if immersion parents did provide more "stuff" non-immersion kids would have it too.

If folks like the PP are giving gift cards directly to the homeroom teachers, then the Spanish immersion kids could totally end up with more/better resources than their Academy peers, at least for the half of the day they are in immersion.

The gift cards are for personal use not classroom use. If you give an end of the year gift card its not going to your childs classroom obviously.

[Anonymous]

I think this can happen when there is a separate lottery or test-in program in the school. Depending on how much those programs are integrated with the regular population, they might benefit from higher parent participation and/or contributions.

I have one child in an ES with a moderate FARMS rate (~33%). There, contributions that go to the classroom benefit all of the kids. For every field trip slip, we pay for our kid and another kid as well. Supplies go to all of the kids and the classrooms have a diverse SES so everyone benefits. The PTA has outreach in two languages in addition to English. I don't agree with a PP who said schools should be full of children with a similar SES. I think a moderate mix allows the parents who have more time or more money to help those who don't. I am lucky to have a good job with flexibility so let me get supplies for the classroom that can be shared with everyone.

I also have a child in a magnet, and while I volunteer a little for that PTA, most of the classroom donations go to the magnet classroom which is very diverse ethnically, but not that diverse re: SES. I could see if the magnet parents co-opted the PTA, it wouldn't be balanced. That is not the case for this school, but perhaps that is what the article is concerned about.

Regarding chromebooks - I don't equate them with screen time. Volunteering in the classroom occasionally, I have come along to help when kids go to the computer lab. There is a difference between kids who have a computer at home and are navigating the programs vs. those who can barely type. PAARC and many of the tests are now on the computer and I am sure there are kids who barely can finish an essay because they don't have keyboarding skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My school in MCPS has a lot of FARMs children and I think the PTA is concerned about things that do affect all of the children regardless of income. For example nutrition in the cafeteria. It is the low income children who are more likely to be eating hot lunches and they are more in need of good nutritious food.

As for the chrome book issue at Rolling Terrace. I don't agree that Chrome books are especially good for children without computers at home. The concern of the PTA is too much screen time. I think lower income kids actually watch more television than the higher income children. The MCPS information sent home for new Kindergarten families actually recommends limiting screen time at home. And yet the kids watch movies, shows and animated lessons on the smart boards. In addition to that some of these kids have televisions in their bedrooms and stay up late watching things like (the walking dead and Law and Order SVU) both shows my DS came home from Kindergarten asking about. So I think there may be disagreement about screen time but I do not think it is fair to say that the fight about screen time is only important to high income children. There are studies showing time and time again that screen time isn't good for developing brains.

I just don't understand how the PTA is vilified for trying to help. Think about the state of the PTA without the immersion program.

I think you missed the issue surrounding the chrome books. Yes, low income kids can watch a lot of tv. But, they don't have access to computers, and now a days, kids need to know how to use computers. Having a chrome book in the school gives these low income kids exposure to computers that they otherwise don't get at home. That's why the low income parents were happy to have the chrome books in school.

PP here. I am not missing that point. I am saying that the PTA believes it is representing everyone. I definitely understand the alternative argument. I would argue however that chrome books are not the solution. Real computers are which are what people need to word process and eventually in an office. The PTA seems okay with the regular computers which are in classrooms and the computer lab. What I have heard about the chrome books is that the kids often play games on them in class! The main point of the chrome books are for testing. There were and are regular computers for the kids to use. Chrome books like iPads are essentially toys.

? You need to pull yourself into the 21st century. Everything is done in the cloud now, including word processing. "Real computers" are becoming obsolete. I work in high tech, and everything is moving to cloud computing. The hardware is just a shell.

Kids use chromebooks for research in class. It teaches them how to type, to use the internet, a to use a computer in general. I have volunteered in my DC's 2nd grade class and have seen them use it for this purpose.

My husband is IT and that's not true. For professional use, many things are in cloud, but not for home use yet. We have cloud for storage only.

This isn't home, this is school work. My high schooler and middle schooler both are required to use google classroom for various projects. They do it on chrome-books in the classroom or from our computers at home but they don't use any other editing software.

We do it all at home and then transfer it. Chrome books are monitored by the big companies and we are not ok with it.

[Anonymous]

How old are your kids? When the teacher schedules research time in class do your children not participate? What if it is an in-class group project? Are you sure you know what happens during their school day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
My school in MCPS has a lot of FARMs children and I think the PTA is concerned about things that do affect all of the children regardless of income. For example nutrition in the cafeteria. It is the low income children who are more likely to be eating hot lunches and they are more in need of good nutritious food.

As for the chrome book issue at Rolling Terrace. I don't agree that Chrome books are especially good for children without computers at home. The concern of the PTA is too much screen time. I think lower income kids actually watch more television than the higher income children. The MCPS information sent home for new Kindergarten families actually recommends limiting screen time at home. And yet the kids watch movies, shows and animated lessons on the smart boards. In addition to that some of these kids have televisions in their bedrooms and stay up late watching things like (the walking dead and Law and Order SVU) both shows my DS came home from Kindergarten asking about. So I think there may be disagreement about screen time but I do not think it is fair to say that the fight about screen time is only important to high income children. There are studies showing time and time again that screen time isn't good for developing brains.

I just don't understand how the PTA is vilified for trying to help. Think about the state of the PTA without the immersion program.

I think you missed the issue surrounding the chrome books. Yes, low income kids can watch a lot of tv. But, they don't have access to computers, and now a days, kids need to know how to use computers. Having a chrome book in the school gives these low income kids exposure to computers that they otherwise don't get at home. That's why the low income parents were happy to have the chrome books in school.

PP here. I am not missing that point. I am saying that the PTA believes it is representing everyone. I definitely understand the alternative argument. I would argue however that chrome books are not the solution. Real computers are which are what people need to word process and eventually in an office. The PTA seems okay with the regular computers which are in classrooms and the computer lab. What I have heard about the chrome books is that the kids often play games on them in class! The main point of the chrome books are for testing. There were and are regular computers for the kids to use. Chrome books like iPads are essentially toys.

? You need to pull yourself into the 21st century. Everything is done in the cloud now, including word processing. "Real computers" are becoming obsolete. I work in high tech, and everything is moving to cloud computing. The hardware is just a shell.

Kids use chromebooks for research in class. It teaches them how to type, to use the internet, a to use a computer in general. I have volunteered in my DC's 2nd grade class and have seen them use it for this purpose.

My husband is IT and that's not true. For professional use, many things are in cloud, but not for home use yet. We have cloud for storage only.

This isn't home, this is school work. My high schooler and middle schooler both are required to use google classroom for various projects. They do it on chrome-books in the classroom or from our computers at home but they don't use any other editing software.

Well by HS it is usually collaborative projects, there will be a document which all members of a group have access to. If google is data-mining my DC's lab report, so be it, I still prefer this to buying the Microsoft suite.

We do it all at home and then transfer it. Chrome books are monitored by the big companies and we are not ok with it.

[Anonymous]

(reply above buried in quote)

By HS it is usually collaborative projects, there will be a document which all members of a group have access to. If google is data-mining my DC's lab report, so be it, I still prefer this to buying the Microsoft suite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

Our kid is in immersion at RT and never heard of parents providing gift cards for supplies at the beginning of the year or teacher appreciation week....

My child is also in the immersion program at RT and I remember seeing the call for teacher appreciation gift cards. I gave teachers gift cards directly and not through the PTA.

PP again, also the gift cards were for all of the teachers, not just the Spanish Immersion teachers. The article misrepresents the PTA in that aspect.

You give gift cards to all the teachers, and not just your own child's teacher? That's very generous if it's true.

RT parent: my understanding was that the gifts cards were donated by parents to put in a large pool for every teacher (main teachers, specials, etc.) in the school, not just for Spanish Immersion. If a parent wanted to give a gift to their children's individual teachers they could. Also, as another poster noted, the program is partial immersion so if a family gave supplies/gift cards to both of their child's teachers it would benefit the Spanish immersion and regular classroom. I don't think parents are only giving to 1 of 2 of their children's teachers. I haven't noticed any difference between the supplies/resources in my DC's English or Spanish immersion classroom. However, I do agree that the PTA is mostly made up of the Spanish immersion families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

I want an article to explain how it's possible that many black-majority schools in DC have been getting higher funding for decades, both capital and per-kid, and still severity lag behind.

Material resources is not all that counts. Those PTA-involved families do add a lot of value to schools, and short-sighted articles like this one only help mud the waters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”

I want an article to explain how it's possible that many black-majority schools in DC have been getting higher funding for decades, both capital and per-kid, and still severity lag behind.

Material resources is not all that counts. Those PTA-involved families do add a lot of value to schools, and short-sighted articles like this one only help mud the waters.

You don't need an article. Walk into one of those schools and the answer will hit you pretty quickly.