Help me Edit: Response to Brookings Report

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:I get that it chaps, but you’re wrong about this point categorically. Dense qualitative description by itself has critical value, even if no prescriptions are in it.

I think you’re very personally invested on this point (which is understandable; it’s not enjoyable to learn that one is unintentionally cultivating a racist garden), and that your investment is driving you to positions you know aren’t defensible. The idea that Brookings has to have a policy prescription on hand for every problem it identifies is one of those.

Forget about Brookings. You agree with their conclusion. What is your solution? If you think we are engaging in segregation, what do we need to change so that we aren't doing that?

[Anonymous]

NP.

I agree with the posters that say you should abandon this effort because you sound tone-deaf and a perfect example of white fragility. I am African-American (ADOS) 1st Washingtonian who has lurked on this site for 10 years and I view most of the DCUM posters to be unintentional segregationists. with a heavy sprinkling of bona fide racists.

The Founding Fathers of this country created a system to keep people like me subservient to White people because they believed we were inherently less than. This system was built to last so that even if slavery was abolished, even if Jim Crow was abolished, their effects would continue on. That's how systemic racism works i.e. unintentional acts of the so-called "majority" work in favor to keep the "minority" as lesser. Even though red-lining was stopped in the 80's - its effects linger. Even though Brown ended school segregation, I still felt its effects as a DCPS student attending my segregated elementary school in Columbia Heights in the 80s.

I think what many of us who disagree with you in writing this rebuttal is that two things can both be true - the majority of DCUM posters can be "segregationist" unintentionally and this is a complex problem that is not easily solved.

As an aside, an integrated school is one where the inbound students come from different races. In my opinion, Deal and Wilson are diverse but I don't view them as integrated since the neighborhoods that are considered inbound are not integrated. Diversity does not equal integration but that’s just my opinion.

As for solutions, why can’t Brookings raise awareness to an issue? Why do they have to offer solutions? History has shown us that each time a solution that could have offered equity to African-Americans was floated it was shot down, abandoned or destroyed i.e. 40 acres and a mule or the North's protection during Reconstruction, or the Civil Rights Movement. As a starting point to dismantling this system, one could become aware of the issues so that when solutions are aired - like a move away from neighborhood based schools (since DC neighborhoods are segregated) you fight for it rather than against them.

I get that you are upset they used your site without providing you notice and I understand why you're writing this. While will not agree on this topic, I wish you luck with crafting your rebuttal.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we’re talking past each other here.

Generally, I don’t think Brookings has to offer solutions to problems it identifies in order for its research to make accurate truth claims.

I also think they are right about what they identify here. Not universally, but more right than wrong.

I don’t expect “someone else” to solve this problem. When I recognize the dynamics they’re describing in my own life, I try to take steps to lessen them. With the climate here being what it is lately, I’m not down for describing those steps. That climate issue is worth some of your energy. It’s worse than it has been. That, more than Brookings, is going to cut into your traffic after the initial bump.

Regardless: Brookings doesn’t have to identify solutions to be identifying problems.

Talking past each other or not, we are definitely having trouble communicating. Because neither Brookings nor you propose alternative actions for DCUM posters, all you have to offer is criticism. You say that your criticism is correct. But my argument is that while our users are making choices that might not be perfect, they are still the best choices available to them. If there are better choices, what are they? You won't say and Brookings didn't say. I assume that whatever secrets you are keeping are unknown to our users, so even though better choices may secretly exist, they are unknown to our posters who are still making the best choices among the alternatives known to them.

It really seems like common sense that if you are going to criticize someone's actions, you should be able to tell them what they should do differently. Otherwise, it is not clear that you wouldn't do exactly the same thing they are doing if you were in their circumstances.

I agree with the PP. I have only skimmed the report but it is seems they are calling attention to a specific example of the perpetuation of school segregation in DC, but it is not their charge to offer solutions. It was not their primary objective for this one report, and it may not even fit their expertise. This is common among researchers (as one myself)--I have experience in traditional clinical trials, but it's not my charge to figure out how to actually implement the findings; that's left to implementation researchers. Similarly, the Brookings authors went in the weeds to describe the problem, but those who describe the problem sometimes have a different skill set than those who might offer a solution. Also, a discussion of solutions might take more funding and another 40 pages.

I commented earlier on the other thread that you may take issue with the methodology and research ethics, but I'd remove the defensive tone, if you plan to respond at all. Otherwise, it's really not a good look. It is at odds with lots of people's experience with this site, where posters are often steered to the whitest sides of town or schools, and it is also at odds with other research in this area that has found similar results.

I posted an earlier article about the Mathematica lottery study, which spoke about "carefully curated integration." I have no doubt that most of the good posters in this forum want diversity; they want their kids to have friends of other backgrounds and cultures. But they still want schools with the highest proportion of white students, as this is seen as a marker for quality. You see it with the popularity of schools like CMI in years past despite poor scores, while the reverse is true with Shepherd and to some extent, Banneker.

I would point out the methodological flaws, similar to what letters to the editor accomplish when critiquing a prior published article in a scientific journal--it adds context and fair criticism. But I'd remove the personal tone for the reasons noted by others.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get that it chaps, but you’re wrong about this point categorically. Dense qualitative description by itself has critical value, even if no prescriptions are in it.

I think you’re very personally invested on this point (which is understandable; it’s not enjoyable to learn that one is unintentionally cultivating a racist garden), and that your investment is driving you to positions you know aren’t defensible. The idea that Brookings has to have a policy prescription on hand for every problem it identifies is one of those.

Forget about Brookings. You agree with their conclusion. What is your solution? If you think we are engaging in segregation, what do we need to change so that we aren't doing that?

Well-off white people need to engage with schools as though they are something other than a high-commitment consumer marketplace in which maximizing the outcome for one’s own family, even at the expense of others, is the goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we’re talking past each other here.

Generally, I don’t think Brookings has to offer solutions to problems it identifies in order for its research to make accurate truth claims.

I also think they are right about what they identify here. Not universally, but more right than wrong.

I don’t expect “someone else” to solve this problem. When I recognize the dynamics they’re describing in my own life, I try to take steps to lessen them. With the climate here being what it is lately, I’m not down for describing those steps. That climate issue is worth some of your energy. It’s worse than it has been. That, more than Brookings, is going to cut into your traffic after the initial bump.

Regardless: Brookings doesn’t have to identify solutions to be identifying problems.

Talking past each other or not, we are definitely having trouble communicating. Because neither Brookings nor you propose alternative actions for DCUM posters, all you have to offer is criticism. You say that your criticism is correct. But my argument is that while our users are making choices that might not be perfect, they are still the best choices available to them. If there are better choices, what are they? You won't say and Brookings didn't say. I assume that whatever secrets you are keeping are unknown to our users, so even though better choices may secretly exist, they are unknown to our posters who are still making the best choices among the alternatives known to them.

It really seems like common sense that if you are going to criticize someone's actions, you should be able to tell them what they should do differently. Otherwise, it is not clear that you wouldn't do exactly the same thing they are doing if you were in their circumstances.

NP but it seems like common sense to me that Brookings is actually critiquing both the system and the actors, and you're interpreting it primarily as a personal attack ("they keep calling us segregationists"). When you try to turn a discussion about systemic racism into a conversation about whether or not you're a nice person, you're centering yourself in an unhelpful and unsympathetic way. I agree with the PPs that say you should leave this alone or at least re-read and edit it when you're not so upset. If you have to respond it should be about the weaknesses inherent in the methodology, the fact that boundaries were redrawn during the survey time, and the less outraged points.

Not to pile on, but I've reported enough overtly racist stuff on the schools forum to know that there's plenty of meat on the report's bones. You've deleted most, though not all, of it, so I'm not sure why you're committed to arguing that racism doesn't play a role in the school choices made by posters here. Stop looking at it as about you and start looking at is about the aggregate of posts. The methodology is flawed but it's not like they're coming out of fantasy land.

Saying that if you're against racial segregation, parents who choose to send their kids to integrated schools despite easily having the option not to are the wrong target is not saying "we're nice people." The writing here is very clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we’re talking past each other here.

Generally, I don’t think Brookings has to offer solutions to problems it identifies in order for its research to make accurate truth claims.

I also think they are right about what they identify here. Not universally, but more right than wrong.

I don’t expect “someone else” to solve this problem. When I recognize the dynamics they’re describing in my own life, I try to take steps to lessen them. With the climate here being what it is lately, I’m not down for describing those steps. That climate issue is worth some of your energy. It’s worse than it has been. That, more than Brookings, is going to cut into your traffic after the initial bump.

Regardless: Brookings doesn’t have to identify solutions to be identifying problems.

Talking past each other or not, we are definitely having trouble communicating. Because neither Brookings nor you propose alternative actions for DCUM posters, all you have to offer is criticism. You say that your criticism is correct. But my argument is that while our users are making choices that might not be perfect, they are still the best choices available to them. If there are better choices, what are they? You won't say and Brookings didn't say. I assume that whatever secrets you are keeping are unknown to our users, so even though better choices may secretly exist, they are unknown to our posters who are still making the best choices among the alternatives known to them.

It really seems like common sense that if you are going to criticize someone's actions, you should be able to tell them what they should do differently. Otherwise, it is not clear that you wouldn't do exactly the same thing they are doing if you were in their circumstances.

NP but it seems like common sense to me that Brookings is actually critiquing both the system and the actors, and you're interpreting it primarily as a personal attack ("they keep calling us segregationists"). When you try to turn a discussion about systemic racism into a conversation about whether or not you're a nice person, you're centering yourself in an unhelpful and unsympathetic way. I agree with the PPs that say you should leave this alone or at least re-read and edit it when you're not so upset. If you have to respond it should be about the weaknesses inherent in the methodology, the fact that boundaries were redrawn during the survey time, and the less outraged points.

Not to pile on, but I've reported enough overtly racist stuff on the schools forum to know that there's plenty of meat on the report's bones. You've deleted most, though not all, of it, so I'm not sure why you're committed to arguing that racism doesn't play a role in the school choices made by posters here. Stop looking at it as about you and start looking at is about the aggregate of posts. The methodology is flawed but it's not like they're coming out of fantasy land.

+1000. I was actually surprised by Jeff's initially defensiveness, because he's seemed so reasonable on other race-related issues. You captured the issue here perfectly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I get that it chaps, but you’re wrong about this point categorically. Dense qualitative description by itself has critical value, even if no prescriptions are in it.

I think you’re very personally invested on this point (which is understandable; it’s not enjoyable to learn that one is unintentionally cultivating a racist garden), and that your investment is driving you to positions you know aren’t defensible. The idea that Brookings has to have a policy prescription on hand for every problem it identifies is one of those.

Forget about Brookings. You agree with their conclusion. What is your solution? If you think we are engaging in segregation, what do we need to change so that we aren't doing that?

Well-off white people need to engage with schools as though they are something other than a high-commitment consumer marketplace in which maximizing the outcome for one’s own family, even at the expense of others, is the goal.

+1. I've spoken to white neighbors who've casually mentioned "using" Shepherd for PK3/4 until they can fine something better (i.e., whiter).

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:NP but it seems like common sense to me that Brookings is actually critiquing both the system and the actors, and you're interpreting it primarily as a personal attack ("they keep calling us segregationists"). When you try to turn a discussion about systemic racism into a conversation about whether or not you're a nice person, you're centering yourself in an unhelpful and unsympathetic way. I agree with the PPs that say you should leave this alone or at least re-read and edit it when you're not so upset. If you have to respond it should be about the weaknesses inherent in the methodology, the fact that boundaries were redrawn during the survey time, and the less outraged points.

Not to pile on, but I've reported enough overtly racist stuff on the schools forum to know that there's plenty of meat on the report's bones. You've deleted most, though not all, of it, so I'm not sure why you're committed to arguing that racism doesn't play a role in the school choices made by posters here. Stop looking at it as about you and start looking at is about the aggregate of posts. The methodology is flawed but it's not like they're coming out of fantasy land.

Directly from the report, "The conversations on DC Urban Moms illustrate what other research has also shown: When privileged parents choose, they tend to choose segregation." What is this saying if it is not saying that we are segregationists? Their description includes you, by the way. I don't know why I shouldn't take this misrepresentation of a website I own personally. I actually think I should.

As I have said, there are racists here. There are racists everywhere in America. Racism, whether conscious or unconscious, may play a role in school choices. But, I disagree with the report's conclusion that DCUM posters are choosing segregation. You are one of our posters. Did you choose segregation? The aggregate of the posts here are not racist. I don't know how many you have reported, but I guarantee that they are such a small percentage of the posts as to be almost unnoticeable. The report is doing a grave disservice by reducing a complex and nuanced issue to a simple accusation of racism. You know there is more to it than that. Why are you defending such their conclusion?

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP but it seems like common sense to me that Brookings is actually critiquing both the system and the actors, and you're interpreting it primarily as a personal attack ("they keep calling us segregationists"). When you try to turn a discussion about systemic racism into a conversation about whether or not you're a nice person, you're centering yourself in an unhelpful and unsympathetic way. I agree with the PPs that say you should leave this alone or at least re-read and edit it when you're not so upset. If you have to respond it should be about the weaknesses inherent in the methodology, the fact that boundaries were redrawn during the survey time, and the less outraged points.

Not to pile on, but I've reported enough overtly racist stuff on the schools forum to know that there's plenty of meat on the report's bones. You've deleted most, though not all, of it, so I'm not sure why you're committed to arguing that racism doesn't play a role in the school choices made by posters here. Stop looking at it as about you and start looking at is about the aggregate of posts. The methodology is flawed but it's not like they're coming out of fantasy land.

Directly from the report, "The conversations on DC Urban Moms illustrate what other research has also shown: When privileged parents choose, they tend to choose segregation." What is this saying if it is not saying that we are segregationists? Their description includes you, by the way. I don't know why I shouldn't take this misrepresentation of a website I own personally. I actually think I should.

As I have said, there are racists here. There are racists everywhere in America. Racism, whether conscious or unconscious, may play a role in school choices. But, I disagree with the report's conclusion that DCUM posters are choosing segregation. You are one of our posters. Did you choose segregation? The aggregate of the posts here are not racist. I don't know how many you have reported, but I guarantee that they are such a small percentage of the posts as to be almost unnoticeable. The report is doing a grave disservice by reducing a complex and nuanced issue to a simple accusation of racism. You know there is more to it than that. Why are you defending such their conclusion?

Many, many conversations on DCUM do illustrate what other research has shown, that privileged parents choose segregation. I am not horrified by this report because it rings true to me based on the comical amount of time I spend here. The conclusion is overbroad, especially since you seem to be reading "the conversations on DCUM" to mean "every single conversation on DCUM," but the defensiveness (and trying to transfer the defensiveness to me?) is also overblown. Their description doesn't include me, because I have not participated in the conversations that support their point other than to debate people who insist that SWW is the bees knees and Banneker is for problem cases with no dads (real thread!).

I think there are methodological problems with the report, and I think you've described some of them persuasively. I also think the overly-personal reactions in other parts of your draft are inappropriate and you may come to regret publishing this while upset. But this is your site, and it's your essay. If that's the direction you want to go, I'm not going to keep arguing against it.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I agree with the posters that say you should abandon this effort because you sound tone-deaf and a perfect example of white fragility. I am African-American (ADOS) 1st Washingtonian who has lurked on this site for 10 years and I view most of the DCUM posters to be unintentional segregationists. with a heavy sprinkling of bona fide racists.

The Founding Fathers of this country created a system to keep people like me subservient to White people because they believed we were inherently less than. This system was built to last so that even if slavery was abolished, even if Jim Crow was abolished, their effects would continue on. That's how systemic racism works i.e. unintentional acts of the so-called "majority" work in favor to keep the "minority" as lesser. Even though red-lining was stopped in the 80's - its effects linger. Even though Brown ended school segregation, I still felt its effects as a DCPS student attending my segregated elementary school in Columbia Heights in the 80s.

I think what many of us who disagree with you in writing this rebuttal is that two things can both be true - the majority of DCUM posters can be "segregationist" unintentionally and this is a complex problem that is not easily solved.

As an aside, an integrated school is one where the inbound students come from different races. In my opinion, Deal and Wilson are diverse but I don't view them as integrated since the neighborhoods that are considered inbound are not integrated. Diversity does not equal integration but that’s just my opinion.

As for solutions, why can’t Brookings raise awareness to an issue? Why do they have to offer solutions? History has shown us that each time a solution that could have offered equity to African-Americans was floated it was shot down, abandoned or destroyed i.e. 40 acres and a mule or the North's protection during Reconstruction, or the Civil Rights Movement. As a starting point to dismantling this system, one could become aware of the issues so that when solutions are aired - like a move away from neighborhood based schools (since DC neighborhoods are segregated) you fight for it rather than against them.

I get that you are upset they used your site without providing you notice and I understand why you're writing this. While will not agree on this topic, I wish you luck with crafting your rebuttal.

Thank you for this response which I greatly appreciate. I also appreciate your long participation in this forum which I know has probably not been easy at times.

I agree with much of what you are saying, especially your paragraph about the Founding Fathers and the persistence of systemic racism. It is clear that either I am wrong in my perception of our users or I am doing a poor job of making my argument. At any rate, I will take the advice that has been offered by many and modify my response in ways that have been suggested.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP but it seems like common sense to me that Brookings is actually critiquing both the system and the actors, and you're interpreting it primarily as a personal attack ("they keep calling us segregationists"). When you try to turn a discussion about systemic racism into a conversation about whether or not you're a nice person, you're centering yourself in an unhelpful and unsympathetic way. I agree with the PPs that say you should leave this alone or at least re-read and edit it when you're not so upset. If you have to respond it should be about the weaknesses inherent in the methodology, the fact that boundaries were redrawn during the survey time, and the less outraged points.

Not to pile on, but I've reported enough overtly racist stuff on the schools forum to know that there's plenty of meat on the report's bones. You've deleted most, though not all, of it, so I'm not sure why you're committed to arguing that racism doesn't play a role in the school choices made by posters here. Stop looking at it as about you and start looking at is about the aggregate of posts. The methodology is flawed but it's not like they're coming out of fantasy land.

Directly from the report, "The conversations on DC Urban Moms illustrate what other research has also shown: When privileged parents choose, they tend to choose segregation." What is this saying if it is not saying that we are segregationists? Their description includes you, by the way. I don't know why I shouldn't take this misrepresentation of a website I own personally. I actually think I should.

As I have said, there are racists here. There are racists everywhere in America. Racism, whether conscious or unconscious, may play a role in school choices. But, I disagree with the report's conclusion that DCUM posters are choosing segregation. You are one of our posters. Did you choose segregation? The aggregate of the posts here are not racist. I don't know how many you have reported, but I guarantee that they are such a small percentage of the posts as to be almost unnoticeable. The report is doing a grave disservice by reducing a complex and nuanced issue to a simple accusation of racism. You know there is more to it than that. Why are you defending such their conclusion?

Many, many conversations on DCUM do illustrate what other research has shown, that privileged parents choose segregation. I am not horrified by this report because it rings true to me based on the comical amount of time I spend here. The conclusion is overbroad, especially since you seem to be reading "the conversations on DCUM" to mean "every single conversation on DCUM," but the defensiveness (and trying to transfer the defensiveness to me?) is also overblown. Their description doesn't include me, because I have not participated in the conversations that support their point other than to debate people who insist that SWW is the bees knees and Banneker is for problem cases with no dads (real thread!).

I think there are methodological problems with the report, and I think you've described some of them persuasively. I also think the overly-personal reactions in other parts of your draft are inappropriate and you may come to regret publishing this while upset. But this is your site, and it's your essay. If that's the direction you want to go, I'm not going to keep arguing against it.

But the issue is the report itself does in no way prove that dcum segregates our schools, which is the whole point of the article.

So we may actually believe this to be true, but they simply haven’t proven it. Therefore the article is trash. I think the situation is far more nuanced that this oversimplified explanation which so many of you seem to ascribe to. Fine, we can discuss it’s merits but on the whole the article we are discussing has conclusions which are simply not shown by their data whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I agree with the posters that say you should abandon this effort because you sound tone-deaf and a perfect example of white fragility. I am African-American (ADOS) 1st Washingtonian who has lurked on this site for 10 years and I view most of the DCUM posters to be unintentional segregationists. with a heavy sprinkling of bona fide racists.

The Founding Fathers of this country created a system to keep people like me subservient to White people because they believed we were inherently less than. This system was built to last so that even if slavery was abolished, even if Jim Crow was abolished, their effects would continue on. That's how systemic racism works i.e. unintentional acts of the so-called "majority" work in favor to keep the "minority" as lesser. Even though red-lining was stopped in the 80's - its effects linger. Even though Brown ended school segregation, I still felt its effects as a DCPS student attending my segregated elementary school in Columbia Heights in the 80s.

I think what many of us who disagree with you in writing this rebuttal is that two things can both be true - the majority of DCUM posters can be "segregationist" unintentionally and this is a complex problem that is not easily solved.

As an aside, an integrated school is one where the inbound students come from different races. In my opinion, Deal and Wilson are diverse but I don't view them as integrated since the neighborhoods that are considered inbound are not integrated. Diversity does not equal integration but that’s just my opinion.

As for solutions, why can’t Brookings raise awareness to an issue? Why do they have to offer solutions? History has shown us that each time a solution that could have offered equity to African-Americans was floated it was shot down, abandoned or destroyed i.e. 40 acres and a mule or the North's protection during Reconstruction, or the Civil Rights Movement. As a starting point to dismantling this system, one could become aware of the issues so that when solutions are aired - like a move away from neighborhood based schools (since DC neighborhoods are segregated) you fight for it rather than against them.

I get that you are upset they used your site without providing you notice and I understand why you're writing this. While will not agree on this topic, I wish you luck with crafting your rebuttal.

Yes, this is what we have on Capitol Hill, where half a dozen of the nine DCPS elementary schools are well integrated. These schools support majority in-boundary populations that are highly diverse. If we had the pan Ward 6 middle school some of us have been pushing DCPS to create for more than a decade, with extensive academic tracking within the school, we'd have an integrated middle school as a bridge to an integrated high school. Our solution would be far from perfect--all classes within the school would not be highly diverse--but it would be much better than what we have, profound white flight to non-DCPS middle schools. Capitol Hill could offer a starting point and an ending point to modify the system, rather than dismantle it (too great an undertaking). All DC neighborhoods are not in fact highly segregated. Ours isn't. I, too, wish you luck in crafting your rebuttal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP but it seems like common sense to me that Brookings is actually critiquing both the system and the actors, and you're interpreting it primarily as a personal attack ("they keep calling us segregationists"). When you try to turn a discussion about systemic racism into a conversation about whether or not you're a nice person, you're centering yourself in an unhelpful and unsympathetic way. I agree with the PPs that say you should leave this alone or at least re-read and edit it when you're not so upset. If you have to respond it should be about the weaknesses inherent in the methodology, the fact that boundaries were redrawn during the survey time, and the less outraged points.

Not to pile on, but I've reported enough overtly racist stuff on the schools forum to know that there's plenty of meat on the report's bones. You've deleted most, though not all, of it, so I'm not sure why you're committed to arguing that racism doesn't play a role in the school choices made by posters here. Stop looking at it as about you and start looking at is about the aggregate of posts. The methodology is flawed but it's not like they're coming out of fantasy land.

Directly from the report, "The conversations on DC Urban Moms illustrate what other research has also shown: When privileged parents choose, they tend to choose segregation." What is this saying if it is not saying that we are segregationists? Their description includes you, by the way. I don't know why I shouldn't take this misrepresentation of a website I own personally. I actually think I should.

As I have said, there are racists here. There are racists everywhere in America. Racism, whether conscious or unconscious, may play a role in school choices. But, I disagree with the report's conclusion that DCUM posters are choosing segregation. You are one of our posters. Did you choose segregation? The aggregate of the posts here are not racist. I don't know how many you have reported, but I guarantee that they are such a small percentage of the posts as to be almost unnoticeable. The report is doing a grave disservice by reducing a complex and nuanced issue to a simple accusation of racism. You know there is more to it than that. Why are you defending such their conclusion?

Many, many conversations on DCUM do illustrate what other research has shown, that privileged parents choose segregation. I am not horrified by this report because it rings true to me based on the comical amount of time I spend here. The conclusion is overbroad, especially since you seem to be reading "the conversations on DCUM" to mean "every single conversation on DCUM," but the defensiveness (and trying to transfer the defensiveness to me?) is also overblown. Their description doesn't include me, because I have not participated in the conversations that support their point other than to debate people who insist that SWW is the bees knees and Banneker is for problem cases with no dads (real thread!).

I think there are methodological problems with the report, and I think you've described some of them persuasively. I also think the overly-personal reactions in other parts of your draft are inappropriate and you may come to regret publishing this while upset. But this is your site, and it's your essay. If that's the direction you want to go, I'm not going to keep arguing against it.

NP here...and thank you for making these points so dispassionately and persuasively. You are writing exactly what I have been thinking but couldn’t figure out how to articulate effectively.

[Anonymous]

Admin as a longtime reader of DCUM I think your initial response is excellent and spot on. I have read hundreds of academic papers and this one is particularly terrible slop. Thank you for all of your hard work.

[jsteele]

I have significantly modified my original draft. I hope that I have removed the sections to which many of you objected. Please continue to critique the article.

I appreciate everyone's input (well, maybe not everyone's exactly, but most of it) and will continue to improve it tomorrow.