Interesting article about a TV series about hipsters, race and charter schools ...

[Anonymous]

http://www.salon.com/2015/03/21/hipsters_for_charter_schools_the_big_lie_togetherness_tells_about_race_and_education/

Neighborhood schools have become the bogeyman for all of society’s social failings, particularly from a class of moneyed interests who share both Democratic and Republican affiliations. For Brett and Michelle Pierson and many white parents of their education and class, all the education reform nonsense might “feel right” for minority kids — but just not for their children. The reality is that these power parents, who share a kinship with almost all of L.A.’s economic, political and media elite, do not want to send their own kids to a school that neo-liberal mayors of Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York, who aggressively pursued the reform agenda, created for the working-class kids of color they “served.” All these cities had school superintendents who believed in a different pedagogy for poor kids.

These are schools with ever-growing class sizes, maligned teachers, schools obsessed with standardized test-based “rigor,” stripped of arts, music, field trips, nurses, janitors, counselors, libraries, physical education, integrity, or as Education Secretary Arne Duncan might put it, “air.” They are schools deprived of much-needed physical repairs and teachers deprived of support and training in favor of ill-considered technological quick-fixes (the quicker the better!). Schools that have fallen victim to “market-based” reforms imposed without a shred of evidence of pedagogical effectiveness, except the fantasies of economists and billionaire businessmen who demanded them in the first place.

There is much more that can and has been said about the larger economic and political forces at work in the “reform” movement, and particularly the charter school industry. The sad reality is that almost anything can be imposed on the neighborhood schools of poor kids of color — testing, school closing, inexperienced “revolving door” teachers — because those parents simply do not have the same economic or political clout as their white counterparts. Race and class majority issues are profoundly uncomfortable, to the point of taboo, to speak about in these contexts.

Aaaaand.. GO! lol

[Anonymous]

This could be written about DC as well. IMO people who go to charters can't necessarily afford private schools or even GDS offends their liberal morals. It's a difficult place to find your self as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Also would be interested to see a shift in schools. Will charters lose their popularity as trends change? Will they replace privates? Schools like Washington Latin or some of the immersion strike as alternatives for white families to the public school system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also would be interested to see a shift in schools. Will charters lose their popularity as trends change? Will they replace privates? Schools like Washington Latin or some of the immersion strike as alternatives for white families to the public school system.

Please tell us something else interesting about yourself.

[Anonymous]

You all realize this show is fiction. Not a documentary.

[Anonymous]

I don't think this article is far off. As DC's demographics change or as The Plan takes greater effect, yuppy types will opt for charters or work to "improve" neighborhood schools. Look at the article that was recently posted, the school she liked was over half white and had a low FARMS rate. So diverse enough to satisfy a liberal conscience but not too much. DC is changing and minorities are getting pushed out. The Plan is almost complete.

[Anonymous]

What about the article's premise that bad test scores are related to class, suggesting that our own DC obsession with getting test scores up is really about getting more kids of a higher class into the schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this article is far off. As DC's demographics change or as The Plan takes greater effect, yuppy types will opt for charters or work to "improve" neighborhood schools. Look at the article that was recently posted, the school she liked was over half white and had a low FARMS rate. So diverse enough to satisfy a liberal conscience but not too much. DC is changing and minorities are getting pushed out. The Plan is almost complete.

Why do you say "improve" rather than improve.

[Anonymous]

I think that poster is implying that as schools become more white parents will send their kids to the school. I thought talk of the "Plan" would have died with Marion Berry.

[Anonymous]

With a school system of 45,000 and the percentage of whites students is still around 2% the supply and demand will never become a reality. You would need such increase of white students in a school system on consistent basis for at least 10 years to have a charter school system from pre-k to graduation show a diversity of recognizable percentages. Let's see the prediction of whites coming to DC to gentrified is the longest running myth ever told...it is getting exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would be interested to see a shift in schools. Will charters lose their popularity as trends change? Will they replace privates? Schools like Washington Latin or some of the immersion strike as alternatives for white families to the public school system.

Please tell us something else interesting about yourself.

It's the truth. If it wasn't for Charters white families wouldn't even consider DC as their residence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also would be interested to see a shift in schools. Will charters lose their popularity as trends change? Will they replace privates? Schools like Washington Latin or some of the immersion strike as alternatives for white families to the public school system.

Please tell us something else interesting about yourself.

It's the truth. If it wasn't for Charters white families wouldn't even consider DC as their residence.

Odd. I chose DC as my residence, including a DCPS. And I'm pretty white. And there are plenty of other white people who work the same way. I'll grant you "partial truth" because some people do think like you, but not enough to support a broad generalization.

[Anonymous]

I disagree with the applicability of this to DCPS and DC charters. Our tours of several DCPSs mostly in NE including several with low test scores and high poverty (i.e., community eligibility for free meals) showed they have "specials" like music, art, PE, and a foreign language. Libraries and recess time could use improvement. The schools were clean and had few readily apparent maintenance issues (i.e., broken windows, evidence of water damage), although some needed renovations. Early ed class sizes were quite small with good student/teacher ratios. Raymond, but not the other DCPSs, had what I considered an inappropriate emphasis on technology to learn.

Say what you will about charters, but they're not imposed on anyone--if no one wants to go to a charter, it will close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This could be written about DC as well. IMO people who go to charters can't necessarily afford private schools or even GDS offends their liberal morals. It's a difficult place to find your self as a parent.

Please do not forget those who can afford private, but strategically decide to spend their monies to help charters " hire excellent teachers and thrive", thus insuring their students excellent grades, especially in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also would be interested to see a shift in schools. Will charters lose their popularity as trends change? Will they replace privates? Schools like Washington Latin or some of the immersion strike as alternatives for white families to the public school system.

Let them become privates then. This way parents will know where they stand, and student grades won't be contingent on how much parents donate.