AEM post/discussion re racism and choice schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fun fact… you can debate the issue without insulting the person.

Well, Hello, JF.

+1 Exactly my thought!

+2

You guys are jerks. I’m the PP you quoted and I’m not J.

Literally no one would ever admit to that on here, so ok.

[Anonymous]

The only person in recent memory who has admitted to being here is Chen Ling, and he ran away tail between legs. I believe the same people who are in AEM are in here just complaining some more.

[Anonymous]

NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

Former Barcroft parent. This is an accurate description of Arlington’s approach to education. FCPS are so much better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

Yes. Super-segregated (or whatever their term for the highest level of segregation was). And the School Board under the direction of Babs Kanninen found it necessary to petition those who published the study to reclassify APS as only "highly segregated" - or whatever the next level down was called - claiming they did not consider some pending or recent boundary change that minutely changed the numbers. THAT's the cause she thought time and effort was worth devoting, rather than devoting it to de-segregating our schools so there wouldn't be any need to to fight a degree of segregation label.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

Yes. Super-segregated (or whatever their term for the highest level of segregation was). And the School Board under the direction of Babs Kanninen found it necessary to petition those who published the study to reclassify APS as only "highly segregated" - or whatever the next level down was called - claiming they did not consider some pending or recent boundary change that minutely changed the numbers. THAT's the cause she thought time and effort was worth devoting, rather than devoting it to de-segregating our schools so there wouldn't be any need to to fight a degree of segregation label.

That is so Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

Yes. Super-segregated (or whatever their term for the highest level of segregation was). And the School Board under the direction of Babs Kanninen found it necessary to petition those who published the study to reclassify APS as only "highly segregated" - or whatever the next level down was called - claiming they did not consider some pending or recent boundary change that minutely changed the numbers. THAT's the cause she thought time and effort was worth devoting, rather than devoting it to de-segregating our schools so there wouldn't be any need to to fight a degree of segregation label.

Is there an article about why the SB fought this designation? This was before our time in APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

So you’re saying low income immigrant kids have behavioral issues at higher rates? I thought they were just disciplined at higher rates due to racism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

Yes. Super-segregated (or whatever their term for the highest level of segregation was). And the School Board under the direction of Babs Kanninen found it necessary to petition those who published the study to reclassify APS as only "highly segregated" - or whatever the next level down was called - claiming they did not consider some pending or recent boundary change that minutely changed the numbers. THAT's the cause she thought time and effort was worth devoting, rather than devoting it to de-segregating our schools so there wouldn't be any need to to fight a degree of segregation label.

Is there an article about why the SB fought this designation? This was before our time in APS.

No. And "Arlington" didn't fight the designation. The SB (specifically Barbara Kanninen) fought the designation. Apparently being segregated is acceptable; but being highly segregated is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. Couldn’t read all the posts. I don’t know who this JF person is. I am not on AEM. I am just 3rd generation Mexican American who makes a decent living for me and my kid. Yep, I bought a nice house in the Barcroft neighborhood with no intention of sending my rather white looking non-gifted kid to the neighborhood school where she would just be lumped in with low income immigrant kids. Sent her to a choice school, Campbell, which turns out was no different because all the higher income mostly white kids who go there are in the gifted cluster, immigrants are not. Not a lot of mixing going on. We had a terrible experience, my kid was barely above grade level mostly because the class just taught to achieve grade level and had serious behavioral issues in every class. She also had a hard time making friends with the immigrant kids in her classes with major cultural differences. No point in complaining, no one cares. So we moved away to Fairfax county, where kiddo is thriving and even taking honors classes. Her school has a good mixture of ethnicities, but only about 30% poverty rate. Keep building affordable housing Arlington. Keep the neighborhoods segregated to keep the schools segregated. And yes, they are. Just look at a map. I even recall a study finding Arlington to be one of the more segregated areas in the country.

So you’re saying low income immigrant kids have behavioral issues at higher rates? I thought they were just disciplined at higher rates due to racism.

[Anonymous]

Former Barcoft póster from above. No idea what the statistics are, only speaking about our experience, although I have heard similar experiences from many other parents similarly situated (including the immigrant parents in kiddo’s class). I can say that in 5 years at Campbell, every year there was at least one kid (often a few) with behavior challenges that interrupted my kid’s classroom on a daily basis and challenged the teacher’s ability to teach. She was the only whitish kid in almost every single class, and at some point during the year she pointed out misbehaving kids, or it was evident during school events. There was some racial mixing in non academic classes, but hearing the gifted parents talk they had no such issues in their academic classrooms. Not a complete surprise… lower income families wouldn’t likely have the resources to seek help as therapy etc can strain the budgets of even middle class families. My kid never reported any discipline, or if there was I would not be privy to that information. But the disruptions never ended. hope at least the little boy that liked to punch kids in face while waiting to go to morning meeting was eventually disciplined. Or the kid that mooned the classroom when upset with the teacher.

I come from an educated Latina family, I wanted to prove people wrong and that an education in a socio economically diverse school was just as good as a more affluent school. I thought I could supplement my kid’s education if needed, but as a single mom I had to work too much and OMG what kind of math are they teaching those kids? And No phonics, no grammar, no wonder kids cannot write. Anyways, no more experimenting with my kid, I am not rich enough for a good private school, so we moved. Should have done it after first grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former Barcoft póster from above. No idea what the statistics are, only speaking about our experience, although I have heard similar experiences from many other parents similarly situated (including the immigrant parents in kiddo’s class). I can say that in 5 years at Campbell, every year there was at least one kid (often a few) with behavior challenges that interrupted my kid’s classroom on a daily basis and challenged the teacher’s ability to teach. She was the only whitish kid in almost every single class, and at some point during the year she pointed out misbehaving kids, or it was evident during school events. There was some racial mixing in non academic classes, but hearing the gifted parents talk they had no such issues in their academic classrooms. Not a complete surprise… lower income families wouldn’t likely have the resources to seek help as therapy etc can strain the budgets of even middle class families. My kid never reported any discipline, or if there was I would not be privy to that information. But the disruptions never ended. hope at least the little boy that liked to punch kids in face while waiting to go to morning meeting was eventually disciplined. Or the kid that mooned the classroom when upset with the teacher.

I come from an educated Latina family, I wanted to prove people wrong and that an education in a socio economically diverse school was just as good as a more affluent school. I thought I could supplement my kid’s education if needed, but as a single mom I had to work too much and OMG what kind of math are they teaching those kids? And No phonics, no grammar, no wonder kids cannot write. Anyways, no more experimenting with my kid, I am not rich enough for a good private school, so we moved. Should have done it after first grade.

Same here. No more experimenting with my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former Barcoft póster from above. No idea what the statistics are, only speaking about our experience, although I have heard similar experiences from many other parents similarly situated (including the immigrant parents in kiddo’s class). I can say that in 5 years at Campbell, every year there was at least one kid (often a few) with behavior challenges that interrupted my kid’s classroom on a daily basis and challenged the teacher’s ability to teach. She was the only whitish kid in almost every single class, and at some point during the year she pointed out misbehaving kids, or it was evident during school events. There was some racial mixing in non academic classes, but hearing the gifted parents talk they had no such issues in their academic classrooms. Not a complete surprise… lower income families wouldn’t likely have the resources to seek help as therapy etc can strain the budgets of even middle class families. My kid never reported any discipline, or if there was I would not be privy to that information. But the disruptions never ended. hope at least the little boy that liked to punch kids in face while waiting to go to morning meeting was eventually disciplined. Or the kid that mooned the classroom when upset with the teacher.

I come from an educated Latina family, I wanted to prove people wrong and that an education in a socio economically diverse school was just as good as a more affluent school. I thought I could supplement my kid’s education if needed, but as a single mom I had to work too much and OMG what kind of math are they teaching those kids? And No phonics, no grammar, no wonder kids cannot write. Anyways, no more experimenting with my kid, I am not rich enough for a good private school, so we moved. Should have done it after first grade.

So were you Campbell or Barcroft or both? Were both schools equally inadequate?
I'm also a former Barcroft parent but had much better academic (and social) experiences for our kids than you apparently did. This was a while ago now, though.

[Anonymous]

This sounds like old information. Things can change rapidly. I don’t think Campbell is even a Title 1 school any longer, and hasn’t been for a couple years. It’s still diverse, but it’s 40% fr/l, which is down from just 5 years ago when it was 50%, and down from 10 years ago when it was 60% fr/l. And I think some of the educational practices have changed, based on APS making changes, from the pull-out model with more of a “push-in” or co-teacher model for services like Gifted and SpEd. Also, APS has really changed how they approach literacy/spelling/grammar and it’s much more explicitly taught now, and at Campbell also. Just putting this out there for current or prospective families. Our current experience is very different from what PP has described. Sounds like PP’s student in now in HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This sounds like old information. Things can change rapidly. I don’t think Campbell is even a Title 1 school any longer, and hasn’t been for a couple years. It’s still diverse, but it’s 40% fr/l, which is down from just 5 years ago when it was 50%, and down from 10 years ago when it was 60% fr/l. And I think some of the educational practices have changed, based on APS making changes, from the pull-out model with more of a “push-in” or co-teacher model for services like Gifted and SpEd. Also, APS has really changed how they approach literacy/spelling/grammar and it’s much more explicitly taught now, and at Campbell also. Just putting this out there for current or prospective families. Our current experience is very different from what PP has described. Sounds like PP’s student in now in HS?

Campbell is still a Title I school.