Study: "Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum" (yes, this one)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lot of rice white and so-called liberal thinkers on the defensive on this thread, Jeff in particular. Self-reflection can be tough. You can criticize the methods behind this report all you want, but there is more than a kernel of truth to it to conclusions. Jeff, you are making money off of rich white folks. That’s just the way it is.

I commend to all of you the recent New York Times bestseller “white fragility: why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.” Many of you, in particular the moderator of this website, could learn from it.

the self-righteousness is strong with this one

I made the mistake of taking a sip every time she writes "racist," "reflection," "privilege," or "fragility." I'm hammered

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is sad how this so-called report has divided parents and we are now fighting each other about who is the bigger racist when we should all unite and hold DCPS accountable for their failures. What is the chancellor being paid 350k for? He even has a government car and chauffeur. To what end? Even if all the white kids were evenly dispersed across all schools, it would not move the needle on educational quality. Who would we blame then?

Yes. Keep your eye on the ball people! It’s so easy to win this game isn’t it. Divide people against each other then you’re off the hook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lot of rice white and so-called liberal thinkers on the defensive on this thread, Jeff in particular. Self-reflection can be tough. You can criticize the methods behind this report all you want, but there is more than a kernel of truth to it to conclusions. Jeff, you are making money off of rich white folks. That’s just the way it is.

I commend to all of you the recent New York Times bestseller “white fragility: why it’s so hard for white people to talk about racism.” Many of you, in particular the moderator of this website, could learn from it.

the self-righteousness is strong with this one

I made the mistake of taking a sip every time she writes "racist," "reflection," "privilege," or "fragility." I'm hammered

The author of this book is a corporate consultant who makes money selling this shtick for corporate training. It’s BS

[Anonymous]

Oh I love this so much. It’s absolutely brilliant. “Resource hoarding” is a perfect descriptor for DCUMers in general, but it’s a particularly apt description of the DC public school parents on DCUM. They just hate systemic racism and will call YOU racist, but are completely fine with perpetuating segregation and upholding the pillars of systemic racism In their own community. Bravo, Brookings Institution!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:This is their conclusion:

The conversations on DC Urban Moms illustrate what other research has also shown: When privileged parents choose, they tend to choose segregation

This is an extremely unfair characterization that completely misses the nuanced and complex reality. It is extremely disappointing to see such drivel presented as serious research.

I completely agree. They are knowingly confusing different types of segregation: economic and racial. Despite being strongly associated, you can’t write a decent scholarly article without defining which one you’re talking about and which one parents most care about.

It’s a deliberate attempt to attract controversy and attention, by insinuating racism into the mix.

“It’s a deliberate attempt to attract controversy and attention, by insinuating racism into the mix” pretty much sums up the past few years, and most of 2020.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many of you must have young children if you think it is so easy to make a decision about choosing Banneker as a HS. I encouraged my daughter to apply to Banneker but she refused saying she did not want to be an only. We are Asian by the way. Older kids have very strong opinions that are also somewhat shaped by their peers and the society they live in.

And I think it’s very reasonable of her to think so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this was really about race, you'd see daycares being segregated too. (Why would all these supposedly racist people wait until elementary or high school to start being racist?)

But has anyone ever heard of a black daycare? Or a predominantly white daycare?

No, no one has ever heard of that.

That's because this isn't about race. This is about public schools in DC being awful and people not wanting to send their kids to awful schools.

Oh, but that discussion is about nannies v. daycare.

i have kids and honestly ive never met anyone who has a nanny. people with nannies seem rare.

That's because we aren't rich. The people who I know with nannies are like my ob/gyn, my boss, etc. Or maybe think not individual nannies, but nanny-shares. Or maybe think au pairs.

But the dialogue there seems to be that the BEST thing is to have a nanny or au pair, then the next is to have a nanny share, then daycares. These discussions are likely also racially coded, in the sense that race and class go hand-in-hand, particularly in DC.

I think you're missing the point. The larger point here is that daycares are extremely diverse (at least all the ones I've ever come into contact with), and that shouldnt be the case if everyone is supposedly as racist as people on this thread to seem assume.

DP. One can opt to send their 8 month old to a diverse daycare or even have a black nanny. I am a “what’s wrong with Banneker poster” and I have to say, I still don’t think people opting out of Banneker are outright racist. Again, they wouldn’t live in DC, Petworth, Columbia Heights if that were the case. They wouldn’t send their kid to even Wilson. The issue is, there is definitely something racially motivating driving some white families to not look at Banneker. I see it happen all the time. White people are fine with a safe number of people that don’t look like them, but when it gets closer to 75-80%, the comfort level changes. There have been many studies in here that show white families, all things equal, will choose to self-segregate or even have racial components e a driving factor for them. Let’s admit, many of the racial issues of our entire country are due to “some” white men dealing with the fact that they are losing their power in numbers and are realizing they are no longer going to be a majority in this country.

I am not asking families to opt into a failing Eastern as some people keep taking about. I’m simply asking for a reason people don’t look at a top 100 school that’s centrally located with metro accessibility.

Because Banneker isn't 75-80% non-white, it's 98% non-white. It would take a very self-confident student who is super comfortable not only with being the "only" but also with dealing with their own biases and having those conversations to attend Banneker as a 2%-er. I want you to consider your own white kids and if you would expect them to attend Banneker - not only they need to be that amazingly racially sensitive and honestly a standout human, but also willing to take on the workload and style of Banneker!

The other alternative is to band together a small group of white kids to attend Banneker - that would be an interesting social experiment but sounds a lot like let's gentrify Banneker.

I admit I would LOVE my kid to be that one kid who feels totally awesome at Banneker. Thanks for giving me a goal. But living in DC, that's not likely. This ish is hard.

dude this is the life of black people like every day, figuring out how to navigate 98% white spaces they manage to be "amazingly racially sensitive and honestly a standout human"

white people can do it too!

DP.
Many black people don’t have a choice. If Banneker was the only decent school choice I am sure a lot of white families would concede.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The most important thing you could do to improve these threads is to require users to login so that their posts can be associated with one another over time and so that it would be clear how many people are participating in any given discussion.

You don't need to require real names (nor would that be practicable)--this alone would help. Most people aren't going to go to the trouble of setting up multiple accounts to troll as someone other than their core persona.

This will turn the forum into yet another boring place where everyone is just saying PC things and afraid to provide any real perspective.
Look what happened to the explicit thread, it’s dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:brookings should be embarrassed to have its name on this. studying what anonymous people say on a web site is a really lazy form of scholarship.

This is absolutely false. A lot of research is being done using open forums. Studying the words and themes used by subcultures and socioeconomic groups is pretty common. Sociolinguistic studies of online “clubs” is a great way to analyze the values and recurring themes within various groups of people. Consider it the anthropology of the 21st century.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:brookings should be embarrassed to have its name on this. studying what anonymous people say on a web site is a really lazy form of scholarship.

This is absolutely false. A lot of research is being done using open forums. Studying the words and themes used by subcultures and socioeconomic groups is pretty common. Sociolinguistic studies of online “clubs” is a great way to analyze the values and recurring themes within various groups of people. Consider it the anthropology of the 21st century.

Sure, but well-respected, good research on open forums is not done using word frequency analysis without semantic controls. That's basically about the level of a freshman HS science report.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is sad how this so-called report has divided parents and we are now fighting each other about who is the bigger racist when we should all unite and hold DCPS accountable for their failures. What is the chancellor being paid 350k for? He even has a government car and chauffeur. To what end? Even if all the white kids were evenly dispersed across all schools, it would not move the needle on educational quality. Who would we blame then?

Yes. Keep your eye on the ball people! It’s so easy to win this game isn’t it. Divide people against each other then you’re off the hook.

Double yes.

The problem is that there are too many failing schools in DCPS. The problem is political leadership that is beholden to consultants and the charter industry. The problem is that we are giving up on at-risk kids at struggling schools.

I don't agree with everything Jeff said in the OP, but one thing I 100% agree with is that you cannot blame individual parents for making individual choices that benefit their kids. That's true whether you are talking about white parents who rent in NW to get their kids IB for Deal, and it's true for black parents who leave NE for PG county or decide to send their kids to parochial schools. You cannot ask people to put their kids in bad educational situations on purpose.

So you have to improve the schools. I would argue that the biggest obstacle to improving failing schools in DC isn't racial segregation, but the related problem of segregating wealthy and middle class kids from DC's large and extremely underserved at-risk child population. And people can pretend that segregation happens because middle class white parents are racists, but let's get real. It happens because middle class parents of every race realize that there is no benefit to ANYONE if they send their kids to schools that are 95%+ at-risk kids. My middle class kid is not going to magically improve outcomes for his at-risk peers, and may actually pull resources. Meanwhile, if my child doesn't have special needs or an IEP, he is also unlikely to get much focused attention at a school where most of his classmates simply need more. Why would any parent choose that for their child when they have the option of, at a minimum, trying for a lottery spot elsewhere.

It's not that white parents (for the most part) don't want their kids going to school with black kids or latino kids. Most parents I know in DC want diverse schools and feel uncomfortable about schools that don't reflect the city's racial makeup. But everyone is nervous about sending their kids to a school where they will be the richest kid in school Especially when you are talking about families that are not wealthy by DC standards at all. Our HHI is around 115k. We're firmly middle class in DC. If we're the richest family in a school, that school is going to struggle by every metric because where is the money going to come from? And we can't afford tons of enrichment activities for our children. And we work, so it's not like we can make it all up at home. So what, pray tell, are we supposed to do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The most important thing you could do to improve these threads is to require users to login so that their posts can be associated with one another over time and so that it would be clear how many people are participating in any given discussion.

You don't need to require real names (nor would that be practicable)--this alone would help. Most people aren't going to go to the trouble of setting up multiple accounts to troll as someone other than their core persona.

This will turn the forum into yet another boring place where everyone is just saying PC things and afraid to provide any real perspective.
Look what happened to the explicit thread, it’s dead.

+1
I would not post here if I had to log in. This is literally the only place on the internet I post anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:brookings should be embarrassed to have its name on this. studying what anonymous people say on a web site is a really lazy form of scholarship.

This is absolutely false. A lot of research is being done using open forums. Studying the words and themes used by subcultures and socioeconomic groups is pretty common. Sociolinguistic studies of online “clubs” is a great way to analyze the values and recurring themes within various groups of people. Consider it the anthropology of the 21st century.

Sure, but well-respected, good research on open forums is not done using word frequency analysis without semantic controls. That's basically about the level of a freshman HS science report.

I also just think their conclusions are wrong. How can they make conclusions about DCUM parents choosing segregation, when they don’t actually know what we chose? I’ve said this before, but I absolutely believe DCUM has a role in persuading parents to choose integrated schools.

[Anonymous]

“ you can’t write a decent scholarly article without defining which one you’re talking about and which one parents most care about. ”

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
2) Me sending my kids to Eastern is not going to give all kids the things I want for my kids, it's just going to be a bad experience for my kids. And if a big group of white parents decided to get together and send their kids there, the same people who criticize us for not doing that would now be criticizing us for that.

It is fascinating that your first stab at how the school might be improved consists of a big group of white parents sending their kids there all together.

I mean, it works if, in your heart of hearts, you think the ways the school is falling short are related to it being predominantly black, and/or if you are (and think your kids will be) uncomfortable in a predominantly black space. But that's what y'all are here arguing that you do not think.

This was suggested upthread by a PP agreeing with the long Banneker PP: Seriously, why haven’t a group of 10-20 families joined together to commit to Banneker the same way they did to Hardy 5 years ago?

Do you have the same comment on that post?