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Benetton Schools
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Anonymous
| Name the "Benetton schools" in the DC/VA/MD. |
Anonymous
What is a Benetton School? |
Anonymous
| I guess it is s school with a diverse student body. |
Anonymous
I would say it's a multi-ethnic student body with a very upper middle-class ethos. DCPS: Eaton Hyde Murch Oyster Stoddert Thomson Charters: Capital City E.L. Haynes LAMB Two Rivers Washington Latin Washington Yu Ying |
Anonymous
| what about private schools? |
Anonymous
| WIS is a very multi-ethnic Independent. |
Anonymous
Or maybe a free school with a multi-ethnic student body whose really pretentious/conflicted white parents simultaneously want to claim to be both populist and elitist? |
Anonymous
 
Care to elaborate? |
Anonymous
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The list is all publics with no selective (i.e. merit-based) admission. So clearly multi-ethnic and upper middle class isn't enough (you can certainly find that in private schools). And it struck me as telling that "very upper middle class ethos" was part of the definition -- instead of, say, high academic standards. Especially when UMC is just a silly claim for a school like Haynes (a Title I school that shares a block with a liquor store and a strip club). That doesn't mean Haynes is a bad school -- it just means that what's good about it isn't its "upper middle class ethos" (as if that were a desirable quality anyway!) On the other hand, it's hard to say it's an excellent school when 33% of the students aren't proficient in math and 40% aren't in reading. You might be able to say it is doing an impressive job of narrowing the performance gap for disadvantaged kids, but "upper middle class" gets in the way of such a claim. And it seems unlikely that a "very upper middle class ethos" would lead an upper middle class parent to choose a school whose selling point is that it does a good job educating economically and educational disadvantaged students for her upper middle class child. (The UMC ethos is "my kid's entitled and I will devote maximum resources to ensure his/her competitive advantage over other kids. I'll use my economic and educational resources to help perpetuate my kids' class position, because we're not rich enough for inheritance to do the trick.)
Ideally (and it's a wonderful ideal -- one I share), what people are looking for is a multi-cultural, economically diverse non-exclusive school with high academic standards. But the Benetton reference suggests (and the definition provided furthers the impression) that the image/marketing/look of the place has more cachet than the quality of the education being provided. The label makes me want to run screaming in the opposite direction. I'd love a school where upper middle class folks get over their class biases and put their kids in academic contexts where excellence manifests itself in a variety of ways and in a variety of different people from different backgrounds. But to use "very upper middle class ethos" as a substitute/synonym for "excellence" tells me that at least some of the people touting "Benetton" schools are more delusional/disingenuous than genuinely progressive. |
Anonymous
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Sounds like you've thought about this a lot. Personally, I figured it was shorthand for work ethic or some such. Regardless however, DCPS is historically short on a strong work ethic in its schools, so it doesn't bother me to see a subset of parents being visible in their support of same. Isn't the motto at Haynes "work hard, play nice, have fun?" It's too bad that they're near liquor stores but if they bought real estate in upper northwest, that would put them pretty far away from some of the students they're trying to serve, right?
In any case, no DC public schools are merit-based entry, but parents can nonetheless self-select certain programs for their choice offerings. It would be interesting to know what makes some schools popular among all ethnic subgroups as opposed to those which are almost 99% majority minority. |
Anonymous
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Arlington:
Arlington Traditional Ashlawn Claremont Immersion Henry Key Oakridge |
Anonymous
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nEEuycVOY9g/R9mDEvErSkI/AAAAAAAAATQ/t6ExDqFwl04/s400/1989-breastfeedingsmall%5B1%5D.jpg 
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Anonymous
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Anonymous
| So edgy! Definitely more NYC than DC. |
Anonymous
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Sigh. No. From the DCUMer who first used this term in these threads:
First, it's not 'benetton school,' It's benetton diversity. The word 'benetton' modifies the word 'diversity.' In its proper context -- which is PRIVATE school, not public -- it means that the admissions committee AFFIRMATIVELY COBBLES TOGETHER a class with varying skin tones, ala a Benetton ad from the 1980s. So the Asian kid, the 100% sub-Saharan African kid, the palest Swedish kid with white blonde hair ... The honey-skinned Latina kid, the freckled/red haired kid ... http://www.piercemattie.com/blogs/143307_962_1134657950656-benetton.jpg Ok, so you've got your line-up of SKIN TONES. (meaning, nobody gives a crap whether there's religious diversity, political diversity, learning style diversity, LGBT diversity!! All that matters is the visual, that is, what can be SEEN during admission tours, on the web page, in printed literature ... basically, skin tone, hair texture and eye shape. You have diversity of skin tones, so you can say your school is "diverse" in one manner of speaking. And it is, in that one respect. But because we're talking Benetton -- which, as you'll recall, was fairly expensive in its heyday -- there is no <<economic>> diversity among your multi-hued, multi-ethnic students. They're all affluent. (and by extension, they all have professional, well-educated parents and live in affluent, professional neighborhoods, even IF great grandmama did live in Kerala state or Ghana in her childhood). Everyone's upper middle class-to-wealthy and prepped from toddlerhood for success by their successful (2) parents. * * * To many people, this situation is not an optimal kind of diversity. It's superficial, like a print magazine ad shown beautifully at the top of 14:02. |