Should schools scrap diversity targets ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how would you propose that schools create a student body with so-called "real diversity" that includes ideology?

You don’t! It is not a realistic target for schools that charge $50k+ per year! And that’s fine and makes sense. But people at these schools should stop fooling themselves. There are many parents at our school who claim to have chosen it because it’s more diverse than other top schools, when the reality is that the diversity was a “nice to have”. They mainly care about the fact that it is a top school. They irk me as much as the people who say they “really believe in and wanted to support public school but public school today (in their top school districts) is much worse than when they were younger” etc etc. The reality is that they have the means to give their child a luxury good (private school) that a lot of their peers are spending on, and be around similar peers (except for the occasional volunteer activity to make them feel good).

Real diversity happens when it is the default option for most people. They are forced to interact with and work alongside peers of all different backgrounds and ideologies — and that happens in public school.

(Obviously there are a handful of kids for whom public school is just not possible for a range of reasons and that’s a different situation).

I agree with this. If you want real diversity go to a public school. Period.

I am the PP you're responding to and just want to clarify that I absolutely believe that diversity is incredibly important. Choosing private means acknowledging that we are giving that up (which is a huge loss and definitely not a benefit to the community/society-- it only benefits us) and cannot claim diversity as one of our core values/priorities. We own that and do not kid ourselves. My annoyance lies with people who try to both, choose private and claim that diversity is truly important to them, especially when their public schools are very good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Real diversity happens when it is the default option for most people. They are forced to interact with and work alongside peers of all different backgrounds and ideologies — and that happens in public school.

Assumes facts not in evidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how would you propose that schools create a student body with so-called "real diversity" that includes ideology?

You don’t! It is not a realistic target for schools that charge $50k+ per year! And that’s fine and makes sense. But people at these schools should stop fooling themselves. There are many parents at our school who claim to have chosen it because it’s more diverse than other top schools, when the reality is that the diversity was a “nice to have”. They mainly care about the fact that it is a top school. They irk me as much as the people who say they “really believe in and wanted to support public school but public school today (in their top school districts) is much worse than when they were younger” etc etc. The reality is that they have the means to give their child a luxury good (private school) that a lot of their peers are spending on, and be around similar peers (except for the occasional volunteer activity to make them feel good).

Real diversity happens when it is the default option for most people. They are forced to interact with and work alongside peers of all different backgrounds and ideologies — and that happens in public school.

(Obviously there are a handful of kids for whom public school is just not possible for a range of reasons and that’s a different situation).

I agree with this. If you want real diversity go to a public school. Period.

I am the PP you're responding to and just want to clarify that I absolutely believe that diversity is incredibly important. Choosing private means acknowledging that we are giving that up (which is a huge loss and definitely not a benefit to the community/society-- it only benefits us) and cannot claim diversity as one of our core values/priorities. We own that and do not kid ourselves. My annoyance lies with people who try to both, choose private and claim that diversity is truly important to them, especially when their public schools are very good.

I fully agree with you. I have attend school, college, and jobs with a really diverse socioeconomic groups and it was a great life experience. I also hate the advertisement of fake diversity in my kids NW DC school, when in fact is a conventional elitist school.

[Anonymous]

Is it your contention that families on financial aid add no diversity to private schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it your contention that families on financial aid add no diversity to private schools?

On the contrary, I do believe that low income families add diversity, but there are very few of them. The vast majority of people receiving financial aid are upper middle class families that live in comfortable homes in high income zip codes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By design co-ed schools try to have gender parity which is good. Now, my question is if they should continue to have some race targets. What I see is that in private schools they want to accept racially diverse students, but income wise very homegenous families. It is ok to keep this approach? Is it fair? Just basic questions since dc is so diverse and there are so many schools, not sure schools really need affirmative action. Moreover many times the non-white recruitment is highly discrecional. For some schools mean admitting more African Americans and for others more Asians. But is not clear that this is a fair or inclusive system at all since the admissions are highly dependent on the income of the parents.

yes - let the laws of natural selection play out; and private schools should certainly have more leeway than taxpayer funded publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it your contention that families on financial aid add no diversity to private schools?

On the contrary, I do believe that low income families add diversity, but there are very few of them. The vast majority of people receiving financial aid are upper middle class families that live in comfortable homes in high income zip codes.

Let's take Sidwell for example. Their website says that nearly a quarter of students are on FA and that the average grant is just under $40K. Are you claiming that upper middle class families receive $40K in FA?

[Anonymous]

The premise of this thread- that there should be no attempt to achieve some degree of ethnic/racial diversity- is so blatantly racist. I’m disheartened by how many pages and posts there are here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The premise of this thread- that there should be no attempt to achieve some degree of ethnic/racial diversity- is so blatantly racist. I’m disheartened by how many pages and posts there are here.

That’s fine except that every person has a different view of diversity. In my kids school about a third of students are African American and less than 1 percent is Hispanic and it is considered diverse. Given the subjectivity and arbitrariness of diversity I think it is better that admissions are race free. That by no means its racist. Think about public schools. Race is not considered a factor in admissions and by no means is racist. The only requirement is to live near the public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s fine except that every person has a different view of diversity.

Even assuming this were true, so what?

Different private schools have different views about how to address diversity (or lack thereof) in their student bodies. Short of breaking the law, they are at liberty to do as they please, and the free market will determine which schools are able to attract the most families.

Certain schools and their models of "diversity" are succeeding, while others are failing. What do you have against capitalism determining which schools survive (or not)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By design co-ed schools try to have gender parity which is good. Now, my question is if they should continue to have some race targets. What I see is that in private schools they want to accept racially diverse students, but income wise very homegenous families. It is ok to keep this approach? Is it fair? Just basic questions since dc is so diverse and there are so many schools, not sure schools really need affirmative action. Moreover many times the non-white recruitment is highly discrecional. For some schools mean admitting more African Americans and for others more Asians. But is not clear that this is a fair or inclusive system at all since the admissions are highly dependent on the income of the parents.

yes - let the laws of natural selection play out; and private schools should certainly have more leeway than taxpayer funded publics.

Yes there should absolutely be no gender parity as well. Let’s see how many of these posters believe in natural selection then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The premise of this thread- that there should be no attempt to achieve some degree of ethnic/racial diversity- is so blatantly racist. I’m disheartened by how many pages and posts there are here.

That’s fine except that every person has a different view of diversity. In my kids school about a third of students are African American and less than 1 percent is Hispanic and it is considered diverse. Given the subjectivity and arbitrariness of diversity I think it is better that admissions are race free. That by no means its racist. Think about public schools. Race is not considered a factor in admissions and by no means is racist. The only requirement is to live near the public school.

OK, Stephen Miller, let me help you out here. If the private school could fill itself with 400 kids from full pay families, and 95% of those kids are white, but instead they choose to give financial aid to 80 students, and the majority of those kids are non-white from a variety of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, that may not achieve perfect diversity, but that’s what it means to value diversity and make a worthwhile effort at it. I’m not sure what you’re doing here today. Don’t you have a hard-working Mexican farm worker to deport?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it your contention that families on financial aid add no diversity to private schools?

On the contrary, I do believe that low income families add diversity, but there are very few of them. The vast majority of people receiving financial aid are upper middle class families that live in comfortable homes in high income zip codes.

Let's take Sidwell for example. Their website says that nearly a quarter of students are on FA and that the average grant is just under $40K. Are you claiming that upper middle class families receive $40K in FA?

It’s very simple. In any single year you can ask any parent in sidwell or any other private school how many low income families they have in their year. You would be surprised by answer. On the contrary, high income families with house in good zip codes and multiple children receives this FA. It is very simple to check. With similar levels of FA there are max 1 low income family in my kids’ school in each year.

[Anonymous]

Who is nosy enough to know these the types of details about other families in their school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The premise of this thread- that there should be no attempt to achieve some degree of ethnic/racial diversity- is so blatantly racist. I’m disheartened by how many pages and posts there are here.

That’s fine except that every person has a different view of diversity. In my kids school about a third of students are African American and less than 1 percent is Hispanic and it is considered diverse. Given the subjectivity and arbitrariness of diversity I think it is better that admissions are race free. That by no means its racist. Think about public schools. Race is not considered a factor in admissions and by no means is racist. The only requirement is to live near the public school.

OK, Stephen Miller, let me help you out here. If the private school could fill itself with 400 kids from full pay families, and 95% of those kids are white, but instead they choose to give financial aid to 80 students, and the majority of those kids are non-white from a variety of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, that may not achieve perfect diversity, but that’s what it means to value diversity and make a worthwhile effort at it. I’m not sure what you’re doing here today. Don’t you have a hard-working Mexican farm worker to deport?

Ok Kamala. You totally convinced me.