School Design and White Families

[Anonymous]

09:31, it is nice to see posts from parents who actually have children in a KIPP school. I'm friends with a KIPP teacher, but don't know much else beyond the wildly divergent accounts I read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It seems clear white families want other white families in their schools and are only willing to send their children so far from their segregated enclaves.
What can be done to design schools to bring in white families to schools that are not just "for" white families?

Lots of people besides whites live in "segregated enclaves" in this city. Most everyone would like to keep their kids as close to home, if possible, but black families or white families in mixed neighborhoods who value education are more willing to send their kids further away for school if that's where the good schools are. White families usually don't have to travel far to school, because the good schools are already in their neighborhoods. The schools are good, because they have more white kids than the other schools.

In the case of Duke Ellington, it's a majority black school in a majority white neighborhood and when given the chance to build a new school in a more central location, they preferred to stay in Georgetown. making it easier for the lower percentage of white kids who go there, who tend to live nearby.

That's not what I heard from the Georgetown residents, who wanted a "neighborhood general high school" to be developed there. For the record, the location across from Union Station that DE rejected is now occupied by a Montessori DCPS school with a diverse population:

http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Capitol+Hill+Montessori+%40+Logan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a white parent - and honestly, I don't care what white parents want.

I care what upper middle class parents want. I wish you could sort by SES of 150+

This. People use white as code for high SES, which is not always true. Lots of people of color for the bill too.

The reason for that "code" is because of the unusual fact that traditionally DC's white student population was almost exclusively high SES, so fwiw, if you sort test scores for white or ask "How are white students doing?" you can generalize "How would <<my child of any race or SES whose academic profile is the same as one generally/statistically seen in high SES kids>> do?" There are exceptions all over the place, obviously, but this comes up when people are trying to generalize and make choices from statistics. It is a quick way to get a snapshot that comes close to sorting for SES. How each parent uses those statistics to estimate how their own child might do depends on the child. And this general transference only works in DC due to its skewed white demographics. If there were a significant population of low SES white people in DC, it wouldn't work, and no one would be using this proxy. If/As the white population increases and becomes more economically diverse, this correlation will fade.

Here is economic demographic data from 2009 to illustrate the point: http://www.dcfpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/9-22-09ACSIncome.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are a few ideas:

1. Strong girls sports, such as soccer, swimming, softball, and volleyball, not just basketball and bowling (seriously, this is offered in DCPS)

2. English/literature classes that don't JUST focus on authors of color, which must be the new way to supposedly get students of color to read. However,an sole focus on this can become off-putting to white students, as they are always in a bad light. There should be a variety of books read and discussed.

3. No social promotion in any grade. Nothing like accountability to get all students up to speed.

4. Foreign language classes daily.

I wanted to speak a bit to your second point.

I agree that variety is the spice of life. However, please keep in mind that it is helpful for kids to read things that they relate to. As a white parent, I am glad to see brown faces in the books my white daughter brings home. I am glad that the books she is reading in class reflect her life experiences and those of her friends. There are are more than enough books about blonde haired blue eyed girls. What books, specifically, do you believe put white students "in a bad light"? By "in a bad light" do you mean that the books address racism (a historical and contemporary reality that many students from various ethnic backgrounds experience)?

pp here -- I didn't say that they should only rad a books about "blonde haired blue eyed girls" (and really, what work of literature has that in the first place?), but I don't think that a steady diet of of only authors of color is right, either. Of course racism is to be discussed and understood, but not necessarily in EVERY book read by the class.

I completely agree with #2 and my kids are Hispanic. The mix of the population at BASIS (child #1 started when it was still a Title 1 school, still does not have very many Hispanic kids) combined with book after book in grade after grade about the experience of black oppression from "To Kill a Mockingbird" (which I also read in school) to a book about a black boycott of a store that was owned by member of the KKK to "As I Lay Dying," not only precludes any reading of the classics but also makes every other minority invisible and creates a kind of hierarchy of victimization which in this house has resulted in extremely cynical children. When they hear kids play the race card (like when the applications for National Junior Honor Society were being handed out which require a certain GPA) they come home and tell us (in this case my child overheard two girls saying it was racist) and they now view it as a pitiful excuse whatever the circumstances - even when it might be valid - even when it does not come from the kids with $500 dollar Jordans or the girls who say "I'm so ghetto" who are usually gone after 6th grade. My son does not yet understand that the police may put him in the same category, that when he gets to college the shopkeepers may follow him around thinking he will shoplift (happened to my friends). My kids have yet to feel the sting of discrimination.

I was raised in a white family in Washington DC to believe that the only kind of elitism that was acceptable was intellectual and moral - not the color of someone's skin but the content of their character, and while my parents may have been shocked that I ended up coming home from my Ivy League University with a boyfriend who was definitely not white, and definitely could not pass, he was definitely smart, had with help pulled himself out of an inner city to an Ivy, and they never said anything even when we decided to marry. Compared to me and my parents my kids are racist and all of this has to do with their experience at BASIS, and I don't feel like I have anything to say about it because I went to private school here and by the time I met a poor non-white kid I was in college. And my kids feel this way even though the majority of their friends are black and two of their favorite teachers are black - cognitive dissonance anyone? Makes no sense to me except that some AA kids have learned to cry racism at every turn to blame teachers (the excellent new British Latin teacher got fired early in the term because of such unfounded accusations) and my kids are learning from them - and the books they are reading just make it worse because it sounds like yes there was a time..... but no longer. And they see what I saw in DC - only black and white. I don't think it has ever even occurred to them that they are a minority, or to think about where they fit in, because they are top of their class and that is the way they choose their friends - in THAT they are colorblind. But the troublemakers tend to be AA and someone has taught them to cry racism, which makes all claims sound false to them at least at school, and they are learning that the AA kids are the troublemakers. Every time they hear about the oppression of African Americans in church they squirm, and I squirm for them. The police are not going to be friendly to my son. Finally I am in absolute agreement with #3, no social promotion, but BASIS takes care of that starting in 6th.

Thanks PP. This is both scary and plain stupid. I wasn't aware that BASIS had descended into such myopic policies.

[Anonymous]

How come obama won't send his own kids to DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:09:31, it is nice to see posts from parents who actually have children in a KIPP school. I'm friends with a KIPP teacher, but don't know much else beyond the wildly divergent accounts I read.

I love the teachers are KIPP. My child has had only amazing teachers at KIPP (we've been there 4 school years now) - and I've never requested a specific teacher. They are all absolutely fantastic, dedicated, and loving towards their students. Every single parent I know loves their child's teacher, and the faculty too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How come obama won't send his own kids to DCPS?

b/c his real address is in Kenya, and he's worried based on reading DCUM that he'd be caught

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How come obama won't send his own kids to DCPS?

See the thread on guns at Wilson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:09:31, it is nice to see posts from parents who actually have children in a KIPP school. I'm friends with a KIPP teacher, but don't know much else beyond the wildly divergent accounts I read.

I love the teachers at KIPP. My child has had only amazing teachers at KIPP (we've been there 4 school years now) - and I've never requested a specific teacher. They are all absolutely fantastic, dedicated, and loving towards their students. Every single parent I know loves their child's teacher, and the faculty too.

Sorry about the typo.

Keep in mind that there are 5 KIPP pre-k - 8 campuses (2 do not serve all grades yet because they were opened in the last 2 years), and one high school campus. That could be the reason for the varying accounts. My child is not at the oldest campus, but is at a more established campus. As all the campuses become established and serve all grades, kids who have "grown up" at KIPP will likely do much better because the curriculum will set those kids up to perform at a higher level in middle and high school. Right now the high school kids may have started in middle school, or may have started KIPP in high school. Now though, some of the middle schoolers started KIPP in early elementary which should make a difference at those campuses.

Also, KIPP serves more than 10% of the charter school kids in DC. They play a big role, and its only getting bigger as the 2 newest campuses grow into all the grades they will serve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason PP wants kids retained if they're not working at grade level isn't for their benefit - it's for his/her kid. We don't want kids in the class who can't do the work - because that slows down the class and our kids aren't engaged and aren't learning to work hard.

We want tracking - but OP is asking what a school has to offer so that higher SES parents will enroll their children in schools with (economically and racially) integrated classrooms. I don't think there is anything that would do this.

How does passing a child who is "not working at grade level" benefit the child?

There is research that shows retaining a child reduces their likelihood of graduating when compared to children with similar academic profiles who were not retained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are a few ideas:

1. Strong girls sports, such as soccer, swimming, softball, and volleyball, not just basketball and bowling (seriously, this is offered in DCPS)

2. English/literature classes that don't JUST focus on authors of color, which must be the new way to supposedly get students of color to read. However,an sole focus on this can become off-putting to white students, as they are always in a bad light. There should be a variety of books read and discussed.

3. No social promotion in any grade. Nothing like accountability to get all students up to speed.

4. Foreign language classes daily.

I wanted to speak a bit to your second point.

I agree that variety is the spice of life. However, please keep in mind that it is helpful for kids to read things that they relate to. As a white parent, I am glad to see brown faces in the books my white daughter brings home. I am glad that the books she is reading in class reflect her life experiences and those of her friends. There are are more than enough books about blonde haired blue eyed girls. What books, specifically, do you believe put white students "in a bad light"? By "in a bad light" do you mean that the books address racism (a historical and contemporary reality that many students from various ethnic backgrounds experience)?

pp here -- I didn't say that they should only rad a books about "blonde haired blue eyed girls" (and really, what work of literature has that in the first place?), but I don't think that a steady diet of of only authors of color is right, either. Of course racism is to be discussed and understood, but not necessarily in EVERY book read by the class.

I completely agree with #2 and my kids are Hispanic. The mix of the population at BASIS (child #1 started when it was still a Title 1 school, still does not have very many Hispanic kids) combined with book after book in grade after grade about the experience of black oppression from "To Kill a Mockingbird" (which I also read in school) to a book about a black boycott of a store that was owned by member of the KKK to "As I Lay Dying," not only precludes any reading of the classics but also makes every other minority invisible and creates a kind of hierarchy of victimization which in this house has resulted in extremely cynical children. When they hear kids play the race card (like when the applications for National Junior Honor Society were being handed out which require a certain GPA) they come home and tell us (in this case my child overheard two girls saying it was racist) and they now view it as a pitiful excuse whatever the circumstances - even when it might be valid - even when it does not come from the kids with $500 dollar Jordans or the girls who say "I'm so ghetto" who are usually gone after 6th grade. My son does not yet understand that the police may put him in the same category, that when he gets to college the shopkeepers may follow him around thinking he will shoplift (happened to my friends). My kids have yet to feel the sting of discrimination.

I was raised in a white family in Washington DC to believe that the only kind of elitism that was acceptable was intellectual and moral - not the color of someone's skin but the content of their character, and while my parents may have been shocked that I ended up coming home from my Ivy League University with a boyfriend who was definitely not white, and definitely could not pass, he was definitely smart, had with help pulled himself out of an inner city to an Ivy, and they never said anything even when we decided to marry. Compared to me and my parents my kids are racist and all of this has to do with their experience at BASIS, and I don't feel like I have anything to say about it because I went to private school here and by the time I met a poor non-white kid I was in college. And my kids feel this way even though the majority of their friends are black and two of their favorite teachers are black - cognitive dissonance anyone? Makes no sense to me except that some AA kids have learned to cry racism at every turn to blame teachers (the excellent new British Latin teacher got fired early in the term because of such unfounded accusations) and my kids are learning from them - and the books they are reading just make it worse because it sounds like yes there was a time..... but no longer. And they see what I saw in DC - only black and white. I don't think it has ever even occurred to them that they are a minority, or to think about where they fit in, because they are top of their class and that is the way they choose their friends - in THAT they are colorblind. But the troublemakers tend to be AA and someone has taught them to cry racism, which makes all claims sound false to them at least at school, and they are learning that the AA kids are the troublemakers. Every time they hear about the oppression of African Americans in church they squirm, and I squirm for them. The police are not going to be friendly to my son. Finally I am in absolute agreement with #3, no social promotion, but BASIS takes care of that starting in 6th.

Thanks PP. This is both scary and plain stupid. I wasn't aware that BASIS had descended into such myopic policies.

Not just BASIS -- check any public school in DC with a majority minority population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason PP wants kids retained if they're not working at grade level isn't for their benefit - it's for his/her kid. We don't want kids in the class who can't do the work - because that slows down the class and our kids aren't engaged and aren't learning to work hard.

We want tracking - but OP is asking what a school has to offer so that higher SES parents will enroll their children in schools with (economically and racially) integrated classrooms. I don't think there is anything that would do this.

How does passing a child who is "not working at grade level" benefit the child?

There is research that shows retaining a child reduces their likelihood of graduating when compared to children with similar academic profiles who were not retained.

Would you rather have them graduate illiterate and unemployable? So many high SES families try to redshirt their kids, I don't see why a one year repeat wouldn't be good for kids who have slipped through the cracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here are a few ideas:

1. Strong girls sports, such as soccer, swimming, softball, and volleyball, not just basketball and bowling (seriously, this is offered in DCPS)

2. English/literature classes that don't JUST focus on authors of color, which must be the new way to supposedly get students of color to read. However,an sole focus on this can become off-putting to white students, as they are always in a bad light. There should be a variety of books read and discussed.

3. No social promotion in any grade. Nothing like accountability to get all students up to speed.

4. Foreign language classes daily.

Very good ideas...

+1 . In general, a very strong focus on academic preparation and accountability for bad behavior.

Is this really what white or high SES families want?

My son attends a rising DCPS elementary school in the center of the city. It is diverse in every possible way: racially, religiously socioeconomically. We certainly offer girls' sports (soccer, track), as do the elementary schools surrounding us. However, after a certain age, high SES kids are in club soccer, so school soccer doesn't really matter

Retaining kids has been shown by the research not to help. If your child didn't do well in fourth grade, you need to figure out what's wrong, not just repeat the same approach that didn't work the first time.

Our program is dual language. DCPS offers seven language immersion programs at the elementary level, and two at the middle school level. There are four charters with immersion. These schools do attract more high SES families, but the offerings are already there. I agree that language every day in every school would be great, but most private schools and schools in the suburbs don't offer that at the elementary level. Attracting bilingual teachers generally requires more resources than small schools have.

I see mixed evidence that white or high SES families want lots of academics in the lower grades. The research really supports play-based preschools and discourages early literacy, especially when it comes at the expense of social skills. Private schools are generally known to be less academically rigorous in the lower grades.

I see no evidence that white high SES families demand more accountability for behavior among their kids. Quite a few high SES white families at our school have badly behaved boys in preschool. The parents do not seem to lean on them very hard. So why do white high SES kids end up behaving well? One is expectations from faculty. The Washington Post article last year on the tendency to suspend boys of color from pre-school made it clear that teachers treat the same behaviors differently, depending on the student.

Another difference, however, is exposure. High SES families have routines that are imposed by the parents' work schedules. They take their children to theater performances, where the children observe other people sitting quietly and listening to the artists. They take their children on planes, where the children observe adults sitting quietly and taking directions from flight attendants. They see their parents having calm give and take conversations with other adults. Their parents have time to be patient with them if they melt down in the morning, because they have professional jobs from which they won't be fired for being ten minutes late. The kids internalize these behaviors.

That's why KIPP only works so far. They impose standards externally. The kids don't get to internalize the standards unless they reap the benefits of things like a quiet classroom, meeting, or performance. KIPP schools also have a broken windows theory of education. They punish kids for things that would be ignored or even encouraged in a progressive or high SES school, where kids are being raised to see themselves as future leaders.

The original question was aimed at middle and high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason PP wants kids retained if they're not working at grade level isn't for their benefit - it's for his/her kid. We don't want kids in the class who can't do the work - because that slows down the class and our kids aren't engaged and aren't learning to work hard.

We want tracking - but OP is asking what a school has to offer so that higher SES parents will enroll their children in schools with (economically and racially) integrated classrooms. I don't think there is anything that would do this.

How does passing a child who is "not working at grade level" benefit the child?

There is research that shows retaining a child reduces their likelihood of graduating when compared to children with similar academic profiles who were not retained.

Would you rather have them graduate illiterate and unemployable? So many high SES families try to redshirt their kids, I don't see why a one year repeat wouldn't be good for kids who have slipped through the cracks.

Of course graduating illiterate and unemployable children is not the goal.

But, generally speaking, if you just present the same material in the very same way to students who failed to master it the first time, you won't get better outcomes. And depending on the grade level, you introduce all sorts of negative psychological and social issues.

[Anonymous]

In addition to stuff that's already been mentioned like few disciplinary interruptions, time for play and creativity, and academics appropriate for kids at or above grade level, I want a school that teaches writing.

I don't just mean print and cursive handwriting and keyboarding skills, though those are very important, but also the fundamentals of grammar and usage (bells peal, not peel; one pores over documents and does not pour over them). Unfortunately, I find that few teachers--in DC or elsewhere--write all that well. Even the Washington Post has lots of errors. I expect that I'll be doing a lot of at-home writing enrichment with my child.

I don't want Saturday school. I do want high-quality aftercare with fun activities. A fun, optional summer program (with enrollment available in short sessions) would be a bonus.

I also want a full time, on-site school nurse and librarian.