So are you willing to give up quality of education for diversity?

[Anonymous]

So from what I'm reading everyone will just sacrifice the quality of education their children receive for diversity.

I read a thread recently where someone said they requested to be in a lower rated school instead of the highly rated school they were zoned for so that there would be more diversity.

This is the craziest thing I have heard in a while. So do your children not see any people of different color, religion, SES, country of origin etc... At any sports? Your ? (maybe going to private), the grocery store, life in general?

I would never sacrifice my child's quality of education for anything. They have plenty of friends who are different because they don't go to school 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Honestly what am I missing here? My children's education is one of the most important things to our family, I can't imagine not caring about the learning my children receive because I care more about the type of kids in the class.

[Anonymous]

All other things being equal I definitely would prefer cultural diversity in my kids' schools, but no, I wouldn't choose diversity over quality of education.

[Anonymous]

Revealed preferences (i.e. what people actually do) show that most parents will throw diversity under a truck with a big, s*-eating smile on their face for even a small improvement in school quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All other things being equal I definitely would prefer cultural diversity in my kids' schools, but no, I wouldn't choose diversity over quality of education.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All other things being equal I definitely would prefer cultural diversity in my kids' schools, but no, I wouldn't choose diversity over quality of education.

+1

Ditto.

[Anonymous]

I'll bite.
We actually choose a lower rated school (according to great schools) b/c we wanted immersion. When I reviewed the stats for a child in my DS's demographic, he was just as likely to well at the school we enrolled him in as in the other more highly rated school.

I don't think I am sacrificing anything and he is gaining the ability to speak a second language which he could not get at home.

I am not sure what thread you are referencing but I am sure there are parents who would rather their child be in a lower rated school than being the "only" diverse child in their classroom.

Also remember the lower rating does not always mean a lower level of instruction. It simply means there are more kid struggling academically which reflects in the test scores and school rating. As long as there is differentiation it is likely that a smart child in a lower rated school really isn't missing much from an education perspective and that a struggling child probably has acces to more resources.

[Anonymous]

This is a false question. Op is a crock of shit. Op is insinuating that whites leave diverse schools for better educations.

This is false. Whites leave diverse schools not for educational reasons but because whites don't want to walk in the shoes of other minorities.

This is proven by what happens when asians get too high of a concentration in schools - white families leave

[Anonymous]

I will choose quality of education over diversity.

Though the PP brings up a valid point: diversity doesn't mean poor education. Schools with asian, indian populations are often high performing, as are other schools that have diverse, high socio-economic populations.

OP, maybe you don't mean ethnic diversity, but socio-economic diversity??

[Anonymous]

It all depends on what you call quality of education. Lots of schools mainly have higher test scores because of lack of diversity but not because the school itself is so great.

[Anonymous]

No. I don't care at all about diversity.

[Anonymous]

I consider learning about other cultures, and other economic situations, and learning skills for dealing with diverse populations to be an essential part of a good education.

I feel that it's easier for me, as an adult with strong educational credentials, to supplement what my kid is learning academically at home than it is to socially engineer their friendships.

I don't consider seeing people at the grocery store to be all comparable to having someone in your class, seeing them day in and day out, and interacting with them all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a false question. Op is a crock of shit. Op is insinuating that whites leave diverse schools for better educations.

This is false. Whites leave diverse schools not for educational reasons but because whites don't want to walk in the shoes of other minorities.

This is proven by what happens when asians get too high of a concentration in schools - white families leave

while making excuses (the subtle jabs which all boil down to diversity) about why the school is just not a good fit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll bite.
We actually choose a lower rated school (according to great schools) b/c we wanted immersion. When I reviewed the stats for a child in my DS's demographic, he was just as likely to well at the school we enrolled him in as in the other more highly rated school.

I don't think I am sacrificing anything and he is gaining the ability to speak a second language which he could not get at home.

I am not sure what thread you are referencing but I am sure there are parents who would rather their child be in a lower rated school than being the "only" diverse child in their classroom.

Also remember the lower rating does not always mean a lower level of instruction. It simply means there are more kid struggling academically which reflects in the test scores and school rating. As long as there is differentiation it is likely that a smart child in a lower rated school really isn't missing much from an education perspective and that a struggling child probably has acces to more resources.

As a teacher I don't mind if my kid is surrounded by students who need more academic help. Sometimes the kids who struggle academically but work hard and are well behaved are great role models for the 'smarter kids'.

I do care though if a school has too many discipline issues. And that's where the problem is - lower rating schools are not avoided because they have too many 'dumb kids'. They are avoided because there are too many hellions in the school.

I prefer teaching the kids at my school (i work in a mc/umc very white district outside the dmv area) in small intervention groups who need additional math or ELA help. My 'low level' kids for the most part are pretty well behaved, just need additional focused instruction.

If they were poorly behaved assholes, then I would not like them so much.

maybe there should be a split in 'ratings'. a rating to really measure academic quality of the student body separate from the disciplinary quality of the student body.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I consider learning about other cultures, and other economic situations, and learning skills for dealing with diverse populations to be an essential part of a good education.

I feel that it's easier for me, as an adult with strong educational credentials, to supplement what my kid is learning academically at home than it is to socially engineer their friendships.

I don't consider seeing people at the grocery store to be all comparable to having someone in your class, seeing them day in and day out, and interacting with them all day.

Agree completely. I am confident my kids will learn academics and I know I can help with that. I cannot manufacture empathy and understanding of people from diverse backgrounds- ethnically, culturally, socioeconomically, etc. We lotteried for a DCPS EOTP title 1 school- no other choices. No plan to leave.

[Anonymous]

When I was a kid my parents purposefully put me on a bus with 6 or 7 other white kids to attend an all-black inner-city school in Virginia in a town fighting a court order to desegregate its schools. This was the best education about life that I could have ever received.