SO: How do you fit into a poor or primarily minority public school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing seems a trend to me (as an upper middle income non-white person), it's liberal guilt whites who seem to see 'value' in sending their kids to majority or near- majority low income schools. I think you'd be hard pressed to find upper middle income minority families attempting the same thing. I think the only thing such an attempt would do to my little brown kid is reinforce the already pervasive notion that brown means to be poor and uneducated. I think it is important to empathize and try to alleviate poverty,speaking as someone with ample prior exposure to poverty both personally and professionally. What I don't understand is the desire of certain rich white folk to emulate it in their children's educations.

I think it is hard to find a really "white" school in MoCo for starters. Even the W schools seem to have a decent amount of racial diversity. That said and yes I did want a diverse (race and otherwise) school for my child because that is representative of society. This does not mean I'm sending her to a Title I school but like I said - you don't have to go to a Title I school in Mo Co to find diversity. Its not that hard.

[Anonymous]

Mus' be some kinna muslim forner cuz he don't got no 'Murkan name like Jethro or Jim Bob.

He ain't like us, nawp.

Sarcasm, but sadly too true whether anyone wants to admit it out loud or not...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mus' be some kinna muslim forner cuz he don't got no 'Murkan name like Jethro or Jim Bob.

He ain't like us, nawp.

Sarcasm, but sadly too true whether anyone wants to admit it out loud or not...

what are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mus' be some kinna muslim forner cuz he don't got no 'Murkan name like Jethro or Jim Bob.

He ain't like us, nawp.

Sarcasm, but sadly too true whether anyone wants to admit it out loud or not...

If you think that everybody who believes Obama is a racially-divisive foreign-born Muslim is named Jim Bob and lives in a trailer park in Alabama, then I suggest you re-think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mus' be some kinna muslim forner cuz he don't got no 'Murkan name like Jethro or Jim Bob.

He ain't like us, nawp.

Sarcasm, but sadly too true whether anyone wants to admit it out loud or not...

If you think that everybody who believes Obama is a racially-divisive foreign-born Muslim is named Jim Bob and lives in a trailer park in Alabama, then I suggest you re-think.

I completely agree; There are trailer parks in MD also.

[Anonymous]

We have been at two schools where my white kids are in the minority, first time 5% title one school, second round 30% well off. Race and language were an issue, but class was huge! It made a difference in all kinds of ways, how kids were supervised, extra curriculars, birthday parties, pta, when and how if at all parents participated. I want my kids at diverse schools, not because of white guilt, because it will be the future workplace and white people that are only around white people can be mighty stupid. We were able to find a middle ground and I think concentrated poverty is a disaster, but never again will I do a title one school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mus' be some kinna muslim forner cuz he don't got no 'Murkan name like Jethro or Jim Bob.

He ain't like us, nawp.

Sarcasm, but sadly too true whether anyone wants to admit it out loud or not...

If you think that everybody who believes Obama is a racially-divisive foreign-born Muslim is named Jim Bob and lives in a trailer park in Alabama, then I suggest you re-think.

The point being that anyone that profoundly ignorant doesn't have much on Jim Bob in the Alabama trailer park.

[Anonymous]

My child and I did better in a private preschool that was a minority majority than in the local public school. I think because we all chose the private school and no one lived in just one neighborhood, there was more of an effort by all parents to get to know each other to the same degree regardless of income, ethnicity, or race. With our local school, parents seem to seek out other families like them and the kids became better friends through the relationships the parents have made. This is possibly because the parents think of these people as becoming long term friends. I miss the friendliness of the preschool years but just try to keep an open mind with everyone I meet myself. I can only change myself, not others.

[Anonymous]

Any school that is "primarily" anything will suffer from a lack of diversity and will be more likely to be rough on kids who don't fit the mold of everyone else there - and that applies whether rich, poor, black, white, latino, or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing seems a trend to me (as an upper middle income non-white person), it's liberal guilt whites who seem to see 'value' in sending their kids to majority or near- majority low income schools. I think you'd be hard pressed to find upper middle income minority families attempting the same thing. I think the only thing such an attempt would do to my little brown kid is reinforce the already pervasive notion that brown means to be poor and uneducated. I think it is important to empathize and try to alleviate poverty,speaking as someone with ample prior exposure to poverty both personally and professionally. What I don't understand is the desire of certain rich white folk to emulate it in their children's educations.

I think it is hard to find a really "white" school in MoCo for starters. Even the W schools seem to have a decent amount of racial diversity. That said and yes I did want a diverse (race and otherwise) school for my child because that is representative of society. This does not mean I'm sending her to a Title I school but like I said - you don't have to go to a Title I school in Mo Co to find diversity. Its not that hard.

I am AA and my daughter went to a Title 1 school for kindergarten and first grade -- it was an excellent school, excellent environment, and a lot smaller classes than some of the non-downcounty schools that are so sought after.
And as for the other PP -- my kid would no have NO IDEA what black, brown, or purple kids had low-incomes or not...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing seems a trend to me (as an upper middle income non-white person), it's liberal guilt whites who seem to see 'value' in sending their kids to majority or near- majority low income schools. I think you'd be hard pressed to find upper middle income minority families attempting the same thing. I think the only thing such an attempt would do to my little brown kid is reinforce the already pervasive notion that brown means to be poor and uneducated. I think it is important to empathize and try to alleviate poverty,speaking as someone with ample prior exposure to poverty both personally and professionally. What I don't understand is the desire of certain rich white folk to emulate it in their children's educations.

I think it is hard to find a really "white" school in MoCo for starters. Even the W schools seem to have a decent amount of racial diversity. That said and yes I did want a diverse (race and otherwise) school for my child because that is representative of society. This does not mean I'm sending her to a Title I school but like I said - you don't have to go to a Title I school in Mo Co to find diversity. Its not that hard.

I am AA and my daughter went to a Title 1 school for kindergarten and first grade -- it was an excellent school, excellent environment, and a lot smaller classes than some of the non-downcounty schools that are so sought after.
And as for the other PP -- my kid would no have NO IDEA what black, brown, or purple kids had low-incomes or not...

I am PP and I wasn't putting down Title I schools at all. I was responding to the PP who says that there is a trend for liberal guilty whites to intentionally send their kids to a low income school. I was just trying to state that its not that hard to find diversity in MO CO schools and that there was no liberal guilt at all in how I chose our school - I was looking for diversity because I want my child to live in reality. No, we did not go searching for a title I school - but that doesn't mean we weren't looking for a school that was representative of society. I don't know if I'm making sense. Anyhow - since we bought - I have continued to hear good things about some of the Title I schools and I'm hoping we made the right decision. The smaller class size sounds great.

[Anonymous]

My kids are 2 of4 (out of 21) white kids in their 2nd grade class. They've been with many of those same kids since PK and skin color has never been an issue. Their best friend is black (parents are from Nigeria) and the friendship has never been an issue in their home or ours. He's been to our home and us to theirs.

[Anonymous]

shhh... some posters will say he doesn't count as black because he's not the same...

[Anonymous]

Can't believe I'm responding to this, but yes, my Jewish kid was the only "white" kid in the class. The problem we ran into was not the other kids, who were always nice to ours, but the very kind teacher thinking she was the life line for all of the other kids , and our kid with 2 college educated parents didn't need much attention or teaching. I don't mean my precious snowflake didn't get advanced math, I mean she needed basic reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can't believe I'm responding to this, but yes, my Jewish kid was the only "white" kid in the class. The problem we ran into was not the other kids, who were always nice to ours, but the very kind teacher thinking she was the life line for all of the other kids , and our kid with 2 college educated parents didn't need much attention or teaching. I don't mean my precious snowflake didn't get advanced math, I mean she needed basic reading.

Indeed, this is the problem. Even if the teachers are excellent where do you think the attention will go in a majority poor school. It's not race, it's SES. Just ask any teacher how difficult it is to teach in a majority low income school. I think diverse schools are good, but diverse should reflect demographics. A 25% low income school could be fairly called diverse and is probably more beneficial to everyone's all around education.