The Middle School Problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The lack of quality middle school options is hurting DCPS.

Let me give you an example - my family.
We are in a top rated elementary school with a long long waitlist. We like it and our son is having a great great experience. We’re decently engaged with the PTO. We’d stay in this school no problem.

BUT, the middle school feeder pattern is not good. So every year we play the lottery and list Lafayette, Murch, Janney, Bancroft, Oyster, etc. If we got into a school like Lafayette we’d probably enroll.
Why?
Access to Deal.


The lack of middle school options is holding back DCPS’s elementary schools.

Then you should be lobbying to end OOB feeder rights. There are at least 30 OOB kids at our WOTP elementary school. Half black and half white. Almost all really good students with involved parents. This must be similar to other WOTP schools. There are probably 400ish of these kids spread across the Ward 3 schools. These kids could be the foundation of a great EOTP middle school. It’s not a question anymore about being the first family to be forced to try it, it would be hundreds of families. It’s really the only way out of this mess.

As someone who owns a house in close-in Bethesda, I think this is a great idea. Top notch.

But here’s the thing. The vast majority of EOTP homeowners can’t afford to buy in close in suburbs like Bethesda. And for lots of reasons they are not going to move to the far outer burbs. So if DCPS were to end OOB, then most of the hipsters would have very little choice to stay and fix the IB schools.

Doubt that. They can always move to MD or VA or like us send their kids to private school for middle school. Live in Ward 5 and we come from a DCI feeder but chose private.

Nowhere near enough charter or private seats. And most can’t drop $45k for private anyway. Let’s try it and see what happens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. The lack of quality middle school options is hurting DCPS.

Let me give you an example - my family.
We are in a top rated elementary school with a long long waitlist. We like it and our son is having a great great experience. We’re decently engaged with the PTO. We’d stay in this school no problem.

BUT, the middle school feeder pattern is not good. So every year we play the lottery and list Lafayette, Murch, Janney, Bancroft, Oyster, etc. If we got into a school like Lafayette we’d probably enroll.
Why?
Access to Deal.


The lack of middle school options is holding back DCPS’s elementary schools.

Then you should be lobbying to end OOB feeder rights. There are at least 30 OOB kids at our WOTP elementary school. Half black and half white. Almost all really good students with involved parents. This must be similar to other WOTP schools. There are probably 400ish of these kids spread across the Ward 3 schools. These kids could be the foundation of a great EOTP middle school. It’s not a question anymore about being the first family to be forced to try it, it would be hundreds of families. It’s really the only way out of this mess.

As someone who owns a house in close-in Bethesda, I think this is a great idea. Top notch.

But here’s the thing. The vast majority of EOTP homeowners can’t afford to buy in close in suburbs like Bethesda. And for lots of reasons they are not going to move to the far outer burbs. So if DCPS were to end OOB, then most of the hipsters would have very little choice to stay and fix the IB schools.

Doubt that. They can always move to MD or VA or like us send their kids to private school for middle school. Live in Ward 5 and we come from a DCI feeder but chose private.

Nowhere near enough charter or private seats. And most can’t drop $45k for private anyway. Let’s try it and see what happens?

Many parents move out by preK4 if they don't get into an acceptable school by K. Also, there are plenty of people like us who find charters and DCPS acceptable for elementary but not for higher grades so they move for middle school or pay for private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK so I love this thread but haven’t seen this historical POV represented: Deal was once upon a time and not long ago a POS that no one wanted. And then people seized on it and it became this “thing.” People don’t know it who aren’t from here or didn’t have kids at the right time.

My point is that you and I could be the people that cross the barrier or break some line with our kids. And I think it happens by showing up: at Stuart Hobson, at Hardy, at MacFarland, these places where we know students who live within the boundaries can hack it at Algebra, humanities and the like. If you’re willing to jump, DCPS will jump with you. I firmly believe that and to the extent that (for lack of a better term) motivated educated parents agitate for this - we get the advanced classes, we get the electives for our kids. Shunning these places is a fearful move. Moving in and demanding excellence is a great thing for everyone - us and all our neighbors.

This! Deal started to turn when around 2005-ish. I remember my neighbors all saying they were going to “try” Deal. These were Janney families.

in the super historical POV, we're still living with the impact of decades of defacto socioeconomic segregation from the mid1960s, where few white or well off families attended anywhere but a handful of WOTP elementary schools (before that Hardy (then Gordon Jr. High) was known for fluctuating 60/40 white/black.. http://www.burleith.org/burleith-history)

In the mid-2000s, Deal hit the tipping point of gentrification or re-integration. Hardy is in the middle of it now, especially with the switch from Eaton -- this year's 6th was around 70% and that percentage would've been higher if they didn't add to the total # of students in the class when the principal fought to keep more diversity.

There are also the Basis and DCI factors (and long waiting lists at Latin which is almost impossible to get into) - where many families are choosing them as options from other places in the city before going to SH, etc., but that may change too...

There are plenty of families choosing DCPS before charters. At SH some IB families might have jumped at Latin with better lottery luck but everyone I know had no interest in BASIS and in some cases fled BASIS due to negative experience with older child.

SH has tracking for rigor and has great electives. It has economic diversity and balances needs of at-risk and non- at-risk better than many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted the AA out of wedlock birthdate was 25%. In the decades since, not only has it not gotten better, it has gotten exponentially worse. And now stands close to a staggering 75%. It’s a tragedy.

No it hasn't and no it isn't. It's dropped significantly since it peaked in 2007 according to CDC statistics. And black mothers have shown the largest drop. Anyway, most out- of-wedlock babies are born to cohabiting couples, many of whom marry subsequent to the child's birth. I'm white, by the way, but I have to say that you're making racist arguments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted the AA out of wedlock birthdate was 25%. In the decades since, not only has it not gotten better, it has gotten exponentially worse. And now stands close to a staggering 75%. It’s a tragedy.

No it hasn't and no it isn't. It's dropped significantly since it peaked in 2007 according to CDC statistics. And black mothers have shown the largest drop. Anyway, most out- of-wedlock babies are born to cohabiting couples, many of whom marry subsequent to the child's birth. I'm white, by the way, but I have to say that you're making racist arguments.

np: I believe PP has facts on her side.

See https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/
for discusdion of the “close to 75%” number.

Your assertion that the out-of-wedlock people later get married is wrong too (or at least if they get married, they don’t stay married very long).
https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/107-children-in-single-parent-families-by-race#detailed/1/any/false/871,870,573,869,36,868,867,133,38,35/10,11,9,12,1,185,13/432,431

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted the AA out of wedlock birthdate was 25%. In the decades since, not only has it not gotten better, it has gotten exponentially worse. And now stands close to a staggering 75%. It’s a tragedy.

No it hasn't and no it isn't. It's dropped significantly since it peaked in 2007 according to CDC statistics. And black mothers have shown the largest drop. Anyway, most out- of-wedlock babies are born to cohabiting couples, many of whom marry subsequent to the child's birth. I'm white, by the way, but I have to say that you're making racist arguments.

It’s easy to flip the shoe on the other foot.
White evangelical Christians have very low rates of education, with only 17 percent getting college degrees, far below other groups.
White evangelical Christians have very low rates of mothers who contribute to society by working. Many are in 1-working-parent households, more than African Americans.

Why do we let white evangelicals get away with freeloading on our society and why don’t they care about education?
If only white evangelicals cared about their kids they’d focus on education and bring up the college rate!


(Bottom line: the African American arguments are often biased political talking points discussed by partisan media outlets that ignore problems that whites have. Most parents are trying to do what’s best for their children. We should work on helping people that want help, not blaming “black society” or “white society”.)



https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/04/the-most-and-least-educated-u-s-religious-groups/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

In which city -- an urban area -- in America are 50-90% of public school student at grade level or high? I'll wait for you to name them.

You cannot fix student achievement with votes or even with funding education alone. You need to virtually eliminate poverty, unemployment, trauma, and crime. If DC's leaders were doing this AND our schools were filled with low-achieving students then you'd be on point.

There are characters in DC achieving better grades, college /trade/skilled services entrance students in DC. DCPS has refused to duplicate this or give the dcps schools that want to the resources to provide the level of wrap around and academics.
Please don't suggest that poor kids need high SES peers to succeed. True a mix of incomes and diversity works on many levels. But there are other options to implement. But dcps won't spend the time or money on this. Longer school days or free additional hours of learning hours, free/sliding scale before & aftercare for All students, teachers with most of their hours targeted theses extra hours and programs so current teacher don't get burned out. Small magnet programs within each middle and high school for AP, skilled jobs, academic targets etc. The list goes on. But DC won't invest and will keeping blaming income, at risk etc. Instead of actually just take the list of 101 things that work at other school and just doing them. Hell, PG County has shown better out comes with at risk kids.

I would note to that a lot of schools don't have the best test scores etc even in SES areas. I know lost don't want to admit it but even higher SES kids aren't blowing achievements out of the water compared with Howard County, or Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

The middle class middle students are concentrated at one middle school in the city. This leaves a very small amount of kids sprinkled at Hardy, SH, and charters. The remaining students are in deep poverty and don’t have adequate support and facing things at home that you can’t even imagine. If middle schools are 90% at risk are you really blaming the school or city that only 1/3 of those students are at level? You should be advocating for social justice, affordable housing, and jobs before even you can see the impact in the schools.

What does that even mean? How does "social justice" magically turn an uneducated single parent with too many children to support, few basic skills, and (perhaps) a substance abuse problem into a responsible citizen and effective parent?

Do you think that uneducated single moms drop from the sky, or do you think that a larger social context plays a role in their development? For example - if a boy starts getting followed around by store clerks who think he’ll steal stuff and stopped by police (including being held at gunpoint) by the time he’s 12, do you think he’s more or less likely to be a « responsible citizen »? If a family is only shown apartments in high crime areas (despite their ability to pay the rent elsewhere) do you think they are more or less likely to raise kids who are « responsible citizens »?

Actually, I think a major factor in multi-generational poverty is a culture that tolerates or encourages destructive behavior and devalues behaviors that could break the cycle. And I think this is as true in WV "hollows" as it is in blighted urban centers. And "culture" here includes the near-term material and sexual gratification that's beamed at us endlessly in music and video.

Do you think that this culture you describe dropped from the sky? Or could it have anything to do with the institutional racism that I described? There is a ton of research which shows:

- Most white people, view black kids as being older than they are. The research I saw said that on average whites see black kids as on average 4 years older, so they see black 12 year olds as 16. This leads them to react to kid behavior differently than they do with white kids, which results in dramatically higher involvement of black youth with the criminal justice system for the same behaviors that white kids tend to get away with.

- Starting in preschool, black kids are suspended and expelled at a dramatically higher rate than white kids for the same behaviors.

- Black kids are very much more likely to be charged as adults for crimes, more likely to be convicted than whites based on similar evidence, and sentenced more harshly for the same crimes.

- Black moms are reported for child abuse and neglect much more than white moms for the exact same behaviors.

- Buying a home is a huge catalyst of the kinds of middle class values that you are talking about (and to accumulating wealth). Between the 1930s and the 1970s, the US government spend billions of dollars subsidizing white home ownership, but the FHA and VA loans that were used for that were much less available to black aspiring homeowners due to a combination of restrictive deeds, redlining, etc. Fast forward 40 years and predatory lending (especially in the 2008 financial crisis) focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, and the subsequent foreclosure crisis decimated black home ownership, which dropped 23% between 2005 and 2009. You really see this in places like Cleveland - banks there were found guilty of all kinds of fraud specifically targeting minorities, and the result was that in black east side neighborhoods, more than 15% of houses were foreclosed and eventually abandoned by banks, and many have been torn down. That rate of vacancy and dereliction also destroys the value of surrounding homes, so whole neighborhoods that were up and coming residential neighborhoods in 2006 are largely vacant now and the people who scrimped and saved to buy a house and own part of the middle class American dream have lost all their equity --- often without having been foreclosed on or ever missing a payment. Cleveland.com has an amazing article on this with Google Earth images from before and after the foreclosure crisis -- a thriving neighborhood from 2006 is now mostly vacant lots where derelict houses have been razed.

The point is that the culture and behaviors that your are bemoaning exist in a context, and in many ways that context is one of black kids, moms and homeowners having the deck stacked against them in a lot of ways. Sure, through heroic effort people can overcome the odds and become successful, but it shouldn't take a heroic effort, and that context is something that we as a society can do something about.

When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted the AA out of wedlock birthdate was 25%. In the decades since, not only has it not gotten better, it has gotten exponentially worse. And now stands close to a staggering 75%. It’s a tragedy.

No it hasn't and no it isn't. It's dropped significantly since it peaked in 2007 according to CDC statistics. And black mothers have shown the largest drop. Anyway, most out- of-wedlock babies are born to cohabiting couples, many of whom marry subsequent to the child's birth. I'm white, by the way, but I have to say that you're making racist arguments.

It’s easy to flip the shoe on the other foot.
White evangelical Christians have very low rates of education, with only 17 percent getting college degrees, far below other groups.
White evangelical Christians have very low rates of mothers who contribute to society by working. Many are in 1-working-parent households, more than African Americans.

Why do we let white evangelicals get away with freeloading on our society and why don’t they care about education?
If only white evangelicals cared about their kids they’d focus on education and bring up the college rate!


(Bottom line: the African American arguments are often biased political talking points discussed by partisan media outlets that ignore problems that whites have. Most parents are trying to do what’s best for their children. We should work on helping people that want help, not blaming “black society” or “white society”.)



https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/04/the-most-and-least-educated-u-s-religious-groups/

X100

Yes, thank you saying this! I came from a area that has 1/3 of the town in the boat and many surrounding communities are dying off because of this. Idiots that are still pissed there is no factory work and hand outs for them. Give them free education to get new skills.. They reject this because they are some how entitled to sit on their ass until 'God' spoon feeds them whatever they think they should have. Of course now the drug crisis is to blame again not them... Always someone else's fault.

X1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
X100

Yes, thank you saying this! I came from a area that has 1/3 of the town in the boat and many surrounding communities are dying off because of this. Idiots that are still pissed there is no factory work and hand outs for them. Give them free education to get new skills.. They reject this because they are some how entitled to sit on their ass until 'God' spoon feeds them whatever they think they should have. Of course now the drug crisis is to blame again not them... Always someone else's fault.

X1000

As a formerly Orthodox Jew, I can tell you that we have this in our community. There are lots of people who believe that it's their job to study Torah all day, and they end up on public assistance with zero marketable skills, very weak English (although strong knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic and Yiddish) and tons of kids that they are raising in the same tradition. This has been a huge problem in Israel for a while, and it's now increasingly recognized as an issue in places like New York and New Haven. The two towns in New York state with the highest percentage of ultra Orthodox members are the poorest in the state, and in those communities more than 50% of people are on some form of public assistance.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-haredi-poverty-the-same-threat-in-both-new-york-and-israel-1.6724049

It's possible that this isolation from the larger society is partly due to centuries of anti-Semitism. A lot of the culture of the Haredi community dates back to Russia and Poland at a time when Jews were barred from most professions, not allowed to own land and not considered citizens of the countries they were born in, and then of course the whole reason that many of these families are in the US is the holocaust.

It's almost like a history of centuries of horrific oppression has a long lasting impact on cultures and contributes to some trends in the community that aren't adaptive to succeeding in the larger society. Who could have imagined? Doubtless PP will chime in to explain again why we should ignore cultural context because of some factoid that's happening now.

[Anonymous]

What's this community vs. community stuff? What we need is people who we're potentially losing to harm, requiring resources to make it through life, transformed into productive citizens. Now, it's worth understanding what people's problems are so that we can treat them, but blame and telling people their cultures are inferior doesn't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's this community vs. community stuff? What we need is people who we're potentially losing to harm, requiring resources to make it through life, transformed into productive citizens. Now, it's worth understanding what people's problems are so that we can treat them, but blame and telling people their cultures are inferior doesn't do that.

X100.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's this community vs. community stuff? What we need is people who we're potentially losing to harm, requiring resources to make it through life, transformed into productive citizens. Now, it's worth understanding what people's problems are so that we can treat them, but blame and telling people their cultures are inferior doesn't do that.

I think the original point was that all we really have heard about re culture and schools for 40 years is how AA families have high divorce rates or low marriage rates or some other BS numbers. And the reason we hear about AA stats is that conservatives like Reagan and Murdoch figured out that they could get white votes by demonizing AAs. (To be fair Bill Clinton did a tiny amount of this too. But it is 99% a rightwing problem, and this selective demonization of minorities created the current president. But that’s another story.)

In response to the BS stats about AA families, someone chimed in to say you could find stats about white evangelical families that make them look bad too (presumably saying we don’t hear about them because conservatives don’t want to talk about that.) Then another PP chimed in to say it’s not just Christians, many extremist religions are similar.

Anyway, the upshot is: stop blaming AAs via rightwing talking points. We’re all in this together and frankly some white communities have problems just as large. Let’s try to encourage everyone to focus on education and provide them the support they need without any jealousy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's this community vs. community stuff? What we need is people who we're potentially losing to harm, requiring resources to make it through life, transformed into productive citizens. Now, it's worth understanding what people's problems are so that we can treat them, but blame and telling people their cultures are inferior doesn't do that.

I think the original point was that all we really have heard about re culture and schools for 40 years is how AA families have high divorce rates or low marriage rates or some other BS numbers. And the reason we hear about AA stats is that conservatives like Reagan and Murdoch figured out that they could get white votes by demonizing AAs. (To be fair Bill Clinton did a tiny amount of this too. But it is 99% a rightwing problem, and this selective demonization of minorities created the current president. But that’s another story.)

In response to the BS stats about AA families, someone chimed in to say you could find stats about white evangelical families that make them look bad too (presumably saying we don’t hear about them because conservatives don’t want to talk about that.) Then another PP chimed in to say it’s not just Christians, many extremist religions are similar.

Anyway, the upshot is: stop blaming AAs via rightwing talking points. We’re all in this together and frankly some white communities have problems just as large. Let’s try to encourage everyone to focus on education and provide them the support they need without any jealousy.

Right wing talking points? DC is 99% left, wtf are you talking about. Get a grip.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

In which city -- an urban area -- in America are 50-90% of public school student at grade level or high? I'll wait for you to name them.

You cannot fix student achievement with votes or even with funding education alone. You need to virtually eliminate poverty, unemployment, trauma, and crime. If DC's leaders were doing this AND our schools were filled with low-achieving students then you'd be on point.

There are characters in DC achieving better grades, college /trade/skilled services entrance students in DC. DCPS has refused to duplicate this or give the dcps schools that want to the resources to provide the level of wrap around and academics.
Please don't suggest that poor kids need high SES peers to succeed. True a mix of incomes and diversity works on many levels. But there are other options to implement. But dcps won't spend the time or money on this. Longer school days or free additional hours of learning hours, free/sliding scale before & aftercare for All students, teachers with most of their hours targeted theses extra hours and programs so current teacher don't get burned out. Small magnet programs within each middle and high school for AP, skilled jobs, academic targets etc. The list goes on. But DC won't invest and will keeping blaming income, at risk etc. Instead of actually just take the list of 101 things that work at other school and just doing them. Hell, PG County has shown better out comes with at risk kids.

I would note to that a lot of schools don't have the best test scores etc even in SES areas. I know lost don't want to admit it but even higher SES kids aren't blowing achievements out of the water compared with Howard County, or Fairfax.

Let me guess, you grew up solidly middle class. I didn't - I qualified for free meals at school (which my parents refused to accept) until high school. I feel like having high SES peers in school, particularly middle school, made all the difference in my education and prospects in life. For example, each visit to a classmate's home for a birthday party was a great education for me. I learned that families took vacations to Disneyland, that parents bought life insurance, that people had backyard pools. I learned that a good student could do this and that to become an...engineer, doctor, lawyer, stock broker etc. The parents of my UMC high school friends kindly became my mentors, encouraging me to apply to top colleges and helping me with applications. I graduated from MIT with honors and earned a law degree. I work as a federal attorney.

You don't seem to have a clue what high SES peers can do for poor kids. But then how would you know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole city should be outraged. It wouldn't occur to a lot of other places/cities that they need to fight and constantly lobby for safe, 50-90 % at grade level or higher. But in DC this is the case it is sad. But then we keep voting in that don't seem to do much about it.

In which city -- an urban area -- in America are 50-90% of public school student at grade level or high? I'll wait for you to name them.

You cannot fix student achievement with votes or even with funding education alone. You need to virtually eliminate poverty, unemployment, trauma, and crime. If DC's leaders were doing this AND our schools were filled with low-achieving students then you'd be on point.

There are characters in DC achieving better grades, college /trade/skilled services entrance students in DC. DCPS has refused to duplicate this or give the dcps schools that want to the resources to provide the level of wrap around and academics.
Please don't suggest that poor kids need high SES peers to succeed. True a mix of incomes and diversity works on many levels. But there are other options to implement. But dcps won't spend the time or money on this. Longer school days or free additional hours of learning hours, free/sliding scale before & aftercare for All students, teachers with most of their hours targeted theses extra hours and programs so current teacher don't get burned out. Small magnet programs within each middle and high school for AP, skilled jobs, academic targets etc. The list goes on. But DC won't invest and will keeping blaming income, at risk etc. Instead of actually just take the list of 101 things that work at other school and just doing them. Hell, PG County has shown better out comes with at risk kids.

I would note to that a lot of schools don't have the best test scores etc even in SES areas. I know lost don't want to admit it but even higher SES kids aren't blowing achievements out of the water compared with Howard County, or Fairfax.

Let me guess, you grew up solidly middle class. I didn't - I qualified for free meals at school (which my parents refused to accept) until high school. I feel like having high SES peers in school, particularly middle school, made all the difference in my education and prospects in life. For example, each visit to a classmate's home for a birthday party was a great education for me. I learned that families took vacations to Disneyland, that parents bought life insurance, that people had backyard pools. I learned that a good student could do this and that to become an...engineer, doctor, lawyer, stock broker etc. The parents of my UMC high school friends kindly became my mentors, encouraging me to apply to top colleges and helping me with applications. I graduated from MIT with honors and earned a law degree. I work as a federal attorney.

You don't seem to have a clue what high SES peers can do for poor kids. But then how would you know?

All that mentorship and striving and that's it. Disappointing.