Interesting article about school quality when demographics factored out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@Anonymous at 11:09am

I hear you on test prep but I just googled Thomson and it is apparently an IB primary years school. (The only one in DC...?) Can't just be drill/kill all day I imagine?

Exactly, and they have Chinese and Spanish. So many of the downtown parents are driving their kids to white charters all over the city - with a great school right there. So...what does that say about these liberated downtown parents?

From what I have heard from "liberated families" is they don't want to put up with the behavioral problems (foul language, unpleasant home life that gets discussed, etc). There is also a fear that their child will get picked on or become a target of anger. I am reporting this but do not agree with these statements, just so we are clear. They don't want anything to interfere with their child's learning.

So there are no behavioral problems in schools with lots of white kids?

No... but the behavioral problem quotient demonstratively diminishes when the caucasian/asian increases.

As a percentage of the whole.

As in - the school is better with more of them; and worse when there are fewer of them.

Math is brutal.

and THIS is why we can't have gifted or magnet schools in DCPS folks. Actual overt racism.

Are you saying that it's racist to tell the truth?

Has little to do with race and everything to do with poverty.

From today's Post:

“I would see kids headed to school with orange fingers and orange tongues,” she recalled. “Those were indicators of Cheetos and Fanta soda for breakfast.”

She recalled that some federal food-subsidy programs lasted only two weeks and that teachers could often tell when it ended. “Around the third and fourth week of the month, you’d have students starting to act up in class. In some schools, those students might be referred to a special-education program. But the problem was that they were hungry.”

What I've always found odd is that advocates for the poor spend so much time writing about how poverty is a bad thing. How hunger makes poor kids act up in school. How unstable home lives end up causing instability in the classroom. How high-poverty schools are dysfunctional, wracked with violence. All just blocks from the White House.

Then turn on a dime and accuse middle-class parents of being racist because that's the only possible reason they wouldn't send their kid to a school with a large at-risk population. I thought poverty was bad? If not, why on Earth are we spending billions of dollars to fight it?

About once a week you see articles like this in the Post:

The parents are scared for their children — and for themselves. Simple City is nearby, but it’s a destination they’ve always been careful to avoid. Likewise, residents of Simple City steer clear of 37th and other areas with ongoing turf battles. Navigating perceived no-go zones is part of the daily routine for many residents in the poorest parts of the District.

[...]To quell worries, school and police officials say they have met often with parents and community members to share busing and security plans. But the history here is deep, and decades of disputes and turf wars won’t disappear easily — even if many who live in the area say they no longer know what the beefs are about.

These are the parents of elementary school kids, by the way, talking about how they won't send their kids to an elementary school a few blocks further away, because of the decades-long violent feuding between their no-name flyspeck neighborhood and the adjacent no-name flyspeck neighborhood.

Now it's possible this is all ginned up pseudo-drama by people with too much time on their hands. Or it's possible that beefs going back decades make it unsafe for you to send your 8 year old to a school a few blocks out of their neighborhood. Not sure I want my kid to be the test case though.

You know who's got time for that nonsense? Nobody in their right mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So basically, if you are going to IT - you are going because you are white and scared of going to school with black kids?

I am assuming sarcasm here? If you I agree. If not my statements still holds.
There are a lot of black kids on that waiting list too! We want to like our DCPS and in some ways do. But IT (many other charters) offer a lot more creative instruction & flexibility, more after care options and a bit more diversity in student & family population.
It seem unrealistic to assume families are only looking at test scores when they select their top schools for the lottery. Commute, school style or environment, feeder patterns, specials, clubs, sports, aftercare (and costs), family engagement, levels of diversity, of course academics as well. It just seems to narrow and stupid to think test scores are the only thing that matter or that is the main part of any kids school experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:GGW should pull the article. The authors clearly have no understanding of the lottery, preferences, and feeders.

That stuff was extraneous, but the article still highlights important data re which schools are doing better than anticipated with at-risk kids.

While it may not be relevant to your school search, certainly both DCPS and charters should be looking at what these schools are doing and try to emulate it.

The fate of at-risk kids affects everyone with a child in the city. We should applaud those schools that are helping these kids succeed.

True!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@Anonymous at 11:09am

I hear you on test prep but I just googled Thomson and it is apparently an IB primary years school. (The only one in DC...?) Can't just be drill/kill all day I imagine?

Exactly, and they have Chinese and Spanish. So many of the downtown parents are driving their kids to white charters all over the city - with a great school right there. So...what does that say about these liberated downtown parents?

From what I have heard from "liberated families" is they don't want to put up with the behavioral problems (foul language, unpleasant home life that gets discussed, etc). There is also a fear that their child will get picked on or become a target of anger. I am reporting this but do not agree with these statements, just so we are clear. They don't want anything to interfere with their child's learning.

So there are no behavioral problems in schools with lots of white kids?

No... but the behavioral problem quotient demonstratively diminishes when the caucasian/asian increases.

As a percentage of the whole.

As in - the school is better with more of them; and worse when there are fewer of them.

Math is brutal.

and THIS is why we can't have gifted or magnet schools in DCPS folks. Actual overt racism.

Are you saying that it's racist to tell the truth?

Has little to do with race and everything to do with poverty.

From today's Post:

“I would see kids headed to school with orange fingers and orange tongues,” she recalled. “Those were indicators of Cheetos and Fanta soda for breakfast.”

She recalled that some federal food-subsidy programs lasted only two weeks and that teachers could often tell when it ended. “Around the third and fourth week of the month, you’d have students starting to act up in class. In some schools, those students might be referred to a special-education program. But the problem was that they were hungry.”

What I've always found odd is that advocates for the poor spend so much time writing about how poverty is a bad thing. How hunger makes poor kids act up in school. How unstable home lives end up causing instability in the classroom. How high-poverty schools are dysfunctional, wracked with violence. All just blocks from the White House.

Then turn on a dime and accuse middle-class parents of being racist because that's the only possible reason they wouldn't send their kid to a school with a large at-risk population. I thought poverty was bad? If not, why on Earth are we spending billions of dollars to fight it?

Poverty is bad. Poverty doesn't mean you need to be scared of poor people. Poverty does not mean a school doesn't have good teachers and students. DCPS is a PUBLIC system, so what thinking "poverty is bad" entails is that those with means invest in improving the system. That means in part not buying into stereotypes that poor students = bad students. And that's what this GGW article is able. It also means not being phobic of poor black schools and, say, considering investing in your local middle school without hyperventilating. It also means not speaking in coded terms like "the school was a poor fit." And it certainly means not coming on DCUM and saying overtly racist things.

Your argument might have more weight if the poor people weren't scared of the poor people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm deeply sympathetic to the claims that middle-class parents have some moral responsibility to contribute to fixing the problem of school segregation. My kid currently attends an EOTP elementary school. They are on track to go to a middle-school that is by every measure "struggling and high-risk"--and not in the distant future, but next year. So none of this is some rarified hypothetical scenario for our family.

And I agree there's no place for overt racism--those people are assholes. But it would probably bolster the case for getting middle-class, largely white, parents to invest in "poor black schools" if we start by admitting that with poverty comes a greater level of dysfunction. Hell, that's the core narrative for organizations that work to help at-risk kids. If that weren't the case, middle-class parents would bear exactly *zero* moral responsibility for sending their kids to schools with high at-risk populations. Or for supporting funding for programs to alleviate things like homelessness, hunger, and poverty in general. If everything's hunky-dory then there's no problem.

Obviously that's not the case. Let's stop pretending it is.

[Anonymous]

I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

[Anonymous]

I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools.

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@Anonymous at 11:09am

I hear you on test prep but I just googled Thomson and it is apparently an IB primary years school. (The only one in DC...?) Can't just be drill/kill all day I imagine?

Exactly, and they have Chinese and Spanish. So many of the downtown parents are driving their kids to white charters all over the city - with a great school right there. So...what does that say about these liberated downtown parents?

From what I have heard from "liberated families" is they don't want to put up with the behavioral problems (foul language, unpleasant home life that gets discussed, etc). There is also a fear that their child will get picked on or become a target of anger. I am reporting this but do not agree with these statements, just so we are clear. They don't want anything to interfere with their child's learning.

So there are no behavioral problems in schools with lots of white kids?

No... but the behavioral problem quotient demonstratively diminishes when the caucasian/asian increases.

As a percentage of the whole.

As in - the school is better with more of them; and worse when there are fewer of them.

Math is brutal.

and THIS is why we can't have gifted or magnet schools in DCPS folks. Actual overt racism.

Are you saying that it's racist to tell the truth?

Has little to do with race and everything to do with poverty.

From today's Post:

“I would see kids headed to school with orange fingers and orange tongues,” she recalled. “Those were indicators of Cheetos and Fanta soda for breakfast.”

She recalled that some federal food-subsidy programs lasted only two weeks and that teachers could often tell when it ended. “Around the third and fourth week of the month, you’d have students starting to act up in class. In some schools, those students might be referred to a special-education program. But the problem was that they were hungry.”

What I've always found odd is that advocates for the poor spend so much time writing about how poverty is a bad thing. How hunger makes poor kids act up in school. How unstable home lives end up causing instability in the classroom. How high-poverty schools are dysfunctional, wracked with violence. All just blocks from the White House.

Then turn on a dime and accuse middle-class parents of being racist because that's the only possible reason they wouldn't send their kid to a school with a large at-risk population. I thought poverty was bad? If not, why on Earth are we spending billions of dollars to fight it?

Poverty is bad. Poverty doesn't mean you need to be scared of poor people. Poverty does not mean a school doesn't have good teachers and students. DCPS is a PUBLIC system, so what thinking "poverty is bad" entails is that those with means invest in improving the system. That means in part not buying into stereotypes that poor students = bad students. And that's what this GGW article is able. It also means not being phobic of poor black schools and, say, considering investing in your local middle school without hyperventilating. It also means not speaking in coded terms like "the school was a poor fit." And it certainly means not coming on DCUM and saying overtly racist things.

Your argument might have more weight if the poor people weren't scared of the poor people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm deeply sympathetic to the claims that middle-class parents have some moral responsibility to contribute to fixing the problem of school segregation. My kid currently attends an EOTP elementary school. They are on track to go to a middle-school that is by every measure "struggling and high-risk"--and not in the distant future, but next year. So none of this is some rarified hypothetical scenario for our family.

And I agree there's no place for overt racism--those people are assholes. But it would probably bolster the case for getting middle-class, largely white, parents to invest in "poor black schools" if we start by admitting that with poverty comes a greater level of dysfunction. Hell, that's the core narrative for organizations that work to help at-risk kids. If that weren't the case, middle-class parents would bear exactly *zero* moral responsibility for sending their kids to schools with high at-risk populations. Or for supporting funding for programs to alleviate things like homelessness, hunger, and poverty in general. If everything's hunky-dory then there's no problem.

Obviously that's not the case. Let's stop pretending it is.

I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in. Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispell the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to a nice mostly AA parochial school in DC for a few years PP. It was a pretty bad experience . I was not invited on playmates or to parties. My mom was pretty clueless and probably could have done more, but this was in the days before parents were their kids social personal assistants. I also found the constant talk of jumping classmates (not followed through on or aimed at me,, but a constant subject of juicy speculation-who would get jumped next) frankly terrifying. [b]These were kids from nice middle/upper lower AA families. Jumping was just a huge part of their lexicon and unfamiliar/terrifying to me. At ten constant talk of beat downs was scary. Also a lot of siccin and jonin and the rest, however you spell it. And what they used to call close dancing at dances where you were all over the opposite sex without touching. Pretty ick for this fifth grader. I'm sure there are behavioral problems at schools with white kids, but there is a cross cultural layer that parents and their children will need to navigate on top of it. Maybe if you start early you can be that white kid who shows up at the historically black college in the kid and play movies, and I think many white kids and black kids in DC who go to the more diverse schools do end up comfortable and culturally competent. But it can be hard to be the first and only. Many AA families also balk at their children being an 'only' in predominantly white schools. [/b]

Um, so spending a few years at this school makes you an expert on AA culture, and qualified to comment on what is or isn't part of the culture? Whatever, dude.

I hope you understand that your anecdotal experience doesn't mean it's fair or accurate to extrapolate to the culture of an entire group of people. I've been black my whole life, and grew up in 100% black neighborhoods and attended predominantly black schools through college, both with kids from the projects and those from affluent families. The notion that "jumping" is part of the culture is pretty ridiculous. Yes a few kids would talk about it occasionally, and it was more common in certain subgroups, but it was not something that I would describe as common or "a constant subject of juicy speculation."

If I sent my kid to a high school in Potomac where lots of kids were using Oxycontin, I would be incorrect to conclude that opioid use is an innate part of white American culture. Same idea applies here.

I could say more, but I'll stop there. I'm sure you consider yourself a liberal, too.

I'm curious what your take is on this article:

Minter said that if the children are bused from Kimball to Davis, there won’t be trouble, but that “if they have to walk through the community, there’s a good chance there could be a problem.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/when-a-dc-school-closed-for-renovations-parents-faced-a-troubling-choice/2017/07/04/88c94334-5773-11e7-ba90-f5875b7d1876_story.html

I'm not an expert on AA culture, but it seems to me this has less to do with AA culture, and more to do with the culture of poverty over multiple generations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:@Anonymous at 11:09am

I hear you on test prep but I just googled Thomson and it is apparently an IB primary years school. (The only one in DC...?) Can't just be drill/kill all day I imagine?

Exactly, and they have Chinese and Spanish. So many of the downtown parents are driving their kids to white charters all over the city - with a great school right there. So...what does that say about these liberated downtown parents?

From what I have heard from "liberated families" is they don't want to put up with the behavioral problems (foul language, unpleasant home life that gets discussed, etc). There is also a fear that their child will get picked on or become a target of anger. I am reporting this but do not agree with these statements, just so we are clear. They don't want anything to interfere with their child's learning.

So there are no behavioral problems in schools with lots of white kids?

No... but the behavioral problem quotient demonstratively diminishes when the caucasian/asian increases.

As a percentage of the whole.

As in - the school is better with more of them; and worse when there are fewer of them.

Math is brutal.

and THIS is why we can't have gifted or magnet schools in DCPS folks. Actual overt racism.

Are you saying that it's racist to tell the truth?

Has little to do with race and everything to do with poverty.

From today's Post:

“I would see kids headed to school with orange fingers and orange tongues,” she recalled. “Those were indicators of Cheetos and Fanta soda for breakfast.”

She recalled that some federal food-subsidy programs lasted only two weeks and that teachers could often tell when it ended. “Around the third and fourth week of the month, you’d have students starting to act up in class. In some schools, those students might be referred to a special-education program. But the problem was that they were hungry.”

What I've always found odd is that advocates for the poor spend so much time writing about how poverty is a bad thing. How hunger makes poor kids act up in school. How unstable home lives end up causing instability in the classroom. How high-poverty schools are dysfunctional, wracked with violence. All just blocks from the White House.

Then turn on a dime and accuse middle-class parents of being racist because that's the only possible reason they wouldn't send their kid to a school with a large at-risk population. I thought poverty was bad? If not, why on Earth are we spending billions of dollars to fight it?

About once a week you see articles like this in the Post:

The parents are scared for their children — and for themselves. Simple City is nearby, but it’s a destination they’ve always been careful to avoid. Likewise, residents of Simple City steer clear of 37th and other areas with ongoing turf battles. Navigating perceived no-go zones is part of the daily routine for many residents in the poorest parts of the District.

[...]To quell worries, school and police officials say they have met often with parents and community members to share busing and security plans. But the history here is deep, and decades of disputes and turf wars won’t disappear easily — even if many who live in the area say they no longer know what the beefs are about.

These are the parents of elementary school kids, by the way, talking about how they won't send their kids to an elementary school a few blocks further away, because of the decades-long violent feuding between their no-name flyspeck neighborhood and the adjacent no-name flyspeck neighborhood.

Now it's possible this is all ginned up pseudo-drama by people with too much time on their hands. Or it's possible that beefs going back decades make it unsafe for you to send your 8 year old to a school a few blocks out of their neighborhood. Not sure I want my kid to be the test case though.

You know who's got time for that nonsense? Nobody in their right mind.

Nobody's saying you need to send your kid from AU Park to Benning Terrace for elementary school. But if you chose to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, turning up your nose at the local schools for being "not a good fit" or "not yet flipped" is problematic.

[Anonymous]

Hey we got a "problematic." LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in.

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'm saying two things: first, of course it's not correct to say "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional". What poverty (and racism) means is that for a given student population--white or black--you're going to have a significantly higher number of kids who are struggling with issues caused by poverty. As you say "the EXACT SAME 'dysfunctional' behavior a white kid might engage in."

But we don't live in a city where large numbers of white kids are living in poverty. That's sad, and unfair, and an indictment of the larger system, and a slew of other things. But it's the reality we live in in DC in 2017.

So a school with a high number of very poor kids is a school in which a high number of kids are struggling under the weight of poverty. Not all of them are going to be dysfunctional, but certainly a higher number of them will be compared to a school in which no kids are struggling with poverty.

Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispel the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

That may be what the GGW article was meant to dispel, but really all it shows is that high-poverty schools can have better tests. Is it possible that our local middle school would have better test scores if it were run like a USMC boot camp? Possibly. If that's what it takes to get the test scores up, and that's what kids who are struggling with poverty need in order to succeed, that's a model worth pursuing. But that's not a school model that fits the educational values of our family. Maybe that's totally racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody's saying you need to send your kid from AU Park to Benning Terrace for elementary school. But if you chose to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, turning up your nose at the local schools for being "not a good fit" or "not yet flipped" is problematic.

Ah, okay. So now we're just haggling over the price?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not quite clear on what you mean here. But I do think that saying "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional" is not correct. Poverty (and racism) means that they have access to fewer resources, face discrimination on the job market and in school, and disproportionately face the punitive nature of government for the EXACT SAME "dysfunctional" behavior that a white kid might engage in.

Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I'm saying two things: first, of course it's not correct to say "poverty means the kids are dysfunctional". What poverty (and racism) means is that for a given student population--white or black--you're going to have a significantly higher number of kids who are struggling with issues caused by poverty. As you say "the EXACT SAME 'dysfunctional' behavior a white kid might engage in."

But we don't live in a city where large numbers of white kids are living in poverty. That's sad, and unfair, and an indictment of the larger system, and a slew of other things. But it's the reality we live in in DC in 2017.

So a school with a high number of very poor kids is a school in which a high number of kids are struggling under the weight of poverty. Not all of them are going to be dysfunctional, but certainly a higher number of them will be compared to a school in which no kids are struggling with poverty.

Literally, the GGW article is meant to dispel the myth that "poverty = dysfunction" because there are MULTIPLE "poor" schools that are considered unacceptable by DCUM (eg the Kipps) that actually have BETTER scores than HRCS (eg Inspired Teaching.) The dysfunction at your local middle school is due to the school; not due to the kids at the school. the Kipps and DC Preps of DC prove that.

That may be what the GGW article was meant to dispel, but really all it shows is that high-poverty schools can have better tests. Is it possible that our local middle school would have better test scores if it were run like a USMC boot camp? Possibly. If that's what it takes to get the test scores up, and that's what kids who are struggling with poverty need in order to succeed, that's a model worth pursuing. But that's not a school model that fits the educational values of our family. Maybe that's totally racist.

It's segregationist. So take that as you will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nobody's saying you need to send your kid from AU Park to Benning Terrace for elementary school. But if you chose to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, turning up your nose at the local schools for being "not a good fit" or "not yet flipped" is problematic.

Ah, okay. So now we're just haggling over the price?

Are you interested in engaging in this discussion in good faith, or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nobody's saying you need to send your kid from AU Park to Benning Terrace for elementary school. But if you chose to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, turning up your nose at the local schools for being "not a good fit" or "not yet flipped" is problematic.

I think most of us would agree that people who use inflammatory language are douchebags. "Not yet flipped" is a good example. Not sure if "not a good fit" is a problem, especially when you're talking about something like school culture.