Boundary Study
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Anonymous
How so? You are saying the outcome would have been the same without our input? Part of the reason our son applied to this particular university was our encouragement and his experience when visiting the school. LOL, you go ahead and sit back and see where your kid ends up. |
Anonymous
What a noble statement this is, all around. It’s inspiring. It should be read aloud at community meetings and put on posters: “I Am Safe. Many Asians Moving In. My House Values Continue to Improve.” Do you even believe you are part of a society? |
Anonymous
"We got our son into the college we wanted him to go to!" doesn't sound as positive to me as it evidently does to you. But I sincerely do hope that it works out for all of you. |
Anonymous
You're responding to a troll who spends too much time on this forum. |
Anonymous
It would actually make me feel much better if it was a troll. But such similar things have been said at public meetings that I’m not sure. |
Anonymous
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So here's the thing. Ethnic and racial diversity is a plus when you are in school. Socio economic diversity is not a plus to any group in school.
The W schools with their wide range of nationalities, religions, and races but non-existent poverty and uneducated parents is a reflection of the work force that the W kids will be competing in years from now. It is beneficial for the white kids to see asian kids working so hard. Its beneficial for the asian kids to figure out how to work past white privilege. Its good for both groups to see Africans and African Americans scoring at the top and living in big houses. Its good for everyone to see how warm and welcoming the Iranian families are to everyone. I'm stereotyping here of course but there is a wide range of culture yet everyone priories education and has educated parents. SES diversity creates a lot of problems for every group. It solidifies negative stereotypes when the majority of white and asian kids are rich and scoring high and the majority of hispanic and AA kids are poor and scoring low. It contributes to unconscious bias on the part of the teachers. The groups mix less because the SES differences aren't compatible. The poor kid doesn't want to hang around rich kids doing things he or she can't afford. The rich kids aren't allowed to go to the poor kids houses for parental fear of drugs and crime. Resources get split up between the poor who need a lot and the rich who demand a lot. The kids in the middle get lost. They all learn to ignore and look past each other at a young age. The opportunities that the rich kids have are not provided by the school. It doesn't help the poor kids when the rich kids go to tutors or SAT prep. It doesn't help the poor kids when the rich kids get their phone taken away for getting a B. It is a BIG false statement that opportunity hoarding is the problem with the schools. There is no opportunity at Whitman that isn't available at Kennedy that can be enjoyed by a poor kid. The extra opportunities at Whitman all come from not only having the peer group that can afford outside enrichment but being able to afford the enrichment itself. In the Information Age, the rich college bound kids are not going to be working side by side with many of the poor kids who drop out and work minimum wage jobs. They all learned to ignore each other and swim in their own lanes if they went to a diverse from an SES standpoint school or not. The economic diversity mixing doesn't make anyone more prepared for the workforce. |
Anonymous
Not a troll at all...just being honest. I am worried about my home value, but I think we will be ok. No way they can move our kids all the way to Rockville or any other non W school. Too far and as everyone has said, they don't want to do that. So like I said, we are safe and I can sleep at night knowing I will make a profit when I sell my house. The comment about the Asians was very frank. They help us whites and other races in our socio economic group be more competitive. It is good to have that kind of competition and incentive for excellence. By the way, my neighborhood is very divers...whites in minority. Mostly Chinese, some Iranians, Hispanics, Indians, and Nigerians. We love it. And as the PP stated above, socio-economic diversity usually doesn't work well. For example, I would not allow my daughter to go into a bad neighborhood for a play date. No Fing way. They are welcome here, however. |
Anonymous
What an incredibly cynical worldview, that the rich are going to run things when they grow up so we should be sure not to mix them with the poor kids who are all going to drop out and fail. Is this America or Dickensian England? |
Anonymous
| And another thing... anyone who says there’s no hope for the poor anyway is going to be shocked when they send junior to college and it turns out some of THOSE kids are there too. 30 percent of freshmen at the University of Maryland are first-generation college students. Even 15 percent of students at HARVARD are first-generation college students. This argument that the workforce of the future is all going to be the children of the 1% is a fantasy. |
Anonymous
What a truly disgusting set of views you hold. |
Anonymous
I agree with the PP and I think they make a very salient point which is that the things that would truly improve academic outcomes for lower SES kids aren’t thugs that are or necessarily can be done in schools. They need stability, high quality day care, access to tutors, access to adults who can model life choices that lead to success, support and people who can teach them how to navigate the educational system. Until we address the social issues that these groups face, it won’t matter what you do in school. |
Anonymous
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15:58 I don't think I'm being cynical at all.
The OP claimed that boundaries should be changed because students need to go to school with other students from different economic groups so that they can relate to these groups later in the workforce. I am merely pointing out that this position is false because the the workforce is not an integration of highSES/highly educated and low SES/low education. This is the reality of our current economy. The divide is only going to get much more extreme as more automation removes even more low skill jobs along with mid level administrative jobs. Furthermore economic diversity in school polarizes groups and dilutes resources that could go to economically disadvantaged students. When we make false or erroneous statements that someone will reduce the achievement gap or help students, we are just wasting an opportunity to solve the problem. Lets say you are given a budget of $1000 to solve a critical problem. You're job is on the line. You are creating something that people depend on. If you fail, you have wasted your $1000 and won't get more money. The people who went through your widget first will be irreversibly harmed. What do you do? Do you choose a set of actions that have no basis for success and do not address the core of the problem? Do you choose what sounds politically correct or what you wish were true? Do you confuse correlation with causation because its convenient? Hope fully not. I'll play this out in terms specific to MCPS. MCPS has a limited budget. Let's say that MCPS can either afford to a. ) roll out wrap around services, summer school, tutoring for both remedial and advanced low income students at 10 schools with no further bussing b.) increase bus and transportation costs to bus a portion of students to further away schools and then roll out services to only 5 schools or c.) bus everywhere until SES is perfectly balanced but then afford no wrap around services. In option A the low SES kids are concentrated in the 10 schools that have funding for extra services. In option B, students bussed to wealthy schools get no services and consequently do worse while fewer students are helped and in option c) low income kids get no extra services and do even worse. My point is that the only solid way to help low SES kids jump into the high SES lane is for the school to provide the opportunities that wealthy parents provide outside of school. This takes money and it is money well spent. It may not fit our narrative to think its better to concentrate low SES kids into several schools but if you can refocus all your resources better doing this then you have a better shot at achieving some success. MCPS should be focusing on the low income schools in terms of putting more services and resources there. Not watering them down by moving everyone around. One of the BIGGEST failures of Curriculum 2.0 was that it relied on too much background knowledge to access the material. Teachers saw this every day in low income schools and did what they could in limited time to address it but it was a monumental failure that led to low income kids falling further behind not moving forward. MCPS incorrectly defined the achievement gap as wealthy students getting to move too far ahead as one of the problems for the gap. Hold back the top while you raise the bottom was a huge initiative in MCPS. By focusing on holding back the top, they completely failed to understand how to raise the bottom. Diversity bussing or diversity boundary changing is more of the same and it will fail too. |
Anonymous
Thank you for posting this. I agree. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
I grew up low income, went to a crap HS and work for one of the most famous internet companies in the world, along side kids who grew up going to "rich" schools. There is a study that shows that low income students do better in schools with <25% FARMs rate. These low income kids may not end up working on Wall St, but giving them a chance at a better education means a better future for them. |