Study: "Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum" (yes, this one)

[Anonymous]

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little judged right now...

I’m not my best self on here and I like having a safe place for my snark.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read the full paper, but its conclusions don't seem very controversial as they're in line with other research, as the authors themselves have noted. Jeff may take issue with some of the methodology or research ethics, but it's been shown in other work that when white parents have a choice, they tend to choose schools with more white students. This of course won't apply to *every* white family; we're talking about general trends in the data. I've certainly seen this myself as a black parent IB for Shepherd, but anecdata aside, it's been found in other research even when adjusting for other factors.

For example, anyone recall this "revealed preferences" Mathematica study of the DC lottery a few years ago?


"The researchers tested a broad range of factors that could explain why parents choose a school: its proximity to a family’s home, test scores, after-school activities, uniform policies, class size, the crime and income levels of the surrounding neighborhood, and the racial and socio-economic makeup of the school’s student body. Only three of these factors significantly drove parental choice. Parents preferred high test scores, schools closer to home, and schools where their own child would be alongside more peers of his or her same race and class.

Across race and class, a middle-school parent was 12 percent more likely to choose a school where his child’s race made up 20 percent of the study body, compared with a school with similar test scores where his child’s race made up only 10 percent of the study body. White and higher-income applicants had the strongest preferences for their children to remain in-group, while black elementary school parents were essentially “indifferent” to a school’s racial makeup, the researchers found. The findings for Hispanic elementary and middle school parents were not statistically significant.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/07/when-white-parents-have-a-choice-they-choose-segregated-schools.html

Someone finally engaging with the substance of the article instead of trying to do mental gymnastics to avoid considering their role in the perpetuation of systemic racism. I look forward to the next article recapping this thread about the article about the threads. I’m sure the thread about that article will be similarly enlightening.

So, what’s more productive? Maybe read the article first before commenting and reading a whole critical thread about it. It’s 48 pages but there are a bunch of pictures, so it only took 20 minutes or so to get it. Maybe try learning more about your neighborhood school even if (especially if?) it’s not one captured in the highly esteemed, Ward 6, or 145 clusters? Try looking beyond the test scores and STAR ratings since both are correlated strongly with race and try to find out what makes schools special beyond the things you mostly hear about on this forum.

I read the article. I disagree with its conclusions. I think the methodology was flawed. If you had read this forum for as long as I have read this forum, you would know that people do learn about their neighborhood schools. They do it all the time. That might not be reflected in word frequency analysis (I’d love to know the impact of the hot Janney dad thread on Janney’s score, or toe shoe guy), but that is a problem with their methodology, not this forum.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I’m paranoid (ok I definitely am), but I feel like this questionable study is going to be used as support to keep schools closed.

[Anonymous]

This is funny. The true wealthy people don't even bother with DC public schools. They go private.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I’m paranoid (ok I definitely am), but I feel like this questionable study is going to be used as support to keep schools closed.

You are definitely paranoid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read the full paper, but its conclusions don't seem very controversial as they're in line with other research, as the authors themselves have noted. Jeff may take issue with some of the methodology or research ethics, but it's been shown in other work that when white parents have a choice, they tend to choose schools with more white students. This of course won't apply to *every* white family; we're talking about general trends in the data. I've certainly seen this myself as a black parent IB for Shepherd, but anecdata aside, it's been found in other research even when adjusting for other factors.

For example, anyone recall this "revealed preferences" Mathematica study of the DC lottery a few years ago?


"The researchers tested a broad range of factors that could explain why parents choose a school: its proximity to a family’s home, test scores, after-school activities, uniform policies, class size, the crime and income levels of the surrounding neighborhood, and the racial and socio-economic makeup of the school’s student body. Only three of these factors significantly drove parental choice. Parents preferred high test scores, schools closer to home, and schools where their own child would be alongside more peers of his or her same race and class.

Across race and class, a middle-school parent was 12 percent more likely to choose a school where his child’s race made up 20 percent of the study body, compared with a school with similar test scores where his child’s race made up only 10 percent of the study body. White and higher-income applicants had the strongest preferences for their children to remain in-group, while black elementary school parents were essentially “indifferent” to a school’s racial makeup, the researchers found. The findings for Hispanic elementary and middle school parents were not statistically significant.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/07/when-white-parents-have-a-choice-they-choose-segregated-schools.html

Someone finally engaging with the substance of the article instead of trying to do mental gymnastics to avoid considering their role in the perpetuation of systemic racism. I look forward to the next article recapping this thread about the article about the threads. I’m sure the thread about that article will be similarly enlightening.

So, what’s more productive? Maybe read the article first before commenting and reading a whole critical thread about it. It’s 48 pages but there are a bunch of pictures, so it only took 20 minutes or so to get it. Maybe try learning more about your neighborhood school even if (especially if?) it’s not one captured in the highly esteemed, Ward 6, or 145 clusters? Try looking beyond the test scores and STAR ratings since both are correlated strongly with race and try to find out what makes schools special beyond the things you mostly hear about on this forum.

Above poster is missing something obvious. “Race and class”. Disentangle these and maybe you get somewhere, but that’s nearly impossible here. It also explains why white parents prefer in group and black parents not necessarily - of course many will prefer higher economic class representation which in dc means higher white proportion than at another school.

Along with class come other advantages and higher scores etc. You have to disaggregate and you can’t so scholars get real sloppy for woke headlines.

[Anonymous]

Before reading the whole article, the very first thing I noticed is neither the title nor the summary mention this forum is anonymous. It’s not mentioned until Page 5. Way to bury an important fact. It being anonymous is significant (and zero offense to Jeff, because I actually like DCUM, but I’m frankly shocked Brookings thought this was worth the time).

[Anonymous]

I found the article's treatment of the Ward 6 discussions bizarre. Probably because it didn't fit into the article's narrative at all. It seemed to totally miss the point that demographics, test scores, etc are discussed more w/r/t comparing Ward 6 schools than UNW schools because there are way more differences between them along those lines (which actually could have supported their narrative); instead, it seemed to imply Ward 6 were like the poor/ignored schools vis-a-vis UNW because those terms came up in discussions of Ward 6 schools and not UNW schools (poor poor Brent, so unloved).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I found the article's treatment of the Ward 6 discussions bizarre. Probably because it didn't fit into the article's narrative at all. It seemed to totally miss the point that demographics, test scores, etc are discussed more w/r/t comparing Ward 6 schools than UNW schools because there are way more differences between them along those lines (which actually could have supported their narrative); instead, it seemed to imply Ward 6 were like the poor/ignored schools vis-a-vis UNW because those terms came up in discussions of Ward 6 schools and not UNW schools (poor poor Brent, so unloved).

Agreed. That part made no sense to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The second author, Jackson Gode, graduated in 2014 from The Seattle Academy, a “top-rated private” high school in Seattle.
Its tuition is $38,000 per year.

https://facebook.com/seattleacademy/posts/2363749686994407

Not sure about Mr. Gode’s parents, or his role in his schooling decisions, but (at least for now) I’m a parent sending my kids to DCPS and putting my money where my mouth is.

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They used *word frequency* analysis?
What?

This is a flawed study for several reasons and it wouldn’t get close to acceptance at a real journal after peer review.

I feel bad for the authors in some ways. They say this is a four year project. That is nothing but sad. Counting word numbers from web-scraped data probably would have been enough to get a paper accepted in 2000, but the field has come a long way in 20 years. Netscape is no longer a cutting-edge browser; machine learning has provided text analysis tools.

For me, the biggest problem is — what is the paper even trying to show? It seems like their main conclusion is “wealthy parents want to send their kids to schools in wealthier wards.” But of course this is true. Housing segregation and real estate prices shape schools. We know this. It’s trivial and everyone affiliated with DCPS knows it.

I will write a more detailed critique of the paper based on my experience as an empirical social scientist. However, as a reviewer my main point would be “so what? Your major point is obvious and the controversial things you say are just unsupported by data.”

[Anonymous]

The study is supported by the Walton Family Foundations.

p 47: “Support for this publication was generously provided by the Walton Family Foundation. Brookings recognizes that the value it provides is in its absolute commitment to quality, independence, and impact. Activities supported by its donors reflect this commitment.

That is, in a word, garbage. I do believe the authors are totally independent of the Waltons and their anti-public-school, anti-white parent efforts. (Demonizing White parents is a good way to harm public school systems and siphon off money to rich people, and Walton knows that.)

But just the fact that Walton was able to select and fund this project is distorting. Walton, for example, didn’t choose to fund an analysis of how charter schools open and close quickly in DC and leave vulnerable students high and dry.
Program choices create bias.

Brookings is doing DC parents a great disservice by taking money from Walton to study a topic they know that amplifying will be divisive and harmful to DCPS.

Bad look, Brookings. Take your dirty money elsewhere, Waltons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won't sink in here. It never does. I don't see any opinions being changed here. The only way to counteract them is through engaged political action.

Fk that noise. I’m doing what’s best for junior. Keep your social engineering to yourself.

I send my kids to a Title 1 elementary school because it's a good place for them. Make schools appealing to the parents you want to attract and they'll come. Not complicated, and not "engaged political action." There was a thread about ms/hs recently and so many parents would be happy to send their kids to existing dcps middle schools that aren't hardy or deal if they just committed to a curriculum that would be appropriate/challenging.

But this is where things break down because no they won’t send their kids to challenging schools with majority minority students, see Banneker! They claim they want challenging but they don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won't sink in here. It never does. I don't see any opinions being changed here. The only way to counteract them is through engaged political action.

Fk that noise. I’m doing what’s best for junior. Keep your social engineering to yourself.

I send my kids to a Title 1 elementary school because it's a good place for them. Make schools appealing to the parents you want to attract and they'll come. Not complicated, and not "engaged political action." There was a thread about ms/hs recently and so many parents would be happy to send their kids to existing dcps middle schools that aren't hardy or deal if they just committed to a curriculum that would be appropriate/challenging.

But this is where things break down because no they won’t send their kids to challenging schools with majority minority students, see Banneker! They claim they want challenging but they don’t.

My preference would be something closer to where we live, but that's certainly on my list, if we can get through middle school. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to prefer a school which is majority minority but has some white kids over one which has almost none. We saw from the mathematica study that it's not just white parents who have these types of preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won't sink in here. It never does. I don't see any opinions being changed here. The only way to counteract them is through engaged political action.

Fk that noise. I’m doing what’s best for junior. Keep your social engineering to yourself.

I send my kids to a Title 1 elementary school because it's a good place for them. Make schools appealing to the parents you want to attract and they'll come. Not complicated, and not "engaged political action." There was a thread about ms/hs recently and so many parents would be happy to send their kids to existing dcps middle schools that aren't hardy or deal if they just committed to a curriculum that would be appropriate/challenging.

But this is where things break down because no they won’t send their kids to challenging schools with majority minority students, see Banneker! They claim they want challenging but they don’t.

This comment isn't reasonable. For many years, Banneker's average SAT scores have only been a tad higher than the national average, in the low 500s. Those scores don't work for us. 30 years ago, my spouse and I scored in the 700s on SATs, without any formal/paid test prep, coming from high schools ranked in the bottom third in our states. Why should the likes of us be sufficiently impressed with Banneker to send our children there, if the kids were to clear the application bar?