Reply to Can Gentrifers Use Their Skills and Resources to "Make" a Great School?

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Reply to "Can Gentrifers Use Their Skills and Resources to "Make" a Great School?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No one is stating what exactly these Petworth schools are missing that would make them "great." Everyone is working under the presumption that these schools are lacking things that would make them great, but no one seems to know what that is. Middle-class children? Does that mean you want the low-income children displaced to other schools?

And the post about how low income family families feel embarrassed or uncomfortable is condescending and ignorant. [/quote]

I'm the PP who wrote about my frustration with my long time in DC watching these issues play out. I don't necessarily agree with a few of the last posts, or at least think they are not articulated very well.

You said that no one is stating exactly what is missing from these schools. We are - we said they need the kids of high SES families. Every study in the world knows that that is the biggest correlation with school outcome (and improves the scores of the low SES kids to boot).  You ask whether we want low-income children displaced. No - in fact, if you read my post, you'll see i mentioned that all of these crappy performing schools are under enrolled. Garrison (my IB school) was about to be closed. I suspect you could double the size of the school, fill it entirely with gentrifying richer families, and presto, the school now has the balance shifted to be a better performing school and continue to attract high SES families going forward.

It's not a perfect or pretty discussion. But there seems to be only two options: status quo; or let the marginally annoying and marginally offensive gentrifiers have their way and the school possibly improves. I'd rather the second.  [/quote]

Ok, so parents want more middle class kids. That still doesn't change the fact that this thread presumes that these schools are lacking things that middle class kids need/want. What are those things (aside from higher test scores)?[/quote]

I just want more middle class kids. That's it. The other things come along with that: less classroom disruption; more kids at the same educational preparedness level; stronger PTA; less racial and SES tension directed at your kid.

I went to a gifted school for middle school. The facility was the dumpiest, oldest school in our town. The gym was from the 1940s and not regulation sizes. The library was just a few bookshelves in an old classroom. And there were as many portables as there were regular classrooms. The gym change rooms were an old classroom cut in half - half for girls, half for boys. Obviously back then we didn't have any electronic teaching tools. Probably a couple old tvs with vcrs, and we spent a lot of time watching film reels. I don't think there was a PTA. There was a soccer field but no other outdoor resources. No cafeteria, no vending machines. We all brown bagged every day and they pulled out loose benches in the gym for us to eat. We had smart kids who came from all over town, so the SES was fairly diverse (though, it being an upper middle class suburb, no one was "poor" like we see in DC). We had good teachers because it was a plum job - teaching kids who love learning. The school was amazing and had great results. Obviously an extreme example, but the point is that the only input was decent students.  Everything else is unnecessary. [/quote]

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