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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]^^Agreed.  I wish people would really consider these points.  [/quote]

I'm the PP who wrote the supposed best post :)

Honestly, I think we all enter the ranks of parents of school-aged children with a lot of assumptions about what that experience will be like. The assumptions are informed by our own experiences, our perceptions of the system we're entering, the stories we've heard from other people. They might be relevant, they might not be. I won't lie - the decision to send my white daughter to our neighborhood school - which is high poverty and 99% children of color - was a scary decision. I was not always confident that it was the right decision. I have concerns about how well it will work later. She's entering kindergarten. We've been there for 2 years. Everyone knows that DCPS does early childhood pretty well no matter what school you're at, but everyone also knows that it gets harder as kids matriculate out of the heavily funded Headstart-level programs and into the more academic programs. Everyone knows that the differences I mentioned in home life become more immediate when it becomes expected that learning continue outside the classroom. I imagine that it's probably hard being on either side of bell curve, whether you're disengaged from the instruction because you don't understand it or because you've eclipsed it. I am, however, trying to maintain a generally optimistic attitude about the whole situation, because the problems I'm envisioning down the road haven't happened yet. My future honor student might not be the one eclipsing the material after all. Maybe next year's teacher will be a complete superstar whose students are all reading at grade level, whose students are all engaged with the material and each other.

The thing that bothers me about this conversation is that so many posters seem to believe that these are not complicated problems. They're incredibly complicated problems and blowing that off does not do anyone any good.[/quote]

Thanks for this.  I'm another parent choosing a high poverty, majority minority, neighborhood school.  Sometimes I doubt myself (and then I close DCUM and feel better), but so far none of the issues that PPs worry about have happened.  My kids are learning tons, performing above grade level, and their behavior remains fine.  They haven't started swearing, or grinding, or listening to "the hippity hop", or whatever it is that folks on this thread worry will happen to their kids if they are exposed to more than a handful of Black and Brown kids.  [/quote]

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