Reply to Ludlow-Taylor getting a new a new Principal

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Whatever.  The white in-boundary parents I know don't avoid L-T, or bail on it after Prek, because they assume that all black kids in DC public schools are an "obstacle" to their children's academic progress.  They interact with black professionals as a matter of course, without making a thing of it.
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Kids don't walk around carrying their parents' resumes with an acceptable address in the header.

If there's an assumption made about black kids at the school, a black parent has reason to be concerned that their child will be treated differently.  White parents may have gotten that feeling from their interactions with the former principal.  That's the slippery slope of assumptions on the treacherous field of race/class issues.

This is a mostly anonymous forum where people express feelings they wouldn't say out loud.  I wouldn't assume that every white parent believes every black student is a problem for the school they attend.  But it's unsettling, to say the least, to read over and over in this and other threads that it's black kids who are hindering progress and everything will be better if we could replace them with white kids.  More than that, it's disturbing to read that parents holding that assumption also believe that a white principal will allow them to "call the shots" and "turn" the school by diminishing the percentage of black kids.

You can cloak it by rolling out your rolodex of black associates, or by saying you're simply concerned about advanced curriculum offerings, or preserving the school for the neighborhood only.  But it is what it is, and everyone knows what it is.

I wouldn't even say it's racism, because I don't believe that to be so (in [i]most[/i] cases), but it IS poor and lazy reasoning about what makes school quality, it's pernicious, and it's extremely damaging.  The fact that so many can't see it as damaging makes it even moreso. [/quote]

Oh grow up, the poor and lazy reasoning comes from DCPS in pretending that differentiation within the classroom by excellent teachers is all that's needed to market L-T, and dozens of other minimally integrated schools like it around the city, to most in-boundary high SES families.  They won't budge from this policy stance, even as DC welcomes hordes of high SES families year after year.

When Maury got a group of in-boundary kids, mostly white and high SES, to a testing grade this past school year, for the first time reading scores jumped 29 points (without allegations of cheating, since the reason for the score hike was as plain as day).  If L-T offered a test-in GT program or at least paid for serious pullout instruction from grade 1 (with DCPS funding since the L-T PTA can't afford to hire staff yet, unlike at Maury and Brent), school quality wouldn't be the issue.  Everybody knows what it is:  lack of taking the achievement gap bull by the horns.  [/quote]

I don't get what you're trying to say about the achievement gap.  Is it that DCPS should stop trying to close it and just focus on raising white enrollment with GT programs?[/quote]

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