Reply to WaPo: What Happened when Brooklyn tried to Integrated its Middle Schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So it seems like the good news is that it gave alot of poorer and disadvantaged students access to higher performing schools.

[b]The bad news is that almost every wealthy kid who was zoned to a lower performing school opted out. [/b] So long run, unless you can figure out a way to get wealthy families to willingly go to these schools, all you are doing is creating greater competition for limited seats in good schools while not actually improving the educational opportunities at poorer schools.

So how do you actually create buy-in?  Move a very large cohort of wealthier students with the hope that enough of them will go? Create specialty programs?  Only offer certain sought-after programs at these schools?   I don't know what it would take. 
 [/quote]

NP. My kids are in Elementary in Brooklyn's District 15, where the two Middle Schools featured in the article are located. I have friends (poor, Middle Class, and Upper Middle Class of all races) with 5th Grade kids in our school who are currently going through the Middle School application process.

From what I am seeing, hearing anecdotally, and reading, all but 2 of the Middle Schools in D15 are good and most are outstanding. Dewey and another Sunset Park school, however, are extremely low performing. The families I know don't have those schools on their list (you are allowed to apply to a maximum of 12 schools, and these families are rounding out their lists with Citywide or out-of-district schools). All of the families that I'm in touch with would be very happy with any of their top 3 picks, and satisfied with any of the rest. They would be very unhappy, maybe fleeing to charters or private, if they got a school that wasn't even on their list, like Dewey or Sunset Park Prep (I think that's the name).

I would be, too. My DH is a public school teacher and has told me how frustrating and guilt-inducing it was to have a classroom full of low achieving students with a smattering of very bright and high achieving ones -- he had to spend all of his efforts pulling the bottom ones up and didn't really have enough time to give the top ones extra. Our kids are very bright and motivated; it would kill me to put them in a classroom where they'd basically be ignored and not pushed or, worse, leaned on hard by the teacher like an assistant to help the other students (which, anecdotally, I have heard about).

I'm also friends with a number of families with African-American 5th Graders in our school. The parents are getting involved in organizations that help prep kids for entry into private schools (e.g., Prep for Prep). These are the bright and motivated kids from involved families who used to bring up the achievement stats in segregated Middle Schools. Many of them are leaving the public school system in 6th Grade for privates, who value these students for adding diversity to their ads and brochures (to be cynical about it).

All this is to say that I don't think the D15 MC and UMC families will exit the public school system if they get a matched with one of their picks. If they get the bottom schools, ones not even on their lists, however, they might. 
[/quote]

Thanks for sharing.  I'm curious (and you may not know) why AA families with 5th graders are moving to privates.  It seems like, being a priority group, their kids would have a good shot at getting into the higher performing/desirable public middle schools, no?[/quote]

I'm the PP. I'm thinking it's because they think that certain private Middle Schools would give their kids a leg up in terms of the quality of the education, smaller class sizes, excellent facilities, and exmissions to top High Schools and elite colleges. And if they get in and stay thru High School (if the private has a HS), they can bypass the crazy public HS admissions process.

BTW, here's an article from a local newsletter about how the diversity plan has affected enrollment, looking at socio-economic group and race. Looks like it's been successful at all of the D15 Middle Schools except Dewey and Sunset Park Prep (too large a percentage of students who are from low-income families, are learning English as a new language, or are homeless) and Park Slope Collegiate (not enough of those students): https://brooklynbridgeparents.com/signs-of-success-for-district-15s-middle-school-admissions-changes/[/quote]

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