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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I swear, white people complain about everything! This is embarrassing!  Homeschool your kids if you’re afraid to have them around a diverse group of kids.[/quote]

People are actually talking about lack of diversity. A school that is 84% black, 8% white, 6% Latino, and 2% AAPI? Not diverse. This is like saying that a black family who chooses not to send their children to the 90% white charter school are "afraid of diversity." They are afraid that their child will not fit in or feel welcome. Come on.[/quote]

You are right that one family wont make a difference, but when you look at a place like DCUM that has threads upon threads shaming people for going to any DCPS middle school besides Deal, any HS besides Banneker/Walls/Wilson, and conisder at least 50% of ES IB options as unusable because of "Test Scores" (which you are either unaware or are blissfully aware just equal demographics), you get this lack of diversity via group think.[/quote]

But you are misdiagnosing the problem. Yes, if you just read DCUM, you would think people are moving to charters for MS because of test scores exclusively, as a dog whistle for race. That's how a lot of people on these boards think about it.

But if you spend time with actual parents discussing these issues, it's more complicated. It's one thing to invest in a DCPS ES, ignoring test scores because you understand they are a proxy for demographics. Great! We have already done that and love our ES.

But would you send your kid to a high school that doesn't even offer Calculus as a stand-alone class? Would you feel comfortable with your kid who loves reading and writing to be spending their MS and HS years in English classes where most of the class is testing below grade level? Are you comfortable with a school culture where truancy is high and most extra-curriculars are focused on athletics? These are all questions parents have to ask themselves. It's not just about test scores, though they play a role. It's looking at the schools as a whole and figuring out if you feel your kid could do well there, could get the preparation they need for college and adulthood there. It's sometimes a really hard question.

And thus many people who love their DCPS ES wind up in charters for MS, focused on a small group of charter and high performing HS, and looking into private options or moving to the suburbs. You can say it's racism or just white people afraid of "true diversity" (ignoring the many black families who make these exact same choices all the time). But doing so won't solve the problem, which is that many MS and HS in DC simply do not prepare their students for the next level of their educations. There are many reasons for that, and it's absolutely a chicken/egg issue because it's hard to impose these schools if people won't just sent their kids to them. But it's also hard to send your kids to a school like this when you feel their future is on the line.

I do not know what the answer is. I have learned not to be glib on these subjects because they are very, very tricky and cannot actually just be boiled down to people making racist or classist personal choices.[/quote]

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