Reply to No matter how many times people say it, the phrase “good schools” will never not be racist/classist

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Reply to "No matter how many times people say it, the phrase “good schools” will never not be racist/classist"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a teacher and longtime public school parent and I absolutely agree “good schools” is a loaded term. We have a racial test score gap everywhere in this country. So while it would be taboo to say “I want a school without black and Hispanic students,” it is perfectly acceptable in polite society to say “I only want a school with the top scores,” which gets you the same segregated outcome. Parents are literally afraid of black and Hispanic children and of low-income children of all colors because they perceive that they lower their own children’s prospects and also lower their home values when they’re in the same district. Frankly I find it morally wrong. I think we will look back in horror someday at how we chose housing prices based on how white a school was.

My own kids have gone to public schools rated 4-6 or so, and have had great experiences. Their education and their experiences have not had anything to do with those “rankings.”[/quote]

Then you and the OP can enroll your children in the “schools without the top scores.” Put your money where your mouth is. [/quote]

Then don't judge people who (gasp) put their children in ''schools without the top scores'' as being ''neglectful of their children'' or whatever. [/quote]

[b]I’ve never heard anyone say that and neither have you[/b]. Stop making up crap to fit your agenda. And by the way, you using that as a reason to not put your child in school without top scores is a cop-out. [/quote]

NP, WTF you talking about? Variants of that sentiment have been expressed numerous times on this site.

In general, agree that the rankings are mostly just proxies for SES of the school (and SES, generally speaking, as a proxy for race). And the phrase "good school" can be used to indicate exactly that. But it can also be used in a more evaluative sense of how well run a school is... does the administration value and support teachers, and help foster a good environment for kids to maximize their potential? A high SES school will still show high test scores even if the kids are being underserved because they on average have way more supports and advantages outside of school, including in the years prior to school commencing. So yeah, the phrase CAN be racist/classist, but I'm also tired of everyone trying to bucket things into having one and only one meaning, as if context and intent didn't matter.[/quote]

Exactly. Now I'm not saying they're wrong necessarily, but literally in the past hour someone started a thread telling parents not to send their kids to high-poverty schools and that it would be hurting them to do so. Yes, this kind of thing gets posted all the time. https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1053867.page[/quote]

KIND OF SEEMS LIKE A COINCIDENCE NO?[/quote]

Yes, it certainly does seem like nothing more than that. And if you read the comments in that thread you'll read a similar thought expressed several different ways.[/quote]

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