Reply to AEM post/discussion re racism and choice schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a minority of middle eastern origin I find it extremely offensive that schools such as Carlin Springs is considered more diverse than ATS, where my kids go. The only way Carlin Springs is more diverse than ATS is if you lump all non-white students together. It is extremely racist to believe that all non-white students are the same and that the only diversity that matters is white vs. non-white. Ethnically speaking, a white person is just as different from a person of Middle Eastern origin than a hispanic person is. Carlin Springs isn't diverse. It is 73% hispanic. This means that three quarters of the school is from one race/ethnicity. How on earth is that diverse? Arlington Traditional School is more equally divided between different races and 9% of the school is from multiple races. The Black population, 20%, is diverse in and of itself. We have Ethiopians, African Americans, Eritrians, and Nigerians, just to name a few. Same with the 27% of Asian students who come from all over the vast continent of Asia. We have students with origins from Azerbeijan, Mongolia, China, India, Pakistan, Kazakhestan. I mean the list goes on. 24 different languages are spoken at ATS. How many different languages are spoken in Carlin Springs? I am really sick and tired of this narrow definition of diversity. It is a racist definition given to us by white people who think that we are all the same. Disgusting.[/quote]

Just as a point, your children are considered “white” in terms of APS statistics. At schools like Randolph and Carlin Springs the “white” children are often kids like your own, just more recently arrived and with parents who don’t know (yet) how to navigate the system. Also, some people in the AEM thread aren’t in touch with just how diverse the ES option schools are, because they were less diverse in the past and prior to APS moving VPI programs around and adjusting policies at the Immersion schools so there were balanced admissions of English/Spanish speakers. I don’t disagree with anything else you’ve said. [/quote]

Yes I should have mentioned the point about my kids being considered "white" for statistics purposes =) There are so many kids of Middle Eastern origin from ATS (mostly North African which are considered white in terms of Arlington statistics). This means that a portion of the white students in ATS which constitute around 35%, are actually of Middle Eastern origin, making ATS even more diverse that the statistics show. In addition, there are a lot of kids of recent immigrants of Eastern European origin (Polish, Ukranian, etc.) who are obviously considered white as well. I will also add that my neighborhood school, Tuckahoe, is excellent and but not diverse at all. [/quote]

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