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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Why is there a dearth of middle class African Americans in Title 1 schools?
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Because they can't afford to fail.

This is my observation, and I am white, so if you want to call me an ignorant asshole, it's okay--maybe I am... but middle class black kids don't have the same leeway that middle class white kids do. Their parents [i]need[/i] their kids to have the best, and they work their asses off to make sure they get it. They (I hate generalizing like this, but it has been my experience in the past year that my child was in a DCPS) are much more like Asian immigrants, Indian immigrants, Russian immigrants, etc than lazy, entitled white Americans---who assume that they have room to mess up, experiment, try different learning techniques, take a week off and go to Disney (or Europe), opt out of testing, etc.

I say this as a lazy, entitled white American.

I don't freak out if my kid gets a C. I don't get a tutor. I encourage her to try harder next time, and shrug. I might try a title 1 school--and we did--but if it doesn't work, I'll flee to something progressive, not something strict. If my children don't do well on their state tests (this is what I've seen from my friends.... all affluent white people in NYC and Long Island)--the next year, I'll opt out, not drill the kids more. I know that my child will get into college, because her parents got into college. I assume this is our right.

And, for money, I know that tomorrow, if I needed to get an office job to pay the bills, my looks and my mid-atlantic English would get me one in the urban center where I live. I hate the term "white privilege," but I have to acknowledge that it does exist. It lets me be lazy. It lets my peers do things like send their kids to waldorf and not read until they are seven. And it is a bubble, just like being poor and disenfranchised is a bubble.

What I do try to do, is step outside of my bubble. Raise my kids outside of my bubble. And hope that other people, in other bubbles will do the same--have the opportunity to do the same.

We all want what's best for our kids, even if we don't always agree on what that is. [/quote]

Best post in the thread. Black woman here raised down South by parents who have multiple/advanced degrees they earned during Jim Crow. Failure was not an option for me. Not going to college was not an option for me. C's were not an option for me. I got the "you have to work twice as hard to get half as much" speech regularly. I read very early and this was a source of pride among my family. My "smartness" was trotted out at all family functions. My parents took us to the library once a week, I went to the ballet (and took ballet and other dance classes as well as piano, art, horseback riding lessons) and symphony. Cultural arts were not optional. I can remember having to read a Poe story for an assignment once and my father buying me a book of all his work. Don't just read that one story, read them all. It was the same for my friends -- and my parents screened them heavily when I was a kid, -- and the Black people among my current set of besties have similar stories and backgrounds.

I have empathy and sympathy for those who look like me who did/do not have my parents and grandparents that love(d), support(ed) and push(ed) me onward and upward. But lately I have befriended someone neither black nor American who grew up under much different circumstances and their life is in constant survival mode despite their efforts to get ahead and do better and it has made me see how privileged I am and how, despite my empathy and sympathy, I still didn't get how hard life can be when you are worrying about basic stuff such as where you will sleep tonight, will you eat today, how to make these falling apart shoes last longer -- and every day you wake up and start it all over again. And this person has been doing this for most of their life. There are no parents -- terrible or otherwise -- to help.

This is all a long way of saying that many many many people need to pull their heads out of their asses. The measure of our characters will be shown by how well we treat and care for those most vulnerable among us. Like, for example, children.

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