Reply to Study: "Discussions of D.C. public school options in an online forum" (yes, this one)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous][b]You fundamentally misunderstand the point of reports like these.  It's descriptive; the goal is to describe a problem, not to offer solutions in the same report. [/b] I was patient in several earlier posts in trying to explain this, but you have doubled down on your complaints.  You don't like that your site has been portrayed in this light (which is understandable) and so have characterized the report as shaming and name-calling, instead of perhaps considering some of the points made.  White people do indeed make decisions influenced by racial dynamics as discussed in prior research; this is uncontroversial.

It is frustrating because you are completing rigid in your defensiveness and will cede nothing, over several days of posting.  Perhaps it's possible that parents want to do what's best for their kids AND their decisions are impacted by unconscious or conscious biases and assumptions about what makes a good school?  I'm a black parent who has visited this site for years, and the racism and classism is entirely clear to me and others, some of whom I know have stopped even visiting this site.  I'm not sure what else to say at this point except good luck in complaining about what you see as unfair treatment instead of considering some of the issues raised.[/quote]

This is what it boils down to:

[quote] Perhaps it's possible that parents want to do what's best for their kids AND their decisions are impacted by unconscious or conscious biases and assumptions about what makes a good school?  [/quote]

This statement clearly displays just how uninformed you are about the people with whom you are trying to engage. The vast majority of the posters in this forum do want to do what's best for their kids AND consider their assumptions and biases. You simply cannot dispute that most of the schools that are popular in this forum are objectively "good" by most definitions of good. There are a few blindspots and addressing those blindspots would be helpful. But, you show no interest in being helpful. Your only interest is to shame us.

I really don't now how you can expect people to change without being able to offer any ideas about how they should change. If you don't know the answer, why do you expect others to know it? This is plain common sense. Don't you think that it might be possible that people have struggled with the moral and ethnical issues, reflected about them, but still concluded that their choice was the best despite that it wasn't perfect?

I am happy to work with you to improve the disparities in DC public schools to the extend that I have any ability to do that at all  (and I suspect my ability is very limited). But you are going to have to move beyond the name-calling and shaming.
[/quote]

I actually think that both views are right to some extent. No, a research paper need not identify solutions, but only problems - however, it's also true that the problems that are identified (poorly, because, shoddy research) are MUCH more complex than a simple racial analysis. As others have pointed out, a dearth of good schools leads everyone who can to try to hoard that resource - of every race. Lottery helps make it slightly more accessible to all.

But, for white parents, I think most of us do feel unfairly targeted by the "problem analysis" which seems to tell us that our only motivating choice factor is racial composition, we just don't realize it. Jeff's insistence that someone say what we should do instead is valid. What it shows is that the problem itself is not properly analyzed. The problem statement implies free choice and uncomplicated choice. No, this is not free choice - we are bound by lottery results, income, and more. It is also not uncomplicated - we consider MANY factors, we do not decide based on one.

The apparent OUTCOME may be segregation beyond what the authors want, but, they are trying to assign CAUSATION - they cannot. They can only assume causation in this study.

Normally I would agree that yes, white parents seem to cluster toward each other and create bubbles - that's UNW for you. But, this study is a totally facile swipe at all white parents district-wide, total clickbait. It's not that it needs to identify solutions, but if it had tried, some of the conclusions would begin to quickly unravel and - shocker! - the SYSTEMIC problems at play which the city government, not individual white parents, need to solve, will become much more apparent.

[/quote]

Ah.  Well-said and insightful.[/quote]

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