Reply to Atlantic Article on Rolling Terrace and Outsized Role of Affluent White Parents

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Atlantic Article on Rolling Terrace and Outsized Role of Affluent White Parents"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have to admit that this is right in the sweet spot of things I find fascinating - gentrification, education policy, and how language immersion programs have been co-opted by White families.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/how-marginalized-families-are-pushed-out-of-ptas/491036/

[i]When schools are cash-strapped, the priorities of the members of the parent organization often become the priorities of the school as a whole. Rivera-Blanco says she sees this dynamic play out often at Rolling Terrace with the Spanish-immersion program, which is populated largely by students with means. For example, parents of kids in the program ensure that its teachers receive gift cards at the beginning of the year and during Teacher Appreciation Week to pay for supplies. “There are parents in our school that can’t put enough cents together to get a coat much less give their teacher their supply list,” Rivera-Blanco said. “That imbalance is huge. You can walk into a classroom and know which is a Spanish-immersion classroom and which one isn’t.”[/i][/quote]

Our kid is in immersion at RT and never heard of  parents providing gift cards for supplies at the beginning of the year or teacher appreciation week....[/quote]

My child is also in the immersion program at RT and I remember seeing the call for teacher appreciation gift cards. I gave teachers gift cards directly and not through the PTA.[/quote]

PP again, also the gift cards were for all of the teachers, not just the Spanish Immersion teachers.  The article misrepresents the PTA in that aspect.[/quote]

You give gift cards to all the teachers, and not just your own child's teacher?  That's very generous if it's true.[/quote]

RT parent: my understanding was that the gifts cards were donated by parents to put in a large pool for every teacher (main teachers, specials, etc.) in the school, not just for Spanish Immersion. If a parent wanted to give a gift to their children's individual teachers they could.  Also, as another poster noted, the program is partial immersion so if a family gave supplies/gift cards to both of their child's teachers it would benefit the Spanish immersion and regular classroom. I don't think parents are only giving to 1 of 2 of their children's teachers. I haven't noticed any difference between the supplies/resources in my DC's English or Spanish immersion classroom.  However, I do agree that the PTA is mostly made up of the Spanish immersion families.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics