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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's ideological to pretend that the Maury kids who go to Eliot-Hine, and the Brent kids who go on to Jefferson Academy, aren't dealing with subpar conditions for learning.  These are not good middle schools.  These parents are also white and liberal. Show me the conservative whites, the East Asian immigrant parents, the UMC AA and Latino parents etc. using these middle schools.  We're looking for real diversity at the middle school level.

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Lol.  The real commonality among the "new" families sending kids to EH is that they are all very smart, involved, and not freaked out about their kid having slightly "subpar" conditions.  EH offers the basic academic curriculum (math etc) and these families place more of a priority on community and lifestyle than sweating their 11 year old's academics.  yes this involves a certain amount of privilege, but at the end of the day, I see very little evidence that the academics at EH are subpar to my MS in the 90s, and I seemed to do ok, so ... [/quote]

This reeks of privilege. In those middle school years students are forming their identity vis a vis studentship, academics, are they "smart", do they try at school, is it cool or not to try at school, do they enjoy learning or is it a chore, are their teachers people they admire and want to emulate.  5,6,7 grade id often the last time you can capture a kid's enthusiasm and harness that toward good work habits, executive function skills and an achievement oriented identity.

So rejecting subpar conditions and sweating an 11 year old's academics are actually crucial--especially for students who are already behind and may not have the same levels of support at home.  This lazy acceptance of poor schooling because "my kid will be ok" in it and the arrogance of the unspoken bleeding heart liberal caveat [/i]and I am helping those other kids as well by enrolling[i] are toxic.

We need to demand better in DC, not accept it.[/quote]

Me enrolling my kid at E-H because I value community and the neighborhood and think he'll be fine academically because he's my kid =/= not caring about other DC kids with fewer advantages.  [/quote]

What a leap.  I didn’t write that people who enroll at EH don’t care about disadvantaged kids.  Enroll away, please!  This acceptance of crappy conditions and shellacking over the severe systemic problems because “my kid will be ok” becomes ugly, though.  The defense of these middle schools as perfectly fine educational institutions is wrong. Kids who actually need school to be safe and high quality suffer from this gloss.  I realize it puts activist parents in a tough place because they want to attract other people like them and so can’t be loud about the issues—but one needs to have clear vision and principles and the ability to call out the bad with the good in that situation.  Plus, they would be ultimately more credible[/quote]

What makes you think that enrolling my keed means "acceptance of crappy conditions"? It actually means the exact opposite.  You're not even sending your kid to the school and your "gloss" is entirely unproductive.  "Please get out of the way if you can't lend a hand ... "[/quote]

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