Reply to Powerful Letter to the Arlington County School Board about Diversity

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Powerful Letter to the Arlington County School Board about Diversity"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The diversity problem in APS has nothing to do with race - it has to do socioeconomics. I don't know anyone at any school in APS that has a problem with people of color; the issue is with the lower income families who tend to have lower levels of education and in most cases are also people of color. Wealthy, educated, professionally-employed people of color are not what makes people not want to send their kids to Wakefield -- it's the notion that their kids, white or otherwise, who they expect to go to college and to be high achievers, will be attending a school where many of the parents have not attended college, have blue collar jobs, and have kids that may not be achieving on as high a level as their own kids (who have had a lot of advantages) and may not ultimately be college bound. I don't think it's about race at all, it's about perceived atmosphere, and the fear that their kids will stand out if they are white and wealthy and advantaged. [/quote]

In APS, race and SES are strongly correlated.  White kids are high SES and most non-whites are not.

And I don't think white parents avoiding Wakefield worry that their kids will stand out, so much as that they'll be taken for granted in a school where the primary focus is helping other students meet basic competency goals. [/quote]

Arlington is small enough that the boundaries could be drawn so that no school has more than 30 percent FARMS without significantly increasing travel time.  I'm sure it will never happen.[/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