Reply to Matched IB Ludlow Taylor :( What is the lowest WL position worth considering as an option?

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[quote=Anonymous]No dog in this fight, as I don't live on the Hill, but a few observations:

First, I don't know how long this principal has been doing what she does, but if she's been in DCPS (and not in Ward 3) for at least 10-15 years, any warm and fuzzy she may have had got stamped out hard.  Like, in her first year.  Up until the point that Fenty/Reed started reform, being a principal in DC required a tough armor and a tough stance.  It may be learned or it may be just how she is, but consider what the neighborhood was like before it started gentrifying, and consider that demeanor may have been necessary for survival.  When I was a teacher at Walker Jones in the mid-90s, parents wanted and expected visible toughness--even meanness--from the principal to keep kids in line.

Next, it's tough to straddle needs on either side of the race/class divide when they're co-existing in one building every day.  She's walking a line pulled tight by tension between old timers and newcomers, and I'll bet she's decided she's not going to change the way she's always been.  Some of the parents she deals with may be former students and it wouldn't go over well for her to have a visibly different attitude toward parents who've only been in the neighborhood for the last few years.  And some parents may need . . . firmness. . . so she may as well apply that to everyone.

Lastly, there is a cultural dynamic--or maybe it's more appropriately labeled a dichotomy--that's very much at play in this schools/neighborhoods/class melee, yet few people are aware of it.  Someone like Malcolm Gladwell could probably explain it better than I will, but higher SES people tend to come from a place of entitlement.  And I don't mean that in an insulting way, I mean that we're raised to seek, ask for (or demand) and at the very least expect that there's a way to get what we want (I'm a tax paying parent, the principal should be friendly to me).  Lower income people are raised to believe that they should not expect nor feel entitled to anything at all, and the people who do are the ones who come off as rude.  What may seem like a simple request or generally expected behavior may be taken as a pushy affront.  Pushy people may get what they want in wealthier neighborhoods, but not. . . in the hood. Not at all.

I'm not applying that to any situation at L-T or its parents or principal--I don't know any of you people.  But if the school is doing well, maybe the principal deserves the benefit of doubt.  A lot of tension in the divide of this town is nothing more than misperception.[/quote]

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