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=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think the point is that white parents should be seen and not heard. If  you are WOTP, give up your IB preference and go EOTP to a DCPS. Don't join the PTA, but write large checks. Mouths shut, wallets open. 
BIG SNIP BC THIS WAS LONG -
If any of this seems unfair - your white fragility is a fatal condition. 
[/quote]

Everything you do is racist.

I'm an AfAm mom of a Pre-K bi-racial kid and I'm not sending my DS to DCPS schools going forward. 
What we got a taste of with virtual learning from our so-okay IB school turned me off. The more I learned and researched what DCPS has to offer middle class POC boys the more pissed off I got. The reading scores and the math scores for POC boys is horrifying. It doesn't matter if Nice White Parents (a podcast I've hate-listened to along with the Integrated Schools podcast) show up or don't show up to our IB the responsibility of the suckitude of the school falls on DCPS.

And "Resource Hoarding" is utter BS. Apparently failure to handicap your kids, like DCPS is handicapping Black boys, is resource hoarding.
[/quote]

A comment and a question (as always I’m assuming you’re a real parent and not one of the conservative trolls that come here to divide us.)

First, virtual PreK has been a total joke for everyone. Give in person K a shot before you throw DCPS out.  That said I agree DCPS Central really does not do a good job.

Question: when you say “DCPS handicaps Black boys”, what do you mean?  That they don’t care about creating and supporting top schools?[/quote]

Yes, I have a real live brown boy whose hobby is finding mommy's buttons and her last nerve. I'm so thankful my DH has more patience for virtual learning, because I was already wistfully looking at AfAm mom homeschooling vlogs and websites. I'm done. We eventually found a daycare that did PreK and sent him there. We are more happier and sane.

I can't remember the exact quote but I saw a video of Malcolm X speaking and he said something along the lines that system turns Black people off from education, probably as a way to keep them ignorant. Now how DCPS plays a part is in the abysmal ELA PARCC scores of black boys (girls do better). When we were looking for schools for the lottery (our IB school was *shrug* okay but I wanted to see if we could do better) I took particular interest in 3rd grade scores for Black boys (even though he's bi-racial). The scores for the nearby schools or schools along our commutes were either unimpressive or klaxon blaring bad.

Why scores matter to me? They aren't the best metric, but they are an available metric. And I'm not going to do the 'if you just went and visited the school' gaslighting tour. And my DS is sensitive to peer pressure, positive and negative. If the other boys around him aren't excelling, he's gonna catch the stupid.

Lastly, on handicapping. My dad barely graduated high school is is barely literate. Thank God Almighty for the Army where he learned a skill and was able to take that skill and start a business. But I saw how having poor reading and math skills could keep you back, even when you are your own boss. Somehow I feel real Black Empowerment hasn't been tried yet (like socialism)  because we Black people as a group have too many members can't read well or do complicated math and DCPS isn't treating the problem like it's a house on fire. The schools that have the worst scores, they just throw money at and it doesn't make things better. Several schools with lousy scores got expensive brand new buildings, but the scores still suck. DCPS doesn't care about real results.[/quote]

well said, bravo. having seen what it took to teach my white boy to read, write and do math, “house on fire” is the ethos we need, especially after the disaster of school closures. sometimes it seems like the schools get so distracted from basic literacy. another thing I’ve noticed is that for writing and reading, the rigor and focus seems to have dropped way off in 3rd grade. not sure why.

what do you think about the “no excuses” charters like KIPP?[/quote]

I don't know if KIPP is right for us. No, that's my honest answer. I don't know. We crossed them off our 20-21 Lottery pick list because like several charters they demanded that kids be completely potty trained. Our DS was not 100% there. He had regressed in his potty training. It was a good decision because it wasn't until a few months ago he became 98% potty trained (2% of the time he waits too long and there's an accident).[/quote]

I fear my question sounds inflammatory but it’s not meant to be I really am just seeking information. What do you think about white families who do the same thought process is you and make the same types of choices as you do re dcps?  There are times I feel I (white) receive a lot of judgment from my choice which is the same one you’re making, but the judgment comes from other white parents not from my black friends.[/quote]

As a parent I really don't give a lot of thought to white parents. I acknowledge it more with a 'huh, that's interesting,' when I spotted a white dad walking his white daughter to KIPP. The potty training was the big thing for us. We didn't want him regressing because of an accident, and when he has an accident he can get pretty worked up. This is what we wanted to avoid. And if the teachers there have a low tolerance for wetting accidents, it's just downhill from there. There were some other things, such as what little influence parents seemed to have which made me less enthusiastic, but still willing to give it a go. Then the pandemic happened and something changed in us as parents.

Since having DS I'm more aware of Black MC judgement (local relatives) that I was able to ignore before DS. We get judged for other things and so far we haven't gotten a lot of pushback, even from the retired teachers, on educational choices. Funny thing, that's when some AfAm co-workers come out and crow about putting their kids in private (could be parochial) school. I can sympathize with your situation, because in these discussions that used to take place at work, the only acceptable solution (from the white co-workers) was be to move to the suburbs. But then again these were nice white co-workers who live in MoCo, Annapolis and Howard Co. I guess it depends on who you are talking to and where they live. [/quote]

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