Anonymous wrote:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/28/schools-seeking-diversity-get-boost-from-urban-middle-class/1661557/

Tough budget times are coming for charters.

All DC charter operators and boards need to understand that they now operate with real political and financial risk from their creditors if they do not get our upper-middle class to believe that their schools might be a viable option for their own neighbors (if not their own children).

When charters are seen as something "for the poor", related to "social justice", "the civil rights struggle of today", "a way to give the teachers' unions a hard time", or as only Ward 7/8 KIPP-like programs they will eventually lose local support from the powerful, well-connected upper middle.

Any loss of upper-middle-class support would be devastating for all of DC's children. DCPS just can't fill in the gaps quickly enough. Sadly, DC will never have a high-quality school in every part of town. Charters must fill this void and need DC's upper-middle class to get and stay on board with the idea of charters as real options for all classes -- not just the poor.

Something tells me there was this supreme court case that said you could not have "separate but equal" public schools...there are many low-performing/socially-troubled/criminally-minded (particularly boys) white students, from all SES, in public and private schools, who will grow up to become low-achievers, serial killers, crystal meth dealers, starbucks baristas, live in their parents 1970's era basements playing online poker, etc. Stop equating race with gifted and talent, high IQs, high-performing students or high SATs with successful adulthood. It doesn't work that way. Correlation and causation are two very different things. Is the Asian student any "smarter" than my white daughter, or a black student in Ballou? Or are his parents locking him in his safe bedroom to study with a full stomach? If you want to social engineer, try setting up your own PRIVATE school.

Stay in DC, idiots for your kids would surely sink in other big city's superior public middle and schools. If you're willing to substitute high-SES or Asian for white, look no further than NYC's eight academic magnet high schools, using the SSAT test for admission and that alone. Each has a student body that is more than half Asian and/or white. Asian parents, especially low-SES, simply don't want their kids in schools where most other parents don't value education as highly as they do. AA's generally don't, not by a long shot. How do I know? I'm, um, AA and a graduate of Boston Latin (an "exam" school). No charter here has a "strong attraction" for droves of middle class families above ES - more like a draw for those willing to make do to stay in DC. Get over yourselves.

Exacto mundo.

Anonymous wrote:We'd love one charter that was mostly high-SES and hence, white, all the way to 12th with a strong gifted and talented program recruiting top low-SES/minority students from around the city. Those low SES kids would end up at the world's best universities almost to a student. No chance in hell in this grim political climate for maybe in 10 years when pols who resist would risk getting the boot.

The article really doen't say much - e.g. not breaking the issue down by age groups or race.

These exist- they are called private schools.

Anonymous wrote:We'd love one charter that was mostly high-SES and hence, white, all the way to 12th with a strong gifted and talented program recruiting top low-SES/minority students from around the city. Those low SES kids would end up at the world's best universities almost to a student. No chance in hell in this grim political climate for maybe in 10 years when pols who resist would risk getting the boot.

The article really doen't say much - e.g. not breaking the issue down by age groups or race.

Will let a few darkies in as long as they are poor and submissive. Oh, and we want the taxpayers to finance it to boot.

We'd love one charter that was mostly high-SES and hence, white, all the way to 12th with a strong gifted and talented program recruiting top low-SES/minority students from around the city. Those low SES kids would end up at the world's best universities almost to a student. No chance in hell in this grim political climate for maybe in 10 years when pols who resist would risk getting the boot.

The article really doen't say much - e.g. not breaking the issue down by age groups or race.

All is left for the white parents/boosters to start their own Charter-school. Just go on do it, why don't you? I am an AA and I don't see anything wrong with this proposal. You have every right to have this option, go ahead and find a building an open it from k-12. Please do this and save us from all of the whoa it's me attitude.

There's always UDC, right? Um, well, no, not for a lot of families. You're right though, it's getting tougher to get into a good college and they want well prepared students, not those who can sit side by side with struggling peers.

Anonymous wrote:"Asked whether it's frustrating for advanced students to work side-by-side with their struggling peers, he countered: "How do you possibly teach kids about the world without having students sit side-by-side, who don't look like each other and don't think very differently? Isn't that the more important skill?""

Sorry, it's not the more important skill, not when a kid gets to SATs, AP tests and college applicationsand can't measure up for lack of challenge all the way up. This shallow article white washes the gentrification issues, like DC Charter. Look at Latin's troubling high-SES attrition between 6tlh and 9th for evidence. I predict that Basis will have the same problem - the administration and white parents/boosters don't seem to see it coming.

"Asked whether it's frustrating for advanced students to work side-by-side with their struggling peers, he countered: "How do you possibly teach kids about the world without having students sit side-by-side, who don't look like each other and don't think very differently? Isn't that the more important skill?""

Sorry, it's not the more important skill, not when a kid gets to SATs, AP tests and college applicationsand can't measure up for lack of challenge all the way up. This shallow article white washes the gentrification issues, like DC Charter. Look at Latin's troubling high-SES attrition between 6tlh and 9th for evidence. I predict that Basis will have the same problem - the administration and white parents/boosters don't seem to see it coming.

No, I think it is just the ones often touted on DCUM. Afterall, the first charters in this school were founded in the low income sections of town. Even in the world of DCUM, the middle and upper income parents pull their children out of charters between the 5th and 8th grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is pretty accurate for DC, mostly all of the charter schools population are from middle class families. It is not about race after all.

Then why are the FARMS rates at charters 70-80% and higher?

Which Charters? It makes absolutely no sense to paint them all with the same brush. Look at the new Charters, those allowed after the Charter Board started taking its job seriously, separately from the older ones. Although a couple of the older ones were decent, that was the exception, not the rule. Now, it is reversed.

Anonymous wrote:That is pretty accurate for DC, mostly all of the charter schools population are from middle class families. It is not about race after all.

Then why are the FARMS rates at charters 70-80% and higher?

That is pretty accurate for DC, mostly all of the charter schools population are from middle class families. It is not about race after all.