Anonymous wrote:I love it love it love it. I love that it exposes the hypocrisy of rich white parents who say they are sending their kids to a "lower performing" elementary school because they love diversity, but then their kid ends up in the all-white "gifted" class. Or they say that "all you need to do" is stay on top of the teachers/administrators to make sure they are giving your child extra challenge, etc., which really means you are stealing resources from the underprivileged kids at the school who actually need them. It really is gentification.

Honestly, what should the parents in your situation do?

decline the gifted class?
Not weigh in with teachers and administrators to ensure your children are challenged?

This is so insane, people! I've worked to bring parity for charter schools for an extremely liberal Member of the State House of Reps in a moderate blue state, and am likely left of many here, and have actually spent much of my career chasing inequity issues.

PP, what do you recommend instead? Should the rich white parent send the kid to a private and that way you're cool with it?
What about non rich white parents?
What about rich black parents?

I just don't get all this misery and self-loathing competition stuff. It's all over Facebook and I'm baffled by it. Get off your asses and do something about inequality. Stop congratulating yourself on a forum because you can either self identify your own failures or someone else's. it's meaningless.

I have no idea why the focus is on the behavior of white parents in the 60s when we can see Asian families today using every tool in the book to preserve their kids’ dominance at selective magnet schools like Stuyvesant and TJHSST. It obviously is not the case that white parents are the only ones trying to maximize their own kids’ advantages.

White families, it seems, have a tipping point for their tolerance of diversity in schools. They also tend to have a ton of repressed rage about affirmative action as it plays out in elite college acceptances.

In white parents’ defense, they’ve been told so long that diversity was some kind of educational magic bullet. AA families are often complicit in that messaging.

This series is exposing that it’s not nearly so simple.

Anonymous wrote:What happened is that due upper middle class parents, the rubber meets the road with their kids’ education and perpetuating their place at the top of America’s hierarchy. A few minutes around any such parents in, say, north Arlington or Bethesda will establish this.

Honey, if you want to point the finger in Arlington don’t forget the ugly boundary disputes surrounding Drew and Fleet. That’s a more apt example.

All of this is why we went private.

I love it love it love it. I love that it exposes the hypocrisy of rich white parents who say they are sending their kids to a "lower performing" elementary school because they love diversity, but then their kid ends up in the all-white "gifted" class. Or they say that "all you need to do" is stay on top of the teachers/administrators to make sure they are giving your child extra challenge, etc., which really means you are stealing resources from the underprivileged kids at the school who actually need them. It really is gentification.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ I'm curious as to what kind of policies she'd recommend at the end of this.”

+1
I liked both episodes but the message did kind of make me wonder “so what are you saying SHOULD happen?” In one she rails against parents that decided not to send their kids to a certain public school after lobbying for its location (yeah, I get that). In the other she is focusing on shaming parents that opted into that public school but are spending time and money trying to create a program They want there (that would be open to any kids from the school).

Just to add though that the program — French immersion — was not the choice of the original community. They were never engaged in the decision. Had they had a voice they may have wanted Spanish or Arabic based on their population.

I’ll add that both the parents and perhaps most shockingly the kids had a sense of white saviorism — the school was only good when they got there.

The school was desperate for new students.

Parents of new students will come in sufficient numbers if they can get a particular program.

Principal agrees.

If there wasn’t already a Spanish or Arabic program, how are the new students to blame?

IMO, the guy fundraising for French could have tried telling donors that 10% or whatever amount would go to the general pta fund.

I know of plenty of examples of schools and districts that intentionally or unintentionally created equitable schools for white students and URM students.

It doesn't sound like these are mentioned in the podcast?

Already lived it in Capitol Hill

The solution is that you want the best for your kid, and you allow other parents to want the best for their kids (without disadvantaging them), and you actively support programs for those kids whose parents are destructive or not involved.

Am I not supposed to want my kid to be at the top of his class? Class rank is important for his future opportunities, and class rank is by definition zero sum. I don’t want bad outcomes for anyone, but some things, like class rank, are by definition inequitable. So, what’s the solution? Do we stop using class rank? Do we stop capping class sizes for APs? Some of these solutions need to come from the schools and the colleges, because “nice white parents,” Tiger moms, and the Obamas aren’t the ones setting these standards, so it is illogical to blame them for wanting their children to abide by those standards.

P, "prioritizing" something just means you make it top priority. It doesn't mean there are no other things that are important, or that you don't have to figure out how to balance competing priorities.

The problem isn't that people are caring most about their own kids. You can also care about other kids, just not as much. That isn't unfair unless you are accepting of a set of social systems that works for you because other parents have a differnt experience than you when they try to access it and make it work for their kids.

I think there is a difference between wanting to give your kids a great life and prioritizing them over all others. You can both want your kids to be happy and thriving but understand that “wanting the best for my kid” often comes at the expense of other kids. I want my kids- and all the kids- to be happy, thriving individuals. So no.. I don’t “prioritize” my kids if I know it will detrimentally impact others. My kids can have something less shiny, less perfect... if it means that more kids will have something similar.

^^"It's in parents [accepting] or actively encouraging"