Anonymous wrote:I am tired hearing about the behavior aspect of SES. Bad parenting exists on all ends of the spectrum. I have worked with low SES children and high SES children and there are behavioral problems equally bad on both ends. Maybe little Tyrone has heard the F word, but litle Suzie thinks it is ok to hit mommy when she does not get her way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The key point is that poor kids are not going away. And while it's true that they may need a different approach than kids from affluent households, there is no way to segregate by SES without creating worse outcomes for the poorer strata.

The poor kids are going away around Stanton Park, slowly but surely. Dive into US Census data for 1990, 2000 and 2010 if you doubt this. You can see that that the juvenile low SES population of the catchment area for L-T went from around two-thirds low SES to one-third low SES over a 20-year period. On current trends, by 2020 the catchment area juvenile pop will be roughly 15% low SES. In US Census data, kids are a lot more likely to be counted where their mothers reside than in DCPS stats.

How can you argue the above when the best test scores for low SES kids in the aggregate in this city, and others, are not in fact found at socioeconomically diverse schools but at those segregated by SES? When you consider DC CAS scores by subgroup, you see that the best results for low SES kids are found in KIPP schools, like DC Key Academy, and at Achievement Prep, vs. in desegregated schools like Maury and Watkins, and by a long shot. The truth is that kids in the the best "segregated" charter programs, serving only poor children of color, score proficient or advanced on the DC-CAS are rates approaching high SES kids elsehwere in the city, in the 70s and 80s.

What the best charter programs are doing is keeping low SES kids away from dysfunctional families, tough home lives and families who can't offer much in the way of intellectual stimulation many more hours a week than traditional public schools like L-T do. KIPP requires significantly longer school days (as well as Saturday school), and shorter vacations than DCPS schools do.

If we want to help poor kids, maybe we need to deal with the awkward truth that voluntary segregation by SES is creating significantly better academic outcomes for the poorer strata, at least at the elementary and middle school levels, than integration outside GT programs. We have no evidence that it's creating better social outcomes, but that's another conversation.

Point this out and you'll surely be called a racist many times over in any discussion relating to L-T's future, but the data are there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fairly close, as neighbors can be, with my low-SES neighbors. I have tutored for free a few of the kids that they watch over while their mums work 2 or 3 low paying jobs.
They do value education in general terms, and that's why they asked me if I could help the kids with homework...but that is the extent of it.

For example, I see the kids milling about after school while the relatives who are supposed to watch over them drink beer and play cards in the middle if the afternoon. One day one of the kids was complaining it was too hot and he was bored (I was going to the store and said hi, how are you). I suggested he could ask his aunt to take him to the museum - it's free and their is AC there. He hardly knew what a museum was and that idea had never occurred to anybody there. We live close to the metro and it would not have been that hard to do...I can help a little but can't be a parent to all!

So, people like this should just . . . get up and get out? And go . . .where?

Anonymous wrote:
The key point is that poor kids are not going away. And while it's true that they may need a different approach than kids from affluent households, there is no way to segregate by SES without creating worse outcomes for the poorer strata.

Anonymous wrote:I am fairly close, as neighbors can be, with my low-SES neighbors. I have tutored for free a few of the kids that they watch over while their mums work 2 or 3 low paying jobs.
They do value education in general terms, and that's why they asked me if I could help the kids with homework...but that is the extent of it.

For example, I see the kids milling about after school while the relatives who are supposed to watch over them drink beer and play cards in the middle if the afternoon. One day one of the kids was complaining it was too hot and he was bored (I was going to the store and said hi, how are you). I suggested he could ask his aunt to take him to the museum - it's free and their is AC there. He hardly knew what a museum was and that idea had never occurred to anybody there. We live close to the metro and it would not have been that hard to do...I can help a little but can't be a parent to all!

Anonymous wrote:

FYI, I'm an black husband and father of two living in Capitol Hill. There is no way I want my children surrounded a classroom full of kids from "multi-generational" poverty families. I want my kids surrounded by kids who come from families like mine. This also has nothing to do with race to me either. I wouldn't want my kids surrounded by "Honey Boo Boo's" family, and I wouldn't want my kids surrounded by families housed in DC General Hospital either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think there is a difference between a child who qualifies for FARM in an area which has a huge newly immigrant community which may not have huge resources but does have a stable family life and values education (disclaimer, when we first immigrated I was a FARMs kid despite my father being a pHD and my mother being college-educated, simply because it took them some time to find jobs; my best friend in college, whose parents immigrated from a different country was in a similar situation. But this was not DC). But DCPS does not have this situation - most kids eligible for FARMs here come from systemic, multi-generational poverty which is not going to go away any time soon. And I don't know how much value that environment places on education but I do know that the stressors and instability that brings are different and harder to overcome when it's not a temporary thing. Those kids are absolutely entitled to a good education but toold to educate them can and should be different than educating little Suzie who has her parents hiring tutors for her to get her ahead.

This is one of the best responses in this whole thread. There is a segment of DC's population that have been stuck in "multi-generational" poverty. We all know the reason why this vicious cycle continues. It starts with a child being born to young mother without an education and without the means to support the child. The child is much more likely then to grow up in single parent, dysfunctional environment where certain values are not instilled in the child. The child can be manageable at 5 or 6 years old, but as the child grows older, the level of dysfunction around the child becomes the child's only reality. It is very difficult for this type of child to be anywhere near the level of a child that comes from an educated two parent household, where they have been nurtured, cared for, and shown the importance of education.

FYI, I'm an black husband and father of two living in Capitol Hill. There is no way I want my children surrounded a classroom full of kids from "multi-generational" poverty families. I want my kids surrounded by kids who come from families like mine. This also has nothing to do with race to me either. I wouldn't want my kids surrounded by "Honey Boo Boo's" family, and I wouldn't want my kids surrounded by families housed in DC General Hospital either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I think there is a difference between a child who qualifies for FARM in an area which has a huge newly immigrant community which may not have huge resources but does have a stable family life and values education (disclaimer, when we first immigrated I was a FARMs kid despite my father being a pHD and my mother being college-educated, simply because it took them some time to find jobs; my best friend in college, whose parents immigrated from a different country was in a similar situation. But this was not DC). But DCPS does not have this situation - most kids eligible for FARMs here come from systemic, multi-generational poverty which is not going to go away any time soon. And I don't know how much value that environment places on education but I do know that the stressors and instability that brings are different and harder to overcome when it's not a temporary thing. Those kids are absolutely entitled to a good education but toold to educate them can and should be different than educating little Suzie who has her parents hiring tutors for her to get her ahead.

This is one of the best responses in this whole thread. There is a segment of DC's population that have been stuck in "multi-generational" poverty. We all know the reason why this vicious cycle continues. It starts with a child being born to young mother without an education and without the means to support the child. The child is much more likely then to grow up in single parent, dysfunctional environment where certain values are not instilled in the child. The child can be manageable at 5 or 6 years old, but as the child grows older, the level of dysfunction around the child becomes the child's only reality. It is very difficult for this type of child to be anywhere near the level of a child that comes from an educated two parent household, where they have been nurtured, cared for, and shown the importance of education.

FYI, I'm an black husband and father of two living in Capitol Hill. There is no way I want my children surrounded a classroom full of kids from "multi-generational" poverty families. I want my kids surrounded by kids who come from families like mine. This also has nothing to do with race to me either. I wouldn't want my kids surrounded by "Honey Boo Boo's" family, and I wouldn't want my kids surrounded by families housed in DC General Hospital either.