Comment Rescue: Dorian Gray, Education And The Uncomfortable Truth
I keep going back to Dorian’s comment on my Education post. Here is what he said:
I have a solution that nobody will like. It’s warranted and would address the very neediest, but good luck convincing anybody…
Start paying reparations in the form of schools. The idea that how good a public school is is based on where your parents/guardians live is one of the biggest examples of institutional racism I can think of (beside mass incarceration, maybe).
What other public services work this way? Can you imagine if people moved to ensure their post office was the very best rated post office in the area!
Fuck charters… fuck moving to Chadds Ford… I think the people in Chadds Ford should subsidize the Chester Upland schools. How do you like that?
Look, I don’t ever comment on these education posts because I don’t have children and it doesn’t directly impact me. But the idea that people cry “property values” is disgusting and racist… Listen to the two part This American Life from last month (The Problem We All Live With)..
I say this as a middle-aged white guy of relatively considerable means.
You’ll be nibbling around the edges forever wondering how to fix all this when the answer is there. It’s just too bitter to gulp down the gullet. Part of the reparations package should be a reallocation of public funds to low-income black neighbourhoods. I’d start by taking money from Hockessin, Monchanin and Middletown and building brand new, state-of-the art public schools (not charter, not private, not wait-list)… public schools in the most forgotten neighbourhoods. Maybe to start I’d build one in Hilltop and name it after Jim Gilliam. James Gilliam Middle School has a nice ring to it.
And if people tried the old white flight routine again I hit them with a Reparations transfer tax on the property sale. We all live in this fucking country. We should start taking some god damn responsibility.
The real problem is people see a problem but if you’re rich enough it’s other people’s problem and if your black and poor you’re totally fucked anyway. We need to make it a rich person’s problem. How long are we going to victimise people until we just admit what we’ve done and correct it?
Wow. I 100% agree with this comment. Right now, the system rewards more affluent people. It separates, deliberately, the most influential voices in our communities – and that is done, in part, under threat. Districts tell this more affluent group, “Don’t make waves or we’ll send you to those struggling city schools.” Don’t believe me? Then check out what Red Clay said during their last capital referendum in order to build another brand new suburban elementary school:
1. What happens if it [referendum] doesn’t pass?
Adjust feeder patterns at elementary schools, reconsider BSS K-8, remove programs at city schools (Pre-K, Parent Centers, Boost Up, Small Class Size).Obviously, that wasn’t grave enough so they changed that answer to this:
We would need to consider a number of options.
• Readjusting feeder patterns in most of our elementary schools to shift the population to our schools in the city. This would be disruptive to all of our schools, and impact important programs in place at our city schools.
• Reconsider the BSS K-8 model.
• Continue to rent trailers, and add additional trailers[emphasis mine, but really, Red Clay’s SuperPac, Friends of Red Clay, as well! And we’ll wait and discuss these school district’s SuperPacs in another post)
As of this morning it reads:
The district will be forced to consider other options to address over-crowding at elementary schools, such as adjusting feeder patterns at elementary schools, reconsidering BSS as a K-8 school, removing programs at city schools (Pre-K, Parent Centers, Boost Up, and Small Class Size)
Forced? Really? And there it is. Shut up or we’ll take away everything we’ve given to you. Don’t vote for the referendum and we’ll bus your kids back to those awful city schools – that we purposefully created, btw. None of what’s going on could have happened without buying suburban and charter/magnet school citizens’ votes… and silence. And when you read the above “threats” you can not only understand why the suburban community voted for the referendum, but that some did so under duress. Red Clay wasn’t subtle. They threatened this community’s children. I completely understand why the suburban community voted the way they did. I just ask that this community stop kidding themselves that they are in the driver’s seat. They aren’t. They surrendered their power years ago. Not sure how they get that power back. Basically, they sold themselves cheap, and if they think what’s going on with Priority Schools, Focus Schools and charters isn’t heading their way they are naive. They’ll be all for it until their kids don’t get into the choice school they applied for. Then they’re outraged, but they already diluted their voice.
Look, I get that every parent’s priority is to their own children and that everyone works within the existing system – which is designed to pit parent against parent and community against community. I understand that the suburban community is concerned with their property values. What I don’t understand is why high poverty/high needs people’s concerns – people who live in high poverty feeder patterns across the state – about their children attending schools that have lost valuable programs as well as their property concerns are dismissed as not valid. Seriously, why are people who live in affluent areas more deserving of a good education? Why am I constantly asked to care about their worries? To understand where they are coming from, while they (not all!) don’t care about kids in high poverty schools or these people’s property values?
Back to Dorian’s comment… If his comment upsets you ask yourself why. Is it because he’s wrong? Or is it because you’re personally invested in the status quo? BTW, saying you only care about your kid and your property values is fine. Just own it.
Tags: Charter Schools, Edducation, Featured, poverty
Nobody had to design a system that “pits community against community.” It’s a product of housing patterns.
And the poor don’t own their own housing, so “property values” is an oxymoron.
Why do people take care of themselves first? Because we’re chimpanzees. The behavior patterns are nearly identical.
In short, your problem here is with human nature, so good luck with changing that.
Where do you live? Can you honestly answer that your position is not affected by your concern about the value of your property? Because let’s face it, improving education outcomes in poor neighborhoods should improve those property values.
By the way, simply building expensive schools in poor neighborhoods is not the answer. Look up the experience in Kansas City. The problem isn’t education funding per se, it’s that poor kids don’t have any of the same out-of-school advantages middle-class and rich kids have.
The model that works is providing government services through school buildings — if, that is, you can keep the poor students in the same schools year after year. Though we seldom acknowledge it, one problem for many low-income kids is the lack on continuity is a single school district, let alone a single school.
And, finally, it should be noted that Delaware funds 60% (sometimes more) of its education spending through the state rather than local districts — that’s the second-highest percentage in the nation. So the notion that we need even MORE equalization, while true, is going to be a tough sell politically.
We could chalk up a lot of problems to human nature and then call it a day. Income inequality, immigration, job loss, etc.
I completely understand that this isn’t going to be easy – I’m not even sure if it’s possible. What I refuse to do is ignore it, and if that makes us uncomfortable… good.
The hardest part about this problem is getting people to admit it is a problem. They’ll do blame everything but the actual problem – poor parents don’t care about their children; they don’t care enough to fill out an application, people should move to a better neighborhood, etc.. Because if they actually tell the truth then we could discuss possible solutions. Believe me, I know that we don’t want to have that conversation, which is why I’m bracing myself for the explosion which will come with the WEIC conclusion.
We allowed the system to create educational winners and losers. We need to address that.
*I live in the city, but since all this education nonsense started my property values have risen. So has the wealth in my neighborhood. Families who send their kids to private school buy here. Sure, some fill out a choice application, but if they don’t get in they just pay the tuition they already planned to pay. My community is a lot less diverse then when I moved in, and I don’t really like that.
I’m personally thinking it would be easier just to give up on the whole equality thing and strike the provision about inherited titles in the Constitution. Then we could get on with being the best damn feudal society we can be.
We HAVE chalked those problems up to human nature and called it a day, and for the same reason — under our system, the people with the power/money have all the advantages they need to preserve the status quo.
The difference on this issue is that it’s not just the powerful against the poor — it is, in very real terms, about middle-class people trying to preserve what they have. All the moral indignation in the world won’t make a dent in that.
I’d call it reasoned thought more than moral indignation, but I take your point.
I get that working class and middle class white people often have as their only asset the equity in their home. Hence they’ll protect it from threat. But is there a threat? Are we sure that the value of those homes plummet if more poor black kids go to the schools in their district? What people think will happen and what the facts say actually happen are quite regularly very different. Even if home values do indeed decrease isn’t this because the irrational flight from black people created the market situation in the first instance? I see no way to escape the fact that this argument is racist in the first place and everything derives from that.
Every time I have ever heard the phrase ‘perception is reality’ I feel the immediate urge to punch someone in the throat.
What Dorian said.
Sorry, but when you argue that people “deserve” something, that’s not rational, that’s emotional.
” I see no way to escape the fact that this argument is racist in the first place and everything derives from that.” So what? Believe it or not, racism is neither illegal nor powerless.
Your high horses aren’t going to be able to cross onto the actual battlefield. Enjoy riding them, though.
Perception is not reality, but neither is your scolding. Whatever the reason for the lowered property values, the property values are lowered. I would argue that whatever the penalty in property value for the poor schools has long since been exacted, but clearly not everyone realizes that.
Meanwhile, nothing any of you said comes close to forming a position a reluctant white person could endorse. And I say that as someone who agrees with you both on the issue.
And just by the by, the WEIC exists only so that its “solution” cannot be pinned on any elected official. That should indicate how popular this whole clown show is with the actual public, as opposed to education activists.
Not when it’s education or heath care. American kids deserve equal schools and everyone deserves health care. Is saying every citizen deserves due process rational or emotional?
As far as the racism bit, I thought the first part of getting to a solution is admitting you have a problem.
I’m not scolding anyone. I’m just stating the fact of the thing.
Anyway, we basically agree. Plus like I said, I have no kids nor will I ever, it really isn’t my problem personally.
I think we agree on the issue, we’re just arguing semantics. I would argue it’s still a moral argument you’re using, as opposed the the legalistic example you gave — fairness is the issue in both cases, but one is supported by morality, the other by law.
I’d also point out that what we’re arguing is like explaining to conservatives why the “fair tax” is unfair. We have tried giving each student the same amount of funding; what we’ve learned is that poor kids need MORE funding, not an equal amount, to bring them up to standards/grade level. As the support for the flat tax makes clear, “fairness” is not a fixed standard in the public mind. Hence LGBT rights are considered “special rights” to, um, let’s call them “low-rationality voters.”
What we need is a way to explain to reluctant white parents that better outcomes are worth the expenditure. The lot of us already agree on that. What I’m stumped for is an argument that resonates with the JustOnes.
There is the same relationship between funding and outcome as there is between test scores and achievement , approximately none. That’s why red clay, and other districts, resort to threats to fill the coffers. Voters have long ago concluded that their money isn’t being spent effectively. And, as for the proposal that money be redirected from wealthy homeowners to poorer districts, well, we have that, too. When 20% of eligible children in a district are attending private school, all their taxes are “redistributed.” When blue states subsidize red ones, that means I’m helping pay for the mess in Mississippi . So, not funding, not testing, what else have we got? I ask this seriously, because I live in a neighborhood where, despite the fact that the majority of families are two income families, many of whom have advanced degrees, their children emerge from high school, if they make it through, unable to handle college work. We talk about our school system as though the problem was that some percentage of our schools were failing, or our urban schools are failing, or we’re failing special needs and ESL populations, and those things are demonstrably true. But we’re failing a big chunk of everyone, and it’s a damn emergency.
Here’s what I don’t understand, Brooke. If many of these people have advanced degrees then they have a ton of insider knowledge. Why didn’t they prepare their kids for college work? Did they not know what their kids were learning/not learning?
That’s not to say we can’t improve education at all levels (we can/should), but it seems to me that more family involvement applies to more parents than high poverty/high needs families. Because if what you say is true there are many parents who are dropping their kids off at school and letting the schools/teachers do the heavy lifting.
Exactly so, Pandora. I believe the schools, and the teachers in them, have been made responsible (but not empowered to be effective) for a host of societal must haves that are largely unrelated to their core mission.
But that is what we’ve voted for, so it’s what we’ve got. We elect people who love assessment metrics, we get testing. Is there a way to increase stakeholder involvement, across the board? i don’t know, and I don’t know how much more crisis needs to manifest before people decide it is NOT being handled. What continues to surprise me is how effective NIMBY strategies, like hiding gifted programs in buildings with struggling populations, seem to be in coopting the few remaining middle class parents who might be working to change the system.
So what we need then, is a progressive property tax system… where wealthier expanses pay at a higher rate per unit than do poor expanses. We can probably do the theoretical part fairly easily. The real work begins with on the politics.