Bolding mine. That’s what nice white parents say they want. But that’s not what their actions indicate they want.
I think the thing that stood out to me from listening to the podcast is that it’s nice white parents who get to define what counts as “top quality education”. As the originators of a proposed concept, they are well-positioned to have their kids benefit from it once it is approved and implemented. But to preserve the program as an exemplier of top quality education, they cannot make it general access. It has to be limited to the few who will maintain its prestige. Otherwise, their kid loses their privilege.
The nice white parents could have pushed for a Spanish immersion program. Spanish is the second-most commonly spoken language in NYC. But that wasn’t what they wanted. Spanish lacks prestige. It is too “common” (in more ways than one). And Junior won’t have an advantage in such a class since it will be full of Juanitas and Julios, who’ve been speaking Spanish since the day they were born. Spanish immersion <> top notch education. But French immersion? Yes. You won’t see a bunch of black and brown kids in that classroom. So the prestige will always be there. Junior will always have an edge. We won’t call it a gifted program, but that’s exactly how it will be treated because only the smart (white) kids will be there.
Nice white parents are always coming up with innovative ideas for themed schools that would attract people like themselves. They do this in the name of diversity, but it’s really in the name of “special thing for my special kid so I can be happy about sending him to public school and also feel virtuous about not being a stuck-up snob like those other white people who live in the neighborhood”. If nice white parents could drop the mentality that public schools are broken and just enroll their kids without expecting drastic changes tailored just for them, then maybe the nice white parents really would be nice.
It isn’t universally prestigious, obviously. Furthermore, not everyone values prestige. Lots of parents just want their children to learn the skills and knowledge that will help them grow up to be productive members of society. They don’t particularly care about having something to brag about at Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family.
So the idea here, is that if I recycle like mad, drive electric cars, etc etc etc, but I throw some peanut shells in the park, I am the bad guy, not the company dumping 100000 gallons of toxic waste a day., right?
Bullshit. Let’s get rid of the rabid, dangerous racists first.
This is the perfect is the enemy of good fallacy , aka the Nirvana fallacy.
This is what led to 4 years of trump- “Hillary isnt perfect, so lets vote 3rd part, or stay home” and what might lead to four more years and the end of democracy in America.
Let’s talk about me since I’m a nice white person and I have a child in public school. We’re in a district with about 30% Black students, and my son has been in this district since Kindergarten, he’s in 7th grade now. His classrooms have been pretty well racially mixed from day one, but our district has a problem with the “Achievement Gap”. It was a problem 7 years ago, and it’s a problem now.
How would I feel if my son’s Kindergarten class marked the class where the A Gap was defeated? Where now in 7th grade, the Black students and the White students were all achieving comparable high marks? I would be happy. Legitimately, honestly happy that my district wasn’t failing a third of our students anymore. No bullshit. It would be a point of pride stoking the fires of my liberal heart.
How would I feel if at the start of Kindergarten, the district said “In order to combat the A Gap, were going to cancel the robust electives and Mandarin language program you thought was freekin’ awesome when you when you registered your child to this school”? I’m pretty sure I’d have blown the fuck up, and I’m normally the “it’ll be fine” guy when the annoying parents of my town get their hackles up.
Well it sounds like the white kids get to learn French and the black and hispanic kids get to learn how to be productive members of society. Everybody gets what they want, what is the problem?
We’ve equated those “robust electives and Mandarin language program” with excellent education. But when you were in the sixth grade, did your school have those things? Mine didn’t. I don’t think I received an inferior education. I think it was pretty damn good. So why do we treat schools that don’t have those things today like they are broken? The ever-evolving standards of what’s “best” guarantees inequality, since by the time the school without Mandarin gets their program installed, the school that had Mandarin now has a Dothrakian program that’s all the rage.
Because schools within schools are demoralizing for the larger student body. When 10% of the student body is kept on a separate insulated track, governed by its own culture and rules, the other 90% of the student body can’t help but feel some kind of way about it. Now add the class and race pieces and that feeling gets even more negative.
It has been my experience that affluent black folks don’t try to “colonize” an existing public school like the nice white parents in the podcast. They either have their kids in public schools already or they have them in private schools, with nary a shred of guilt like nice white parents might have.
The podcast does a good job of comparing white people’s desire for integration versus black/brown people’s desire. White parents tend to want integration because they believe there’s inherent value to diversity. They want their kids to experience people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnicities because they believe this kind of experience makes for a richer educational experience. Black/brown parents tend to want integration because they believe it’s the best way to ensure equal funding and treatment. They don’t think there’s something magical about sitting next to white kids in the same classroom. They just think that the quality of education their kids will receive will be better when there are white kids in their classrooms.
Nice white parents want an ideal. They want their kid to be in a classroom with some black kids and some brown kids and some Asian kids, but they don’t want their kid to be the only white kid. They want lots of white kids in that class. And they want the non-white kids to be a certain quality. Not the ruffians, but the “nice” ones. The thing is, that’s not what a nice white parent is going to see when they take a tour of the average NYC public school. They will will see a sea of black/brown children, and all of them will look like stereotypes–since nice white parents don’t have lots of experience with racial minorities. So they either change their mind about diversity and decide to keep paying private school tuition or they try to create a special “school with a school” so that their kids get have a private school-like education at public school prices.
Affluent black parents are less likely to see a predominately black school and think “this must a bad school!” Just like affluent black parent are less likely to judge a rando predominately black neighborhood as “ghetto”. So I think an affluent black parent is less likely to go into a public school thinking it needs a major restructuring before they’ll let their kid go there. No one cares whether a black person nopes out of a school anyway. Integration is really about attracting white people. Black people, even those with money, are a dime a dozen in urban public schools.
I should hope that these articles are a reflection of that many GWP have realized that some of their past attitudes and strategies were not exactly the best. As in, when trying to help the minorities, ask the communities what help is it they need/want, rather than presume to know what will benefit them.
Right, the podcast said, I think, that nice white parents will avoid schools whose enrollment is less than 25 percent white, or something like that. Non-white parents have no comparable standard.
DC and PG County, MD schools are both majority Black. Charter schools are popular in both, but especially DC, where the charter schools have higher Black and Hispanic/Latino percentages than DCPS as a whole. Both have special programs as well, but I don’t know demographics. Some of the charters and programs are standalone, and others share space with other schools.
I’m less familiar with PG County, having never lived there. The woman who used to sit next to me had both her kids in a standalone public French immersion program there, until her oldest wasn’t doing as well and she moved him elsewhere. Which highlights my (albeit limited) observation that while most kids do ok wherever, not every kid thrives under every education style. And I think different options for kids at different levels with different needs and interests is a good thing. You can’t replicate Duke Ellington School of the Arts or Phelps Architecture, Construction, and Engineering High School at every campus, but I’m glad they’re there for the kids who are into that sort of thing.
That said, I’ve definitely heard people discuss the phenomenon of white people moving into predominantly minority neighborhoods, having kids, then being all “let’s start a charter school!” instead of working with the existing options. But I don’t know how frequently it happens.
I agree with most of what you write. It is a rare white liberal parent that really gives a shit about social justice beyond assuaging their white guilt or providing their white kids with an enriched environment.
But some of these wealthy neighborhoods in Maryland used to be working class white neighborhoods. I wonder if there was a similar type of colonialism that occurred in the gentrification of those neighborhoods.
A large part of white privilege is the wide range of choices that society provides you.
A similar choice being given to blacks, hispanics (and asians) is seen as undermining public education.
The blacks and hispanics are a captive audience with no chocie but to take what they we given by a dept of education that has failed them for generations and to smile while the rich white lady explains the benefits of being bilingual to the peurto rican mom raising money for a french immerison program targetted at the white kids at her school.
I took it to mean a response to the title of the OP. GWP are not the enemy. They aren’t even a majority of European-Americans. With less hurtful actions and attitudes and a smaller size, it’s ludicrous to call them the enemy. Which doesn’t mean that anyone is free from having to reflect on their own actions and attitudes, it’s just that the “rabid, dangerous racists”, such as anyone who was intelligent enough to know Trump’s history and voted for him anyway, are more dangerous.
What makes a school good? Public schools all receive almost the same amount of resources from the government, (poor schools receive more but not much more). PTA fundraising is nowhere near enough to make difference.
Kids are not born with the desire to work hard in school. Most only work as hard as needed to keep their parents off their backs.
What makes good schools is good parents. First to motivate their kids and secondly to hold school administrators accountable. The Karen attitude, means that white parents are willing to make a huge stink if their kids are saddled with a bad teacher or discipline problems are not taken care of.
Local funding for public schools is wildly variable, and there are overall trends demonstrating that there are overall racial and income/wealth-based disparities.
That’s probably true, but once kids get to be teens it’s their peers who have the biggest influence on them, way beyond parents or teachers. So it does make sense for parents to care about who is sitting in the same classroom with them.
Which is not to say choosing peers on the basis of race makes sense, although that may be what some parents are doing. Just that they do make a difference.
I should hope that these articles are a reflection of that many GWP have realized that some of their past attitudes and strategies were not exactly the best. As in, when trying to help the minorities, ask the communities what help is it they need/want, rather than presume to know what will benefit them.