Arne Duncan: ‘White suburban moms’ upset that Common Core shows their kids aren’t ‘brilliant’

[gollygee]

30. I think you're right

Last edited Mon Nov 18, 2013, 10:55 AM - Edit history (1)

As a middle class white mom to school aged kids, I think you're right although I don't think they would word it that way. (Which doesn't make you any less right.) They would say something like they paid more for their home so they'd live in a "better" school district so their kids would get the best education. And of course, wherever there is a better and a best, there is a worse and a worst. They fully expect the worse schools to be schools that students of color attend.

Every child in our country needs a solid education, or at least an opportunity to get one. Though I think having higher expectations without having the necessary staff/infrastructre in place isn't the best way to go about it. School districts with mainly white kids have teachers with higher levels of experience than school districts with mainly students of color. They also have fewer kids per class, newer and better maintained schools, better supplies and equipment, and more opportunities offered for advanced classes. And even in integrated schools, kids get tracked very very early, before anyone could know what their real potential is, and white students get tracked higher than students who are not white.

My kids' school has a limit of 18 kids per kindergarten class, and 22 kids per class through 6th grade. On that basis alone, my kids will learn more, before you take into consideration any of the other inequities, which are also substantial.

I guess the issue is that we have to take care of the inequities, not just raise standards.

And then when urban schools don't perform as well, we sell them off to corporations to turn a profit.

Education is so screwed up in this country in so many ways, but the disparity of the quality of education between white school districts and school districts where most of the kids are not white is the biggest problem IMO. And I'm part of that problem, because I paid more for a house in a school district that has a limit of 18 kids per kindergarten class and 22 kids per class through 6th grade.

I guess the issue is that the educational status quo is working for us, the white middle class, and we as a group (not me personally) want to keep it simply because it works so well for us.