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"Plenty of kids born outside of marriage don't live in poverty, and plenty that are born inside of marriage grow up in dysfunctional families."
There are always exceptions and outliers, but, as a statistical matter, children born to parents who are not married to each other do FAR worse on just about every objective measure of well-being.
Placing Blacks in schools where they are surrounded by better prepared students, through affirmative action, has not been proven to be beneficial to them. They are more likely to drop out of those schools than are Blacks who attend schools where they were appropriately placed.
This I don't necessarily agree with only because most evidence suggests otherwise. For example, UVA's 6 year graduation rate for african americans is ~87% while the rate for whites is ~92%. African Americans at schools who practice some form of Aff-Act actually graduate at a considerably higher rate.
But,:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Denton56
If public schools educated ALL students, from kindergarten on, there would be no need for affirmative action. Unfortunately, most of our public schools do not educate students. Whites and Asians can more often afford to supplement with tutors and summer programs and home schooling, things that poor Blacks cannot afford. Until we have school choices for ALL students who want to learn, poor kids will remain on the bottom and those students will disproportionately be Black. As long as public schools continue to dumb down and teach ever more flaky math, poor kids don't stand a chance. Even affirmative action can't save them from crummy public schools that don't prepare them to be competitive in college and certainly they can't major in the higher paying fields of study. They don't have the math background that gives them the options of majoring in engineering or pre med or accounting.
This I actually do agree with. I don't necessarily agree with you on a lot of things but you pretty much hit the nail on the head with this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Denton56
Why can't we say that some cultures stink?! When a ''culture'' supports having children without being married, condemning them to poverty, that culture is wrong! Everyone knows it, but no one wants to address it. So we let them continue, generation after generation, each generation poorer than the previous one. No amount of affirmative action can make up for that.
The problem with that is, no other culture supports out-of-wedlock pregnancy any more than the American culture does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by claremarie
"Plenty of kids born outside of marriage don't live in poverty, and plenty that are born inside of marriage grow up in dysfunctional families."
There are always exceptions and outliers, but, as a statistical matter, children born to parents who are not married to each other do FAR worse on just about every objective measure of well-being.
True, but isn't that a bit oxymoronic? Objective measure of well-being?
But no, you are right.
There are more respectful ways of expressing concern about the perception/reality of socioeconomic differences and their impact on education than what has been expressed in some of the more recent posts on this thread.
As always, please respect the diversity on this forum and the region in general.
"True, but isn't that a bit oxymoronic? Objective measure of well-being?"
Not at all. Little objective things like living in poverty, being suspended from school, failing to graduate from high school, becoming a teen parent, being incarcerated, being a homicide victim (or perpetrator), running away from home, committing suicide, suffering from various forms of mental illness -- all of these are far more likely to happen to children born outside marriage.
Location: Ft. Washington/Oxon Hill border, MD (Prince George's County)
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If we want to talk about cultural morals regarding having kids out of wedlock lets also talk about the lack of cultural morals in those in the majority culture that treat abortion like birth control. Yeh so they can quote stats that are slightly better than minority young girls but that would quickly even out if they didn't have all those abortions. Frankly I know many minority girls who just do not believe in aborting the child...and they unfortunately have many examples of young women around them that survived having a kid on their own at a young age so it seems doable...so yes it may be easier for them to make that choice that derails their future versus a young white female who may not have such examples everywhere around her. Yes they should have protected themselves to begin with to not have to make that horrible choice but I can't look down on them either for being stronger than many women and men in this country who will have it sucked out without blinking so they can continue a holier than thou stance not shame their family or ruin their future or disrupt their college years after a fateful night in the frat house with some dude and point then finger at the poor lil minority that may (or may not) continue a cycle of poverty because she chose to keep hers. I'm Pro-choice though like many am not a fan of abortion but I think women should have the right and I also do not agree with having children outside marriage as an unwed teen (yet if a more mature adult couple do not want to marry but have kids that is their business...and for those that have a perspective on life in this global world that is limited to all things USA...frankly having kids without marriage is an accepted and common part of the culture in European countries and is just more taboo here in the US).
If we want to talk about cultural morals regarding having kids out of wedlock lets also talk about the lack of cultural morals in those in the majority culture that treat abortion like birth control. Yeh so they can quote stats that are slightly better than minority young girls but that would quickly even out if they didn't have all those abortions. Frankly I know many minority girls who just do not believe in aborting the child...and they unfortunately have many examples of young women around them that survived having a kid on their own at a young age so it seems doable...so yes it may be easier for them to make that choice that derails their future versus a young white female who may not have such examples everywhere around her. Yes they should have protected themselves to begin with to not have to make that horrible choice but I can't look down on them either for being stronger than many women and men in this country who will have it sucked out without blinking so they can continue a holier than thou stance not shame their family or ruin their future or disrupt their college years after a fateful night in the frat house with some dude and point then finger at the poor lil minority that may (or may not) continue a cycle of poverty because she chose to keep hers. I'm Pro-choice though like many am not a fan of abortion but I think women should have the right and I also do not agree with having children outside marriage as an unwed teen (yet if a more mature adult couple do not want to marry but have kids that is their business...and for those that have a perspective on life in this global world that is limited to all things USA...frankly having kids without marriage is an accepted and common part of the culture in European countries and is just more taboo here in the US).
Thanks for sharing... but I think we need to get back to the subject of Northern Virginia schools.
I live in Loudoun, and I consider the public school system here better than most private schools in the state I moved from. I speak from experience here, as I attended both private and public schools as a child. Since moving here, my value of the importance of education has skyrocketed. I think it is the competition that drives it, and I have come to appreciate it. Overall, I think it is attributed to eduated parents who commit alot of time towards their childs education that makes it all possible.
As a newbie can someone please give me a general run-down of the way these newfangled "pyramids" work? Am I to understand that the K-12 school alignment your child is set to go through if you move into a new home when they're still in pre-school may shift dramatically by the time they graduate high school if the county decides it needs to re-align the pyramids along the way to better reflect the needs of the budget and/or staff-to-student ratios? If this is the case and there is no solid guarantee that your pyramid is "safe," then why do so many in NoVA pay artificially inflated housing prices in places like Great Falls, Langley, McLean, Vienna, etc. if their pyramid can shift, leaving them with a diminished property value if their pyramid is then less "desirable?" If the home is really only worth $750,000 but is sold for $900,000 because of the great school pyramid, then why would anyone be willing to take the gamble of the value dropping back off to $750,000 if and when the pyramid changes? That just seems incredibly risky and stupid to me. Doesn't this just promote socioeconomic segregation in our area as the well-to-do are all cutthroat to settle into the same specific areas to get the best schools money can buy while leaving the middle-class peons to wallow around with the not-so-hot pyramids?
As a newbie can someone please give me a general run-down of the way these newfangled "pyramids" work? Am I to understand that the K-12 school alignment your child is set to go through if you move into a new home when they're still in pre-school may shift dramatically by the time they graduate high school if the county decides it needs to re-align the pyramids along the way to better reflect the needs of the budget and/or staff-to-student ratios? If this is the case and there is no solid guarantee that your pyramid is "safe," then why do so many in NoVA pay artificially inflated housing prices in places like Great Falls, Langley, McLean, Vienna, etc. if their pyramid can shift, leaving them with a diminished property value if their pyramid is then less "desirable?" If the home is really only worth $750,000 but is sold for $900,000 because of the great school pyramid, then why would anyone be willing to take the gamble of the value dropping back off to $750,000 if and when the pyramid changes? That just seems incredibly risky and stupid to me. Doesn't this just promote socioeconomic segregation in our area as the well-to-do are all cutthroat to settle into the same specific areas to get the best schools money can buy while leaving the middle-class peons to wallow around with the not-so-hot pyramids?
Scran - Sorry you're home sick.
For any address in the county, students are assigned to a particular elementary, middle and high schools (a "school pyramid"). Some elementary schools send students to more than one middle school, and some middle schools send students to more than one high school. Such elementary and middle schools are referred to as "split feeders."
FCPS also groups schools in "pyramids" for administrative, rather than attendance, purposes, and this often creates confusion with parents, since split feeders, like other schools, are designated as part of a single "pyramid." For example, Franklin Sherman is identified as part of the McLean HS pyramid, even though some of its students go to Langley, Colvin Run is identified as part of the Langley HS pyramid, even though some of its students go to McLean, etc.
Boundaries can and do change, although some areas are considered "safer" and less likely to be redistricted than others. Parents who do their research presumably understand all this. Redistrictings are rarely popular, except perhaps when a new school is being built and some families are excited about having their children attend a new school. As you might anticipate, there is typically an outcry when students are redistricted from a school with higher test scores, such as Oakton or Madison, to a school with lower test scores, such as South Lakes. Needless to say, the argument that parents in a county-wide system have a quasi-property right in not being redistricted to a school with lower test scores does not move judges very much. But the School Board recently redistricted some Annandale HS students to Lake Braddock SS (where the test scores are higher), and some Annandale parents showed up at a School Board meeting and testified against that redistricting, too.
I must confess I don't follow your questions about housing values and the assumptions that are embedded in your questions. Do you think the "true value" of a house in Fairfax County is the value of the house if the students were assigned to, say, South Lakes in Reston rather than Oakton or Langley? Home values reflect quite a few variables, of which the assigned schools and the possibility of school redistrictings are but two factors.
As long as there are neighborhood-based schools, the schools will generally reflect the socio-economic characteristics of those neighborhoods. If you've ever looked at a FPCS boundary map, FCPS appears to try and achieve socio-economic diversity in some instances, and not in others. It's really quite random, at least when viewed from a distance. Parents who are hell-bent on getting the "best schools money can buy," however, may be putting their kids in private school anyway and, as you've noted yourself in other posts, the FCPS schools that (in your words) "middle-class peons" attend generally are very good by national standards.
Thanks. I'm feeling a bit better now and should be back to work tomorrow (fortunately the boss is on vacation, and it's been a very slow week anyways!)
My housing value comments come into play because I know back in Northeastern Pennsylvania the areas with the most expensive housing also had the schools with the highest rankings/test scores. It seemed to me very much so that sellers were able to ask for higher housing prices because buyers would be willing to pay them in order to send their children to these schools. However, in that area the schools were fixed and weren't subject to a "pyramid" system, so it's understandable in a sense that people COULD pay $250,000 for a home that would sell for $175,000 in a less desirable adjoining school district and know that their investment would be sound as long as the school district held up its end of the bargain in providing good academics. In NoVA I just don't see why people can ask more for the homes they're selling in "great school pyramids" if there's no guarantee that the pyramid will be the same five years down the line. If someone paid $900,000 for a home that was really only worth $750,000 because the pyramid included a great high school, and then redistricting three years later set the stage for the children at that address to attend a less desirable high school, then wouldn't the home's resale value tank? I honestly see no other reason for housing prices in places like Vienna, McLean, Langley, or Great Falls to be so much more exorbitant than the rest of the region other than buyers using the strong school pyramids as a "crutch." The quality-of-life doesn't seem to be any higher in a place like Great Falls than a place like Reston (on the contrary with the lack of sidewalks, bike lanes, commerce, etc. in Great Falls it seems like a pretty UNdesirable place to live for most).
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If this is the case and there is no solid guarantee that your pyramid is "safe," then why do so many in NoVA pay artificially inflated housing prices in places like Great Falls, Langley, McLean, Vienna, etc. if their pyramid can shift, leaving them with a diminished property value if their pyramid is then less "desirable?" If the home is really only worth $750,000 but is sold for $900,000 because of the great school pyramid, then why would anyone be willing to take the gamble of the value dropping back off to $750,000 if and when the pyramid changes? That just seems incredibly risky and stupid to me. 
Doesn't this just promote socioeconomic segregation in our area as the well-to-do are all cutthroat to settle into the same specific areas to get the best schools money can buy while leaving the middle-class peons to wallow around with the not-so-hot pyramids? 
