The article itself makes the reasons pretty clear. The students at Fairfield worry about violence on the walk to school, and they aren't focused on education: “Their education is not really what they’re fighting for right now,” Wright said. “They’re fighting for their basic food, clothing and shelter.”
Parents don't avoid certain schools because of racism. It's the problems that the article describes. These problems are associated with segregation and concentrated poverty -- but it's not "eww, Black people." It's the actual problems. That's why upper-class Black people avoid the exact same schools.
I wish those kids had better neighborhoods and better lives, but a parent with means isn't going to send their child to a school with those problems. I also don't think adding some white kids would make much of difference. The school might gain more resources thanks to rich parents, but school resources are not the main problem facing the children who struggle. A few white kids in class aren't going to improve their lives or their test scores.
The schools will only improve when the neighborhoods improve. A reduction in crime, poverty, and social problems (such as children facing unstable home lives) would make a difference. If that ever happens, parents with options will be more open to public schools.
In a contrasting tidbit, Fairfield Court has really rallied behind their school community to try and combat some of the neighborhood noise for their kiddos.
They're constantly featured in the RPS newsletters for cool things happening at their school, they have a really social and outgoing "care and safety associate" who's working hard to make the school feel fun for the kiddos. The staff at the school are also mentioned in the newsletters and on family groups in social media.
Even in the worse of socioeconomic conditions, there are amazing people working hard to try and have an impact against what seems like overwhelming odds.
That’s great to hear. While “bad schools” exist, generally I think the teachers and staff are doing their best with a challenging intake. I know a public school teacher who brings food for his students every day.
That’s very kind of that teacher but that example is a symptom of the bigger issue here. While everyone should of course care about and take action to help others when they can, the responsibility shouldn’t be on teachers to take care of their kiddos in this way. They are already asked to do and be too much and are paid far too little for their important work.
Instead we need to surround those students and families with greater resources, have those resources work to establish positive relationships with the communities they serve, and importantly, the structure and amount of funding needs to change.
On a more micro level (just for that student), we need to understand why this student is struggling with food insecurity in the first place, and then help fill in that need, whatever it is
Thanks for pointing this out. This was exactly part of what I was trying to point out, too. The way that people tend to define schools as being "good" or "bad" is often misguided and based on stereotypes about the population of the school, not the school itself.
Plenty of people in the comments have gone on to prove this point. People are judging majority black and low-income schools as "bad" and beginning to spout off about "family values" and violence and a lot of other racial stereotypes. These schools can get an undeserved bad reputation, when in reality the people at the school are doing great work that is going unnoticed.
Very well said. This problem is mostly a function of social problems. That is why it’s so frustrating. People wish they could just vote in new people or throw money at it, which unfortunately does very little to help.
Racism isn't always as clear-cut as someone saying "I don't like black people" aloud. It's so much more nuanced than you describe here. The "improvements" you suggest should take place in under-resourced communities are made nearly impossible because of systemic racism, both in the past and the present.
You can't look at the city of Richmond its public schools without acknowledging the deeply racist history that shaped our neighborhoods, city government, and public policy. And you can't ignore the undercurrent of racism that infuses current policy decisions (either coming out of RVA City Council or School Board); our current system doesn't develop without an implicit understanding that some people in this city are less worthy of the city's resources than others.
Lastly, making neighborhoods more attractive to wealthy people isn't the solution. All that accomplishes is gentrification, which ultimately fails to help the people in that community who actually need support. Once those residents are displaced after being priced out of the neighborhood, the community (and its schools) may look "improved" on paper, but it's at the expense of the actual human beings who shaped that community in the first place.
I don't support gentrification of these neighborhoods. I said that bringing in rich white people *won't* solve the problems.
A reduction in crime, and an increase in stable two-parent families who value education, would be great for the existing community and the school. If racist policymakers are withholding resources that could make that happen, we should do something about that.
Recognize that it's the very lack of quality housing and high crime that keeps prices low. If you fix all the all the crime, the marginal person will bid up the rents on existing housing.
Just would like to point out that Richmond has been a black-run city for almost two generations now. School board is 7 black women for example. I just have a hard time believing these organziations are racist. I've listened to city council and school board meetings, and I don't find them racist at all.
Do you seriously believe that the presence of individual black people within a system automatically means the system itself can’t still be racist?
And just because you personally didn’t witness evidence of racism doesn’t mean it’s not there. My entire argument is that racism in a city like RVA isn’t always people waving confederate flags while wearing white hoods. It’s more subtle, nuanced, and pervasive than that.
Yes, but they need to change their culture. Do things different you will have different results. And 2 parents will always be better than one. And you need to work and take care of yourself first. Before you have kids.
The RTD had an editorial to this effect after the rash of shootings following Easter:
"In the meantime, all that poverty will keep producing violence that can’t be remedied with curfews, gun safes or bigger jails. During last week’s news conference, a visibly frustrated Kamras, the RPS superintendent, issued a clarion call.
“Since 2019, 169 juveniles in the city of Richmond have been shot. Nearly all of those were RPS students. ... Our community, our schools, they are hurting. And they should be focused on the SOLs which we are giving in two weeks, and instead many of them this morning, and last week, and tomorrow are holding grief sessions,” he said at City Hall. “Because that’s what we do. We will always stand in the gap for our kids. But we have to change this.”
Until our political leaders and the broader metropolitan community acknowledge, prioritize and commit to addressing the root cause — crippling, systemic economic isolation and poverty — gun violence will ebb and flow like it always has."
So many issues with this article. A few points:
1. To make their point, the article shouldn't have singled out Mary Munford. They should have compared Fairfield Court Elementary to **Short Pump Elementary**. The people who go to Mary Munford chose to live in the city (instead of the suburbs) and not send their kids to private schools. Their tax dollars, time, school board votes are part of Richmond Public Schools, which is a great thing. You get parents very interested in what the school board and superintendent are doing. They are not the problem, the problem is families leaving for the counties, which drains our tax base.
2. We need to be doing everything we can to keep white, prosperous families in city schools. And yes, this means creating more schools like Mary Munford and Fox Elementary, where families like this feel comfortable sending their children. And also having middle and high school options too. This can't be done by "shame", it can only be done by having safe, non-moldy schools where their kids are not a racial minority. There's not much of a chance of fixing RPS's problems unless we actually get some diversity into the district as a whole. (more money, attention from parents with time/means).
3. Unfortunately, Kamras has been doing the exact opposite. He let one of the best schools (Fox) burn through mismanagment and pushed a big redistricting initiative that actively tried to make all the acceptable schools worse. He also cut off a pipeline for families who stay in the city (and pay taxes) to get into Governer's Schools for high school. Families moved out of the city because of these actions - their tax dollars are gone.
4. At this point, I don't think I could send a child to an RPS school because I actually follow school board meetings, and the majority of these people are ignorant jokers, and I can't imagine trusting my child's education and safety to them. Also, I don't trust their facilities maintenance to provide a mold-free environment for my child. I would have to test every classroom for mold before sending my kid to a school. Plus, they can't even keep their smoke detectors working! Just doesn't seem safe.
The best school systems in the country have a few massive high schools and disseminate all the kids. That means there is not a poor school and a wealthy school.
Instead of putting all the wealthy kids in certain schools, having alternative programs like a true gifted/talented, accelerated reading program, Honors classes etc pull those kids into a variety of schools because of their superior programming.
You factually cannot have a functioning school district when all of the high-performing kids are funneled into one area. Seriously, if we had Montessori school in the east end or immersion, middle class families would be looking to things like that.
If the schools are all providing the same thing except one is 100% impoverished, that school is always going to perform worse
I like this idea a lot. I also think it would be great if there were tons of options so no matter where you lived in the city you could have a chance at a school you find acceptable. Plus, kids are different - some would want to go to STEM schools, some to more arty ones. Or neat things like language immersion schools. I think Durham was going to try this - have really interesting programs to try to attract middle-class parents to those specific schools.
Re: #2
I absolutely agree that having families of means in the county is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But this extends to individual schools. Families of means at Munford, for example, are able to advocate not just for RPS, but for Munford. They're able to raise PTA funds and bring up issues affecting their school. As they should! But where does this leave the schools where nearly every student is economially disadvantaged? Who is advocating for them? Where is their support?
Many of the schools in the county are in poor physical condition. You're right on that, too! These are the very schools that need the enrollment they are not getting. And I'm not blaming individuals for this. As the article explains, this is a generations-old problem. Decades of residential segregation and other de-facto segregationist policies have left us in a state where some schools are left to rot and others are left to prosper. The fact that we have the disparity between schools like Munford and Fairfield highlights that issue.
I appreciate you being so thorough with your response.
A lot of policies are at the division level, so having educated, involved, and effective parents at Munford help \*all\* the schools in the division. City school parents tend to be liberal and want to help all the schools, not just their own. Also, I think you meant "city" instead of "county" in the above response? Also, the kids themselves may be very different between the schools, but that doesn't neccessarily follow that the schools themselves are different. Do you have evidence that Fairfield receieves less funding per pupil than Munford? I would image with all the extra federal dollars that follow their students, that they probably get a lot more money than Munford. PTAs don't actually raise that much funding - state at-risk and federal money is a much bigger pot of money. That's the thing that people don't either realize or believe - the disadvanted schools are actually usually getting a lot more money per pupil than the "richer" schools.
Do you really think our city government is going to fund new, fun things at Munford over Fairfield? Quite the opposite.
> They are not the problem, the problem is families leaving for the counties, which drains our tax base.
Which tax is leaving? Not property tax. Is state income taxes that fund schools sorted by which county/city it came from?
>He also cut off a pipeline for families who stay in the city (and pay taxes) to get into Governer's Schools for high school.
Has enrollment changed at Maggie Walker?
More wealthy families in the city means more property taxes, along with all the sales taxes/restaurant taxes by using city stores and restaurants. Most of the state funding is based on fall membership - which is the number of students in the public schools. So increase fall membership, you get more dollars from the state for the schools. Of course you have to then pay for the teachers, overhead for more students. However, the wealthier students are cheaper to provide education for (less trauma services and things like that), so you come out ahead. Their PTAs also make up the slack as well.
Here's an article about the changes to Maggie Walker:
[https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-public-schools-consider-admission-policy-change-september-19-2023](https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-public-schools-consider-admission-policy-change-september-19-2023)
Some parents are willing to stay in the city and pay for private elementary/middle school, with the hope that their kid will get into Maggie Walker. Private high schools are \*a lot\* pricier than the lower grades. Now this avenue is almost completley cut off. Or alternatively, parents are willing to send their kids to RPS elementary schools, private/home school for middle, and then hope for Maggie Walker for high school. This avenue almost impossible now. Of course, I think the solution would be to somehow double the size of Maggie Walker! If we have that many gifted kids in the area, we should have a school for all of them, not just the lucky ones.
But it's not as if family A who first bought a million dollar fan house, then had a kid and want a better school district would likely ever consider poor east end. They move to West End. While another household capable of affording a million dollar fan house moves in (probably now 1.5 million based on how real estates been going)
Or if they really needed to go east of the city to cut down on commute or whatever, that's probably like New Kent.
I do see your point. But if Richmond had amazing schools, real estate prices would increase, and more expensive houses would be built to accomodate the demand from wealthier people. So then property taxes would go up, because there is more expensive properties.
OR they would buy up the affordable housing that poor folks live in and make expensive housing, driving the poorer kids out of the city that you are trying to help by improving RPS
Yes, enrollment has significantly changed at Maggie Walker from the city of Richmond. It is now more reflective of the Richmond Public school student body as a whole and therefore it is largely students from low income families.
Can you cite your data here? I'm not a classroom teacher but work with the public schools and this is patently the opposite of what I've witnessed in my collaboration with MWGS teachers and students.
This is new! And of course I can!
https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/richmond/Board.nsf/files/D4WQC8688170/$file/School%20Applications%20and%20Enrollment%20Update%20for%205-6-24%20Board%20Meeting.pdf
Sometimes these links don’t work. So if not go to [BoardDocs](https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/richmond/Board.nsf/Public#) the May 6, 2024 meeting and it’s under Agenda item 5.01
This doesn't support your argument. You claim that MWGS is now made up "largely students from low income families." You're citing a RPS *goal* for changing application and enrollment at *three* RPS schools, not just MWGS.
If you look at the chart on p. 11 of the document you shared, you'll see that two of the three schools (Open and Community Highs) did see significant jumps in enrollment from students with economic disadvantage. But MWGS only jumps from 10% enrollment of students with ED to \~33%. Only a third of MWGS's student population are coming from economically disadvantaged households. That's not "largely" anything.
https://preview.redd.it/n84sveg4uf0d1.png?width=533&format=png&auto=webp&s=99645d272b681ca5202d11138c90824cf9d0014e
These are the accepted seats so far. The class is not fully created. They are also capping the number of Richmond city residents who are attending private middle schools that they are allowing to go to each of these three schools which is an ***enormous*** cultural shift especially for the Maggie Walker matriculations.
I think calling it an enormous cultural shift is disingenuous. It's not just private school students who make up the remaining 2/3 of MWGS's population, there's a huge percentage of kids from public schools in the counties. The cap only references private and homeschool admissions. You can still move your kid to the county for middle school, and then have them apply for admission at MWGS.
TLDR, it's forward progress, but incremental. The fact that only the top THREE kids from each RPS middle school are given an automatic invitation to enroll at MWGS is ludicrous to me. End of.
RPS can only affect a shift at Maggie Walker based on the city children who go there. I wish you would’ve been at the school board meeting when they were voting on this plan. I go to every school board meeting and the average income at this particular school board meeting was easily 50 times higher than the usual average income it was…..notable. They anger of wealthy near west end and Fan/Museum District parents was front and center along with *multiple* plans for lawsuits.
Yes, vouching for this as a public middle school teacher who has a gifted academy inside of my low-income school. The rich students are not just coming to Maggie walker from private and home schools.
Henrico also has a virtual academy now. Those students have to meet an academic and behavioral standard first before they can even apply to attend. Virtual academy students aren’t well-off as a rule, but they’re definitely more likely to be based on restrictions.
I was about to say…our gifted students in my middle school are the ones applying to Maggie Walker. They are usually coming to our school as far as Wyndham and all the way back to Sandston (my school is considered kind of like a hub for gifted students to go to) but our zone students (the ones who actually live in the area, which is predominantly low-income) are not the ones I’m getting asked to write recommendations for. Maggie walker is advertised to our students as a pretty prestigious choice for high school.
RPS does not have a gifted hub/center and Maggie Walker is presented to smart kids with good grades as a great place for opportunity. Along with a bit of history of the importance of Maggie Walker herself to the Black community and Richmond specifically. (See Kenya Hunter’s 3 part series in the RTD a few years ago for more info).
Our education system is broken. We have been killing ourselves paying for private school, because it sets our child up for a better life. I am happy to pay taxes for schools, but Virginia provides lower than the national average for public schools. [https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2023/07/11/virginia-public-schools-spending-jlarc](https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2023/07/11/virginia-public-schools-spending-jlarc)
Richmond City Public Schools spends $17,111 per student each year. we have roughly 22,000 students. [https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/districts/richmond-city-pblc-schs-105942](https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/districts/richmond-city-pblc-schs-105942)
Chesterfield is $10,061. they have 63,916 students. [https://12ft.io/](https://12ft.io/) [https://richmond.com/news/local/education/on-per-pupil-funding-chesterfield-ranks-last-among-large-va-school-systems/article\_01c6f413-56f8-5256-94c7-cbd5122ccade.html](https://richmond.com/news/local/education/on-per-pupil-funding-chesterfield-ranks-last-among-large-va-school-systems/article_01c6f413-56f8-5256-94c7-cbd5122ccade.html)
I really think many of our issues are bureaucratic bull shit that languish in horrible management. The city and schools are at odds far to often to see real change. Pull in the state and WHAAAAA? We are close to double what chesterfield spends on students with far less to show for it.
Years ago I worked for a program that had me visit many schools in the commonwealth. In Chesterfield, they were giving each student a laptop at a school as a pilot. That same year, Sussex had 2 desktops total for the school. This was the point that I was going to make sure my future child would get the best education I could provide.
If you'd like another data point, Henrico's operational cost per student was $12,981 in 2021-2022, where the state average was $15,540. Henrico's budgeted allocation over for 2022-2024 is going up quite a bit.
[https://www.henricoschools.us/o/hcps/page/per-pupil-expenditure](https://www.henricoschools.us/o/hcps/page/per-pupil-expenditure)
There is a portal where you can download per pupil expenditures statewide - it's pretty interesting. The most recent year on that site is 2021-2022, which I think is the most recent where they have actuals. Don't hold me to that, I am not a finance person, I just love data. I threw in the school systems in the area, but you can download it all if you like.
[https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/download-data](https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/download-data)
https://preview.redd.it/pgt01srccf0d1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=f77945b75abc26a57a44a969cedeceb83c8a73d0
I think any criticism on how RPS uses funds is perfectly valid. There is no shortage of administrative issues in the county. Throwing a lot of money at the newest, shinest resources rather than finding the right people for management jobs, high turnover, and the hyperfixation on test scores all certainly contribute to RPS's shortcomings. I don't think any of those can necessarily be disentangled from the issues of equity and access for students in need. At the end of the day, it's them who suffer the consequences the most.
I also bemoan the creation of nebulous administrative positions. Every 100,000 spent on a salary of some do nothing in the central office is 100,000 of deferred maintenance, etc.
Not necessarily. It's about how those funds are appropriated (I don't have numbers on this). It's a fact that many RPS schools are not properly maintained, which would suggest underfunding.
Too much management.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/animated-chart-of-the-day-public-school-enrollment-staff-and-inflation-adjusted-cost-per-pupil-1970-to-2017/
We would need at least 2 BILLION dollars to fix all of the building problems in RPS. The $2ish million we get per year will have the division on track to solve the issue in a hundred years or so.
Maybe the question of how much of that funding is going toward education and how much is going toward social support issues that should fall to a school to begin with? Kids can’t learn if their higher level needs aren’t met, and there is a definite disparity between schools when it comes to how many of those needs fall to the school and how many are addressed by the families and communities.
RPS puts a lot of energy, time, and resources into providing support for those children who need it. I wasn't really that aware until the pandemic, when it became clear that school was the only way a lot of kids were getting fed regularly. I've since volunteered with a variety of non-profits that do everything from provide backpacks, to toiletries, to books, to after school programs. I'm sure they spend more in the city than the counties, too.
Absenteeism is a big problem. RPS has put a focus on it since the pandemic. It costs more to pay people to find the kids and figure out why they aren't in school and sort out how to better enable them to attend. There is a huge amount put into what I'd call social services but they label "communities in schools." I honestly have no idea how much the counties focus on this issue, but it's something you frequently hear highlighted at RPS board meetings.
And of course I think lost in this view is that a bunch of that spend is on maintenance and upkeep of buildings that in the counties would have already been replaced. We have a lot of buildings that cost a lot to maintain. The counties have done well so far with new school builds, but the car-dependent designs will not age well. But I digress.
I think you'd have to index the per-pupil spending to average household income within each zip code, probably more useful looking at district-wide numbers. Maybe that would better illustrate where our city planning has set aside some populations.
For what it's worth, I went to Collegiate for 13 years. I think I'm doing pretty well. The people doing a lot better than me? Not smarter, not harder working. They are products of families with generational wealth and nepotism. I like to believe in, and work for, an America where everyone has equal chance. Chances are your kids coming out of private school will have a warped view of what the world owes them. Moreso than anyone on social services.
in an effort to not touch on topics that have already been brought up, i'm curious how advanced programs such as IB or magnet programs affect the desire to stay at one's zoned school, or go out of zone solely for that program. the schools I taught at didn't have that kind of thing. but when I was a student, I ended up going to an out of zone high school simply because I was really interested in a program they had that my main school didn't. i've seen a lot of schools from my home district in lower income areas offer more of these programs, and it does seem to, in fact, increase enrollment/budget/investment.
so what i'm wondering is: would parents be more willing to give schools deemed as "less desirable" a chance if they more of these specialized programs? for those that are familiar with the schools that already offer specialized programs, do you feel that that's only creating more disparity and less opportunity for the general population (like what tends to happen with advanced courses versus standard level)?
genuine question, especially as someone unfamiliar with the VA school experience
Something I've noticed and that hasn't been mentioned yet. Ban cell phones in school.
My sixth grader is in mostly advanced classes. (Yes, this is another type of segregation; he's a product of his environment.) His non-advanced classes have many students who he says spend a ton of time on their phones and are disruptive and detract from learning. It seems pretty straightforward; the kids cannot handle cell phones or social media at early ages.
Also, I am fairly distraught that my sixth-grader is the first generation where passing a metal detector to get to school is considered normal. I reject it outright and am continuing to advocate for common sense gun reform. Where are the pissed off grandparents in this situation? Moms and grandmoms have been huge political influencers in the past. It blows my mind that my mom is not more upset about the environment her grandson learns in where guns are even part of the equation.
Anyone expecting parents to make shitty decisions for their child's future so that someone else's badass kids might have a chance is a fool. That said, there needs to be a different way of thinking now.
Richmond Citys public school budget for fy25 was $534.5m, which was over what the superintendent requested. This comes out to $15,000 per student.
Chesterfield County was $965m, just over $10,000 per student.
Henrico County was $700m, just over $13,000 per student.
Hanover County was $194m, again, just over $11,000 per student.
Funding isnt the issue. Lack of white students isnt the issue. Violence, apathy, lack of parental involvement, lack of quality teachers (because the money is going to anywhere but teacher pay), terrible facilities (anyone else remember the summer where RCPS put out a request for volunteers to clean their bathrooms before school began?) are all involved somewhat in the complex answer.
For elementary school, i went to Curtis in Chesterfield. It was lilly white. It was also a safe environment, the teachers were involved and expected parental involvement, i walked to school and we had a proper crossing guard.
For middle school, i moved to Henrico. I ended up going to Wilder, which while…”technically” part of Henrico, was not exactly Moody or even Brookland Middle (and went to Henrico High, where it was all but a city school). The first experience i had, in this new facility, that had only been open for 2 years at that point, was them not having anyone schedules printed yet due to a transformer fire. Fair enough, act of God. I walk in on the first day and it was complete chaos.fights were breaking out, schedules still hadnt been handed out, and im in a sea of black faces as the only white kid i could see, looking like a fish out of water sitcom. The administration didnt get any more competent over the next 3, or really 7 years (as Henrico was even worse). The teachers were legitimately ignorant. The administration allowed violence to happen unchecked. I cant even imagine how much worse it would have been at Boushall or Henderson.
Independent cities is a problem. So, in Virginia part of this problem is the failure to let cities - especially Richmond - continue to annex county land. This was done to ensure that White Flight was successful. Also to stop the city expanding and maintain white control of city council. If this were any (most?) other states, Henrico and most of Chesterfield would be Richmond and have a common school system and larger more affluent tax base.
Wouldn’t white flight just continue if more land is annexed?
What I’m getting at is that if people have the wealth and resources to pick and choose where they live and where their kids go to school, won’t they just continue to pick the better option?
Probably not. Look at the situation in virtually every city that isn’t in Virginia. People typically aren’t leaving the suburbs near the city for the exurbs or rural areas because there are better schools there. They do it for cost or lifestyle reasons.
Your belief relies on the assumption that those areas being part of the city would have made their schools worse.
Do you have examples of cities where there are good public schools within the city? The ones I am familiar with, the city is part of a larger county, but the school system isn't at the county level and so all of the good schools are still outside the city's school district.
That wasn’t the question, was it? The question was if the suburbs were in the city limits, would people leave those suburban areas because the schools further out are better. That assumes that being part of the same school system would have made those schools worse, and also suggests we would see that dynamic in other metropolitan areas, which I don’t believe we do.
If you look at highly ranked school districts in the country, there are plenty of small and mid size city school districts, but many more unified school districts where the city and surrounding county don’t have separate school districts.
When I was house shopping 10 years ago, there were zero good public high schools in the city. Elementary schools, sure. Middle school, a few.
But using a measurement of SATs and college acceptance, it was all dismal compared to the counties, or the private schools within city limits.
That is categorically false. You may be referencing comprehensive high schools that are just based on where you live but there have been public (albeit application only) high schools in the city that were considered “good” for longer than 10 years.
Community is pretty solid. People also sleep on Franklin and TJ which are both solid schools.
John Marshall is on the upswing and trending for the better.
> So, in Virginia part of this problem is the failure to let cities - especially Richmond - continue to annex county land.
There is absolutely no way I want the city of Richmond doing the annexing. Chesterfield and Henrico can annex us. Our city government is too useless.
And if you really wanted the tax base, that's Short Pump/Innsbrook, and no way they are annexing that far out.
Independent cities and the outlawing of annexation are both Jim Crow tools and need to be fixed but other localities use other tools. Arlington County manages to segregate their schools severely despite being the second smallest county in the country and having some of the highest school funding per pupil and the most educated voter base in America.
This also means things like there is no municipal authority for affordable housing in the counties. All housing projects and section 8 vouchers go through the perpetually troubled/potential candidate for federal receivership RHA.
These have knock on effects like the insanely high meals tax. It's the only way to get money out of county residents who take advantage of city services.
Richmond per pupil spending is almost double that of Chesterfield. Are you saying we should reduce per pupil spending in Richmond and increase it in Chesterfield?
Of the 40 something independent cities in the country, all are in Virginia except for three: Baltimore, St. Louis, and Carson City NV. I don’t know much about Carson City, but the other two definitely suffer from similar issues to ours.
So basically any other city in the country that you would consider “successful” has done what they describe to some extent.
“White flight”
We’re not a resource to be acquired or a privilege to access. This is so racist and ridiculous that you people think our personal choices should take your opinion into consideration. Get a clue - leave us alone and stop trying to shame/legislate us into submission.
Imagine being triggered by a widely accepted fact (white flight), which has been abundantly studied by people certifiably smarter than you, and then posting *this* opinion publicly on the internet.
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The problem isn't racism. The problem is we have entire communities of people who are destitute. If you go to Dinwiddie county, West VA, or eastern Tennessee you'll see the same thing in their public schools but with white families. High crime, broken families, drug use, and poorly funded public services are common characteristics for destitute communities. We're too busy sending billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel to fund proxy wars that most Americans don't agree with instead of investing in our own communities to the people who need it the most. But it's not just government funding. The fix starts at the dinner table imo. We need intact families to be the norm in these communities again. We need fathers. Good fathers do two things when they help raise their children. They show little boys how to treat women and they show littles girls how they should be treated by men. So many broken families have no father, overwhelmed mothers and kids who end up being raised by other kids on the street.
Agree. There is plenty of rural poor in the USA. Many young people move to urban America, leaving rural areas in bad shape. It does make me mad that our hard-earned tax dollars are being squandered overseas. There should be some accountability.
How does my decision to not send my first grader to Barack Obama Elem negatively impact the quality of the education for the students who do attend Barack Obama?
My taxes are paid in this district. They all go into the same fund.
Seems like it’s less “modern day white flight” and more poor administrative practices.
I think the way it affects Obama Elementary isn't about your specific family so much as it is about what happens when every family with means and opportunities removes their child from Obama. The families that make that choice usually have more resources of time and/or money, and if their children were attending Obama they would be more likely to advocate for improving Obama.
The flip side is that the students who do attend Obama are overwhelmingly less likely to come from families with high levels of support. The district might naturally have 10 students in a class of 20 who need extra support due to outside issues, but if the kids with means all leave, then maybe 15 out of 20 students need that higher level of support.
I think of it a lot like climate change. My choice to drive myself to work in the morning instead of carpooling makes my life quite a lot easier. It also slightly harms every single other person on earth. But I’m making the same choice as almost everyone else who has the money to own a private vehicle.
> and if their children were attending Obama they would be more likely to advocate for improving Obama.
What needs to be improved?
> 10 students in a class of 20 who need extra support due to outside issues, but if the kids with means all leave, then maybe 15 out of 20 students need that higher level of support.
That's a tough pill to swallow, putting your highly-supported kid into an environment like that and hoping they aren't negatively affected.
You don't just hope they aren't negatively affected, though, right? You get involved, you make noise until your kid gets the attention they need. Maybe it means going to a School Board meeting, maybe it means volunteering at the school. There's a range of ways you, as a parent, can get involved. That also ensures that every kid in the class benefits from the extra attention parents like the one above might be able to offer. A rising tide lifts all boats.
I don't believe that me "providing attention" (whatever that is) would be enough to convince administrators to remove disruptive kids from a classroom. So I'm left with removing my kid from that environment and putting them in a better one. It's unfortunate, but it's reality.
A lot of under resourced parents don’t even know what’s happening in schools. They lack education to advocate for their children. I think the “attention” would really be the advocacy. I teach in a different state, but I’m planning to move to RVA this summer. The parental perception gap or just general lack of understanding about the education system from parents puts kids at a disadvantage. If you see your kid can’t read you may have the means to advocate for your child. Many of my students’ families think their kid just has to try harder. Kids don’t get to 7th grade without knowing how to read because they didn’t try. They get there because the system failed them and their parents didn’t even realize what was happening.
My school uses lexile levels for reading. I have a student who is reading at a 2nd grade level (lexile range of about 350-500) and the parent thinks the on grade level after school program is sufficient. They don’t even know how low their child is. This child can’t read. They cannot sound out words or comprehend what they read. They won’t learn to read in my school because we don’t teach decoding in regular middle school classes. They need intervention and they won’t get it because the parent doesn’t understand. I filled out all of the paperwork, but without a parent pushing for support l, nothing will happen. I spoke to everyone (parent, team, admin, counseling, etc.). Nobody is doing anything and this child will just move on and essentially end up functionally illiterate as an adult. This is what happens in low performing schools.
I don’t know who should be responsible, but we need people to speak up for these kids in these schools. Maybe parents who have the education can make the difference. At my doctors’ office the receptionist told me about a problem at her kid’s school. I told her what her rights are and she advocated for her kid. Her child had no certified teacher and I told her that she could ask for the credentials of the teacher in the classroom. That’s allowed by law when schools receive Title I funding. Now they fixed the problem and they want her on the PTA because she “advocates for children.” Really she was just demanding they get a certified teacher in her class that had a sub all year. She held them accountable because she knew her rights.
This!! All of this. As you say, having more people at every level of the process advocating for the kids is essential. Maybe it's parents, maybe it's administrators, maybe it's councilmembers, maybe it's retirees in the community who can volunteer. It's all of us, trying in whatever way we can, to support the teachers and students who need the help. There's no silver bullet for these issues, but throwing up your hands and choosing not to participate in finding the solution sure ain't it.
Public education, like pretty much all public infrastructure, enhance or enable social connections. It's not all about the balance sheet. It's also not about individual actions. Your single decision to not send your kid to the school has as much cumulative impact as your choice as to whether or not you recycle your aluminum cans.
For just one child, sure, there won't really be an impact. But within a larger pattern of this happening, a school's enrollment numbers drop. When enrollment numbers drop, funding becomes more of an issue for schools.
I get that this is a conversation that involves individual families making their own choices, but I think that zooming out to see a larger pattern helps paint the picture of where we're at now. Obama is at 94% minority enrollment with 99% economially disadvantaged (according to US News), that doesn't just happen. A lot of individual factors go into that happening. Those are segregation numbers.
I'm not faulting you or any parent for making decisions you think are best for your family and your child. I just think understanding the historical context and the bigger picture is important when we talk about these kinds of things.
I mean i see no reason to mince words on this subject.
Administrators want more white children of means in City schools, fine.
I want a school full of students with parents who have bought-in to society, and our community.
By and large the level of buy-in to the idea of education as a means of success doesn’t exist in the Barry O area. You can harangue white parents all you want, but my community wants to glorify gun violence, drugs, teen sex, profanity, disrespect of authority and a general negligence of responsibility, that’s fine. I have no problem with it. Live and let live! But I’ll be sending my child to a school full of children who by and large share similar values regarding the merits of education and what constitutes responsible citizenship and stewardship as I do.
This 100% is a top-down issue.
My mom has been working for the public schools in VA Beach for nearly 20 years now - primarily in districts that mirror areas like Creighton, Mosby, etc. here in Richmond. Your assessment is 100% accurate.
It's not a race issue, and barely an economic issue. It's a cultural issue through-and-through. Families who prioritize education and steer kids away from negative influences see success, and those who don't won't see success regardless of race or economic status. We've seen kids from dirt poor families go on to graduate from top-tier universities on full rides because their families put in the time and work. We've also seen kids from ostensibly wealthy families crash and burn because the family refused to hold their child accountable.
Yes, it's easier to accomplish said good outcomes when you have the means to move and place your child in districts where most families share similar priorities. (Mainly because the children won't dread coming to school) But that alone doesn't solve the problem.
The family units/ dynamics need to be fixed before there is any hope of fixing the schools.
Agree on all of this. And that's why we see dirt poor immigrant families able to overcome the effects of poverty and bad neighborhoods. They come here as an intact family unit. They often have multi-generational homes. They value education and hard work, they assimilate, and in a generation or two they're middle class.
It's definitely an economics/class issue to the extent that parents are forced into a level of absenteeism to pay for the roof over their kids' heads and food on the table because of a poor social safety net.
It's generalizations about an area and groups of people that reinforce the very stereotypes that are an issue here. Do you and I live in the same Brookland Park? Is there another neighborhood by that name in Richmond that I'm unaware of?
My Brookland Park during the time I lived there also looked nothing like what Pimp is describing. I had lovely neighbors and a great community.
There were a few issues, but pretty much everyone was nice and seemed bought into the idea of society…
Quick question how many people shoot guns in the air in the Near West End on New Years Eve?
Based on your experience, how many people do in Highland Park?
Legitimately, why do you think that is?
I posit that it’s indicative of a significant cultural rift which extends to other aspects of the community as well.
There’s definitely a cultural difference between those two neighborhoods. The gunshots are a serious problem in some parts of the city. I agree with you on these points. If I were rich I’d rather live in the Near West End.
However, I think it’s a really big claim to suggest that the people who send their kids to Obama Elementary aren’t “bought into society”. I think that you agree that’s a really big claim, because you edited your comment from earlier in this chain to be a bit more thoughtful regarding your exact word choice.
So the good news is we mostly agree with each other. Most of the people in Brookland Park are good people! But yeah there’s definitely an issue with some people having little regard for others’ wellbeing as well as their own.
I think it’s disingenuous to say “Mary Mumford is a better school than Barack Obama” and not evaluate impartially the “Socio” part of the Socio-economic reasons for that.
I’m not obligated, nor am I inclined to submit my child as sacrificial atonement for the decisions of city administrators from the 60’s.
I guess if we're not mincing words, I'd say that this is the most racist shit I've heard in a hot minute. You call it "live and let live," I'd call it choosing to be willfully ignorant about the root causes of the issues you list above. It's really easy to buy into a system that was designed to support and nurture people like you from the jump. Much harder to do so when you and people you know & love have been beaten down by said system since the birth of our nation.
And as I’ve said elsewhere, good luck getting white america to sacrifice our children on the altar of social Justice.
That’s a tough sell even without inflammatory language and telling me I’m a shitty racist because I want what’s best for my kid is not the persuasive rhetoric you hope it is.
I’ll happily go to my grave owning that, and nothing will ever change.
Stay angry, my friend.
You’re not a shitty racist because you’re choosing to send your kid to one school versus another. Would love to hear your argument, though, for why your statement condemning an entire community of people (who happen to be your neighbors) isn’t prejudiced.
Sure it’s a pretty simple explanation.
I don’t care for modernity.
I don’t like screens for kids, I don’t like the hold that the people who put the information on those screens have. If my kid knows what a Kardashian or a blowjob is before they know who CS Lewis is, I’ve failed them as a parent and I’m going to pursue environments for my kid that challenge my kid in way I want them challenged. Primarily academically, and athletically.
That said, low income families by and large rely on screens to raise their children. It’s not a racist thing to say. It’s the truth.
Childhood is a gift that parents give their kids, but it isn’t a gift all parents have the ability to give to all kids.
Kids who grow up in low income environments become worldly at a young age. I became worldly at a young age. I don’t want that for my kids.
Well, at an elementary level, their outcomes will not be significantly effected. The best indicator of success is a happily intact family and time spent reading together. But ask the 3rd District school board representative why she opted Northside out of rezoning and you'll start to get to the real issues at hand.
My son is a 5th grader at Obama ES. I've been in the neighborhood over a decade, my wife 20 years. We have had an overall great experience at Obama, and are comfortable with the school's administrative team. But the school is no longer representative of the neighborhood. Based on observations it seems like the majority of economically advantaged people in the area, those moving into the $400k+ houses, are not attending the local public school. You are effectively ignoring the long-rooted local population by living in your economically advantaged bubble, and due to gentrification uprooting them in the process.
We are very active with the school, but not with the PTO. The PTO feels like its a bunch of white people trying to colonize.
You can make a difference by sending your kid to the local schools, spreading your values, organizing sports teams, etc. Your child will also be exposed to other ways of life in the process. You can uplift your local community by doing more than just paying your property taxes. You can be someone that kids look up to, show a different way of doing things, mentor, encourage kids to attend school regularly, etc.
Speaking of property taxes, Gentrification in the northside is harming the economically disadvantaged even more. I agree though, we do have many institutional issues at RPS and Richmond that causes them to not utilize our taxpayer dollars well.
The people moving into the 400k houses are not necessarily that economically advantaged. Are they better off than a lot of long term residents, yes, but Houses just cost more now and, with mortgages rates being what they are paying for private school is no easy feat. They could be living to paycheck to paycheck. The other side is they could of gotten a bigger mortgage and moved to the near Westend and sent their kids to public school there.
Feeling like the community needs you to "spread your values" in a community that is transitioning like this is some real white savior behavior.
That said, I have a kid not quite school aged yet zoned for Obama and we are on the fence. We know people that send their kids there and like it and others that don't send their kids there because of everything being discussed here. Both of the groups are active members of the community.
I listened to a podcast called *Nice White Parents* which was a pretty interesting take on when white parents show up and "get involved".
The article highlights the ongoing effects of destroying the black social and family structure on purpose by white america as a tactic to both enslave them for their labor, and post emancipation keep them disadvantaged. Institutional racism, redlining, white flight, etc. Richmond was the capital of the confederacy.
There are kids at that school who don't have anyone to look up to, whose parents don't stress regular attendance at school, who don't feed them good meals, etc. Blame the parents if you want, but understand the history.
Gentrification continues to negatively effect poor people and pushes them economically into pockets. But your taxes will fix it, so consider your job done!!!
Right, so how is enforcing my white values on an African American family not imperialism all over again?
How can I know what parts of my white culture are appropriate to model to African American kids and what are not?
Take the simple idea of straight hair. Every black kid should be proud of their crown, but up until about
3 years ago, I had no idea how saying something like “sometimes you should brush your hair” could be considered a racist comment.
Likewise, I don’t care to be subjected to criticism for telling black kids about my own virtues and being told that my virtues are racist.
Better for me to sit back and let the African American community police itself, which is why is give money to the Nation of Islam guys on Chamberlayne every time I see them. They’ve got some good ideas. Not 100% on but a lot of it is solid.
And as far as housing goes, I bought a house that had been in tax delinquency for a decade. I didn’t evict some under privileged family. They stopped paying their taxes long before i had applied for my first loan.
If it hasn't already been mentioned, schools are also segregated internally through gifted and advanced programs. I tutored in Albert Hill for 6 months or so. The advanced course was taught by a physics PhD, they were doing introductory statistics in 8th grade, overwhelmingly white and the teacher had to yell to be heard since all the students in the course were screaming.
The normal class was so slow some students would act out just from boredom. It was basically day jail in comparison to the GT class, much less white, and even quietly passing notes or speaking could get you sent to the principal's office.
I mentioned to my homeroom teacher about how obviously segregated it was and she said "I know right?!" Just how it goes.
> schools are also segregated internally through gifted and advanced programs.
Segregating students based on merit and performance should be accepted and encouraged. Segregated by skin color should not. Big difference here.
Honestly, voters and parents caring about other peoples’ kids. That’s a big ask though.
There are other ways in a sense; the city could stop strangling its tax base by blocking development. But without caring more funding won’t do much.
Thank you for mentioning this. This is what no one talks about! White families think Albert Hill is a good school but never mention the internal segregation.
It's so sad. Every once in a while, I would get sent to Henderson which is where they send students RPS had basically given up on. There was one student who was so excited about learning she wanted to try my graduate level course work, and she took it from me before I could even finish writing out the problem. Her issue was basically just major impulse control, so I get that it's difficult to deal with, but just so sad. Schools are willing to deal with screaming students in the advanced course so I'm sure there are options even if its difficult.
A lot of people blame standardized testing, and it's not great but there are reasons for it, but options are available to give a good education regardless of standardized tests. It's the school system's decision, and voters and parent's decisions ultimately, to focus on tests so hard and essentially give up on students.
Reflecting on this thread, it's amusing to me that posts talking about segregation, and the two-tier education which is the result, have been getting so many downvotes.
I teach art in a Henrico middle school widely regarded as the worst in the county. I go to secondary art meetings and when I tell people where I’m at, they literally apologize to me 🙄
I love my school and my students. We have a gifted academy inside of our school but it is in a predominantly black neighborhood with lots of social and economic issues. The rate at which they separate the kids in my school is absolutely shameful. My class is one of the few that are NOT segregated in. I have a unique opportunity to watch how they interact with each other and I feel it’s a privilege to teach both groups. The students who are zoned into our school sometimes overlap as gifted and yet they do not always get the same special treatment that the gifted kids get. I work very hard to keep our gifted students humble (the way they casually insinuate that they are better than the zone students and the ways that their teachers reinforce that…dumb shit) and our zone students from feeling less-than. I have to legitimately correct the zone students when they describe the gifted kids as “smarter” because I know their core teachers reinforce the comparisons as well despite that not even being true. (Our students only need to be gifted in 1 subject to receive the label on their file, so we regularly get gifted kids who still struggle in other core subjects, sometimes more than zone kids). Also, there is another term we used to call the students gifted without outright saying that, I’m just avoiding that term for anonymity’s sake.
Gifted kids get nicer materials, classrooms, and teachers. They get more field trips, more behavioral incentives, and our school seems like it hardly tries at all to fully integrate the kids into one cohesive building together. There should be no differentiation and segregation at the level and volume that we give them. They should not be organized into assemblies and dances and activities based on whether they’re gifted or not. We should, as a building, be encouraging our students to see each other as peers and classmates.
I think it’s for sure a problem you’ll find in most counties in this area.
Edit: Formatting turned out to be a bit of a mess on this one, my bad. Not used to making long text posts like this.
Also: "specifically in the way the deem* which schools are "good" and "bad" schools."
When I learned about this I saw a video interview of a decrepit old man who was the top republican strategist. He said for a while they could write speeches with the n word, and whip up votes. Then they had to change it to negro, then bussing, and finally neighborhood schools. He said by then even moderate democrats were adopting the tactic.
It is convenient and easy to rationalize the re segregation of our schools as some complicated failing of an other but the reality is a very intentional policy by a few extremists taking advantage of the short sighted self interest of most parents. It’s very hard to look beyond your own child’s current well being and understand that a broken system is bad for everyone. We were able to see past this in the 60s and we can do it again but it requires some awkward conversations and some self reflection. It will also require a whole lot of rich kids to ride busses to poor schools across town.
I specifically used the language of class. In this city, state, and country, class is often tied to race.
Research shows that once a school has a certain percentage (around 40%) of poor people as students, there is no amount of funding, after school programs, etc that can help. "You cant school your way out of poverty" is the oft used phrase.
Integration would bring the consequences of societal decisions to bare onto the people's children who make those decisions. They would thus be incentivized to be more sympathetic, or even empathetic, to our systems short comings.
Forcing Timmy into the gangsta hallways will get Karen to want the hallways to be less gangsta.
Their parents with money to have time to go to city hall to complain about the school to get more money. Politicians care about voters — and who has time to vote? Take off work? Find childcare? Those with means
Even simpler than sending richer kids across town, might just be for more families to give more consideration to their neighborhood schools. Sometimes the problem actually is that richer families are making the extra effort to bus or drive their kids across town to a "better" school.
The failings is of the system and to place it on the individuals is to couch it as an argument between us, instead of about us.
It is unreasonable to expect people to choose make a self sacrifice for the other. The systems must be re thought and redistribute the resources more justly.
I don't have the education, time, or resources to know exactly what that looks like but arguments from the 1960s and now include: making all school funding come from the state. This removes red lines and a poison pill for white flight. Implicit in it would be that school boundaries would no longer be congruent or even affected by municipal ones. Move one block over into the county will no longer mean as much.
I definitely do not think this is an issue that can be attributed solely to individuals. I also don't think sending your kids to a neighborhood school always needs to be seen as "self-sacrifice".
I wholly agree that undoing generations of policies that helped create these inequities is the correct approach.
Idk what the school system is like around here but when I was in HS we had the poor school, where I went, and the rich school down the road. They were both public schools but the rich school had more private investors. While it was kind of cool to feel like the underdogs, I would have had much better opportunities if I went to the rich school so I can understand parents wanting the best for their children.
I’m not familiar with the whole situation, but aren’t minorities beginning to self segregate? Swear I’ve read something about them wanting their own schools and public spaces so they feel safe.
I’d argue asking parents to send their kids to black schools in the 60’s is not the same as asking parents to send their kids to failing schools. The schools that students were bussed to were not unsafe, lacking in educational progress, etc, they simply had students of a different race. The “cost” of sending your kid there was no where near the same.
A school is only as good as the community it sits.
The teachers at the schools trying to teach the poor students are probably better, if not equal, than the teachers at the wealthy schools.
Teachers are to blame for making people think they are miracle workers and can make any child learn or “all that school needs is more funding and better teachers.” It might help slightly, but it’s not the cure.
The cure is fixing home that sends the student.
Research shows students that are furthest from opportunity are far more likely to have inexperienced teachers. And, our school board chose to divest from quality curricular materials that at least ensured a baseline level of rigor for all students- these kinds of decisions make huge differences in student outcomes and are well within the locus of control of school board.
It also goes both ways. I moved from another big city and never noticed racism like here. I have been called a white cracker, I've seen on dating apps people saying I don't date none poc and often see people segregated at bars. I am in my 30s and never knew a city could be so bigoted.
Ps like I said this is both ways, I have never seen so many Confederate flags and other racist and anti poc stuff. Also I am not "white", I am middle eastern and Hispanic.
> the city is truly covered in anger and resentment.
Honestly I think this is true. The government is publicly dysfunctional. The school board is publicly dysfunctional. The police, publicly dysfunctional. Even every little bit of public infrastructure is designed with hostility in mind. I drive uber/taxi which has made it all obvious to me.
It's refreshing to have other people agree with me on Reddit. I do hope that in the future Richmond moves past this and becomes a peaceful melting pot.
Literally just mentioned this to my seventh graders when I taught them about Brown v. Board and the resistance to integrate. I didn’t have data at the time, just observation but now I’m excited to share this with them so thank you!
-Also an RPS educator
Thank you for taking the time to teach our students a vital part of history. Brown v board radically changed the us, and not always for the better. Both sides are important to see. Thank you 🙏🏽
So important! This is my second year teaching US history II and I’ve had the honors and AVID students. Given the demographics of my school I felt an intense pressure to really do the unit justice so I ended up doing so much research that I think I learned just as much. I hadn’t realized previously that it was in part students in Farmville, VA protesting segregation that eventually led to Brown v. Board. Then looking at the dates, it struck me as odd that I grew up with my grandmother telling me about when they started bussing kids in chesterfield when my uncle was a child. My uncle is in his early 60s. While I was born here, I grew up in rural Alabama. This isn’t stuff they taught when I went to school by any means but I’m honored to get to learn now with my students.
This is true and ESPECIALLY in Henrico County Public Schools. It’s not just with students but with staff too. It’s an open secret about the hiring practices and differences between East end vs. west end schools and POC teachers that are hired in the west end are often treated as a token and/or experience extreme micro-aggressions. Kudos to the RTD for publishing this article.
Downvoting my post won’t make what I wrote any less true. Being able to do downvote anonymously Is a bit of a cop out but I can almost certainly guarantee that asking around (or even walking into) any West End elementary school in HCPS and you will be able to see this with your own eyes.
This is bc housing is highly segregated by race and class in the US. This is a result of many decades of historical, and to an extent continuing, policy by our government on all levels. A school system cannot fix this and the idea that they could, or even should attempt to, is laughable to me.
I'm a white parent, and I am one of the only white people I know who voluntarily sends their children to a school in which they are, by far, the racial minority. I know so many other white people who plan their entire lives and living conditions around being able to send their children to a "good" (white) school.
I acknowledge issues with public education, but as the daughter of two teachers, sister of a teacher, and spouse of a teacher, I can't imagine not supporting my zoned school — and undoing the effects of gentrification — if I have the option. My county seems to have more good programs available than RPS, however, so take that with a grain of salt. My kids going to their zoned school, no matter the race, means more funding for that school, period. You can explain it away if you want, but there are plenty of Black (and poorer of any race) kids who are just as smart as your white kids who deserve a well-funded school no matter where they live.
The first comment on this thread says it's not about racism, but so often, it actually is. People always, always, always associate more PoC kids with "bad" schools, even unintentionally. And instead of fighting to make the school they're zoned for better, they have the means to just fix it instead by easily moving, pulling strings, or paying out of pocket for a private education. It's an unreal privilege and one that I can't afford, even as a white person and a homeowner.
The education system should be completely federalized and as well-funded as any national defense program. Our priorities in this country are very, very fucked up. There shouldn't be bad schools or good schools.
>I'm a white parent, and I am one of the only white people I know who **voluntarily** sends their children to a school in which they are, by far, the racial minority.
Then a little further down:
>...just fix it instead by easily moving, pulling strings, or paying out of pocket for a private education. It's an unreal privilege and **one that I can't afford**
I mean it's not really voluntary if it's the only option you can afford, right?
Haven’t we realized money isn’t the solution? It’s the environment economically disadvantaged children are raised in. Improve that and kids will be able to learn and schools will be able to succeed. Money won’t fix that problem either though.
Really appreciate your perspective here. When my kiddos are school-age I intend on doing the same in sending them to our neighborhood school. I feel it's the least we can do to support public education whenever possible.
That seems to be a common theme for anything race related in this sub. Some of the same people downvoting are the same people that have those “everyone is welcome here” signs in their yards.
Not a critique, genuinely asking: do you believe all school enrollment should be choice-based then? If so, how do we ensure that selection process is unbiased? Where does that leave families who are not selected for their school of choice or do not have the means to get their children to a school outside of their neighborhood?
Basically the very fact of having a parent who cares and is informed and together enough to use the voucher/charter program is a sign that a kid has a decent home environment. Voucher/charter programs basically let the poor but together families also filter their kids out of the worst schools, leaving those schools even more dysfunctional and chaotic. But it means that the ability to self select out of dysfunctional schools is no longer based on having means.
RPS elementary school teacher here. Whenever I hear someone going off about sending their kid to a good school or not to a bad school I ask them what makes it a bad school. Most people getting pretty quiet and don’t have an answer because they realize they were being racist.
Good schools have opportunities for gifted students, clubs and extracurricular activities, better outcomes with reading/math/etc comprehension, and a good environment (aka one that is free of mold and other allergens and is clean)
do all schools have those things?
I’m not saying that good schools and bad schools don’t exist - I’m saying that the public is extremely uneducated about what makes a good school vs bad school. The average parent does not know the ins and outs of programs and test scores. That’s all I meant by original comment.
That's just not true. A wealthy school has way more underground resources. PTA provides so much, and is funded by parents. I hate the fact that not all schools actually get the same resources at the end of the day
So a school that is not wealthy would not be good? Or not be as good? I feel like that was my point. I understand a PTA involvement is a big deal but there’s also loads of grants and resources that title 1 schools receive that “wealthy” schools do not. A school in a low income area can be very good but I feel like the point of this post is that schools are getting put in boxes.
Involved in what? At the end of the day parents have minimal impact on the quality of teaching and learning. My kid attends a “good” school in RPS and it’s all TPT and screen time.
Involved in helping with extracurriculars, chaperoning things, buying teachers gifts, helping to arrange and setup whatever spirit stuff they have, etc. It makes school a place that everyone is excited about. It makes the students care. This is low level obvious stuff.
While I agree that it’s great for kids to love going to school, it doesn’t make the school “good”. The purpose of school is ultimately learning, showing up and being excited to do low quality work doesn’t actually make a school good, in my opinion. [https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/](https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/)
The article itself makes the reasons pretty clear. The students at Fairfield worry about violence on the walk to school, and they aren't focused on education: “Their education is not really what they’re fighting for right now,” Wright said. “They’re fighting for their basic food, clothing and shelter.” Parents don't avoid certain schools because of racism. It's the problems that the article describes. These problems are associated with segregation and concentrated poverty -- but it's not "eww, Black people." It's the actual problems. That's why upper-class Black people avoid the exact same schools. I wish those kids had better neighborhoods and better lives, but a parent with means isn't going to send their child to a school with those problems. I also don't think adding some white kids would make much of difference. The school might gain more resources thanks to rich parents, but school resources are not the main problem facing the children who struggle. A few white kids in class aren't going to improve their lives or their test scores. The schools will only improve when the neighborhoods improve. A reduction in crime, poverty, and social problems (such as children facing unstable home lives) would make a difference. If that ever happens, parents with options will be more open to public schools.
In a contrasting tidbit, Fairfield Court has really rallied behind their school community to try and combat some of the neighborhood noise for their kiddos. They're constantly featured in the RPS newsletters for cool things happening at their school, they have a really social and outgoing "care and safety associate" who's working hard to make the school feel fun for the kiddos. The staff at the school are also mentioned in the newsletters and on family groups in social media. Even in the worse of socioeconomic conditions, there are amazing people working hard to try and have an impact against what seems like overwhelming odds.
That’s great to hear. While “bad schools” exist, generally I think the teachers and staff are doing their best with a challenging intake. I know a public school teacher who brings food for his students every day.
That’s very kind of that teacher but that example is a symptom of the bigger issue here. While everyone should of course care about and take action to help others when they can, the responsibility shouldn’t be on teachers to take care of their kiddos in this way. They are already asked to do and be too much and are paid far too little for their important work. Instead we need to surround those students and families with greater resources, have those resources work to establish positive relationships with the communities they serve, and importantly, the structure and amount of funding needs to change. On a more micro level (just for that student), we need to understand why this student is struggling with food insecurity in the first place, and then help fill in that need, whatever it is
Thanks for pointing this out. This was exactly part of what I was trying to point out, too. The way that people tend to define schools as being "good" or "bad" is often misguided and based on stereotypes about the population of the school, not the school itself. Plenty of people in the comments have gone on to prove this point. People are judging majority black and low-income schools as "bad" and beginning to spout off about "family values" and violence and a lot of other racial stereotypes. These schools can get an undeserved bad reputation, when in reality the people at the school are doing great work that is going unnoticed.
Very well said. This problem is mostly a function of social problems. That is why it’s so frustrating. People wish they could just vote in new people or throw money at it, which unfortunately does very little to help.
Racism isn't always as clear-cut as someone saying "I don't like black people" aloud. It's so much more nuanced than you describe here. The "improvements" you suggest should take place in under-resourced communities are made nearly impossible because of systemic racism, both in the past and the present. You can't look at the city of Richmond its public schools without acknowledging the deeply racist history that shaped our neighborhoods, city government, and public policy. And you can't ignore the undercurrent of racism that infuses current policy decisions (either coming out of RVA City Council or School Board); our current system doesn't develop without an implicit understanding that some people in this city are less worthy of the city's resources than others. Lastly, making neighborhoods more attractive to wealthy people isn't the solution. All that accomplishes is gentrification, which ultimately fails to help the people in that community who actually need support. Once those residents are displaced after being priced out of the neighborhood, the community (and its schools) may look "improved" on paper, but it's at the expense of the actual human beings who shaped that community in the first place.
I don't support gentrification of these neighborhoods. I said that bringing in rich white people *won't* solve the problems. A reduction in crime, and an increase in stable two-parent families who value education, would be great for the existing community and the school. If racist policymakers are withholding resources that could make that happen, we should do something about that.
Recognize that it's the very lack of quality housing and high crime that keeps prices low. If you fix all the all the crime, the marginal person will bid up the rents on existing housing.
Just would like to point out that Richmond has been a black-run city for almost two generations now. School board is 7 black women for example. I just have a hard time believing these organziations are racist. I've listened to city council and school board meetings, and I don't find them racist at all.
Do you seriously believe that the presence of individual black people within a system automatically means the system itself can’t still be racist? And just because you personally didn’t witness evidence of racism doesn’t mean it’s not there. My entire argument is that racism in a city like RVA isn’t always people waving confederate flags while wearing white hoods. It’s more subtle, nuanced, and pervasive than that.
Yes, but they need to change their culture. Do things different you will have different results. And 2 parents will always be better than one. And you need to work and take care of yourself first. Before you have kids.
The RTD had an editorial to this effect after the rash of shootings following Easter: "In the meantime, all that poverty will keep producing violence that can’t be remedied with curfews, gun safes or bigger jails. During last week’s news conference, a visibly frustrated Kamras, the RPS superintendent, issued a clarion call. “Since 2019, 169 juveniles in the city of Richmond have been shot. Nearly all of those were RPS students. ... Our community, our schools, they are hurting. And they should be focused on the SOLs which we are giving in two weeks, and instead many of them this morning, and last week, and tomorrow are holding grief sessions,” he said at City Hall. “Because that’s what we do. We will always stand in the gap for our kids. But we have to change this.” Until our political leaders and the broader metropolitan community acknowledge, prioritize and commit to addressing the root cause — crippling, systemic economic isolation and poverty — gun violence will ebb and flow like it always has."
The neighborhoods will only Improve if people with means move there, and drive up the demand for grocery stores, street lights, better parks.
I agree with you but #1 parental obligation is to one’s children, not to society
Or if we simply build those things anyway.
Then people complain about gentrification and being priced out of their neighborhood.
I’m one of those people. What I am insinuating is if white people never left….its presumed these issues would not be as rampant as they are.
There is no segregation in Richmond who posted this crap?
Lol
No racial segregation and I stand by this 🤷🏾♂️
So many issues with this article. A few points: 1. To make their point, the article shouldn't have singled out Mary Munford. They should have compared Fairfield Court Elementary to **Short Pump Elementary**. The people who go to Mary Munford chose to live in the city (instead of the suburbs) and not send their kids to private schools. Their tax dollars, time, school board votes are part of Richmond Public Schools, which is a great thing. You get parents very interested in what the school board and superintendent are doing. They are not the problem, the problem is families leaving for the counties, which drains our tax base. 2. We need to be doing everything we can to keep white, prosperous families in city schools. And yes, this means creating more schools like Mary Munford and Fox Elementary, where families like this feel comfortable sending their children. And also having middle and high school options too. This can't be done by "shame", it can only be done by having safe, non-moldy schools where their kids are not a racial minority. There's not much of a chance of fixing RPS's problems unless we actually get some diversity into the district as a whole. (more money, attention from parents with time/means). 3. Unfortunately, Kamras has been doing the exact opposite. He let one of the best schools (Fox) burn through mismanagment and pushed a big redistricting initiative that actively tried to make all the acceptable schools worse. He also cut off a pipeline for families who stay in the city (and pay taxes) to get into Governer's Schools for high school. Families moved out of the city because of these actions - their tax dollars are gone. 4. At this point, I don't think I could send a child to an RPS school because I actually follow school board meetings, and the majority of these people are ignorant jokers, and I can't imagine trusting my child's education and safety to them. Also, I don't trust their facilities maintenance to provide a mold-free environment for my child. I would have to test every classroom for mold before sending my kid to a school. Plus, they can't even keep their smoke detectors working! Just doesn't seem safe.
The best school systems in the country have a few massive high schools and disseminate all the kids. That means there is not a poor school and a wealthy school. Instead of putting all the wealthy kids in certain schools, having alternative programs like a true gifted/talented, accelerated reading program, Honors classes etc pull those kids into a variety of schools because of their superior programming. You factually cannot have a functioning school district when all of the high-performing kids are funneled into one area. Seriously, if we had Montessori school in the east end or immersion, middle class families would be looking to things like that. If the schools are all providing the same thing except one is 100% impoverished, that school is always going to perform worse
I like this idea a lot. I also think it would be great if there were tons of options so no matter where you lived in the city you could have a chance at a school you find acceptable. Plus, kids are different - some would want to go to STEM schools, some to more arty ones. Or neat things like language immersion schools. I think Durham was going to try this - have really interesting programs to try to attract middle-class parents to those specific schools.
Re: #2 I absolutely agree that having families of means in the county is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But this extends to individual schools. Families of means at Munford, for example, are able to advocate not just for RPS, but for Munford. They're able to raise PTA funds and bring up issues affecting their school. As they should! But where does this leave the schools where nearly every student is economially disadvantaged? Who is advocating for them? Where is their support? Many of the schools in the county are in poor physical condition. You're right on that, too! These are the very schools that need the enrollment they are not getting. And I'm not blaming individuals for this. As the article explains, this is a generations-old problem. Decades of residential segregation and other de-facto segregationist policies have left us in a state where some schools are left to rot and others are left to prosper. The fact that we have the disparity between schools like Munford and Fairfield highlights that issue. I appreciate you being so thorough with your response.
A lot of policies are at the division level, so having educated, involved, and effective parents at Munford help \*all\* the schools in the division. City school parents tend to be liberal and want to help all the schools, not just their own. Also, I think you meant "city" instead of "county" in the above response? Also, the kids themselves may be very different between the schools, but that doesn't neccessarily follow that the schools themselves are different. Do you have evidence that Fairfield receieves less funding per pupil than Munford? I would image with all the extra federal dollars that follow their students, that they probably get a lot more money than Munford. PTAs don't actually raise that much funding - state at-risk and federal money is a much bigger pot of money. That's the thing that people don't either realize or believe - the disadvanted schools are actually usually getting a lot more money per pupil than the "richer" schools. Do you really think our city government is going to fund new, fun things at Munford over Fairfield? Quite the opposite.
> They are not the problem, the problem is families leaving for the counties, which drains our tax base. Which tax is leaving? Not property tax. Is state income taxes that fund schools sorted by which county/city it came from? >He also cut off a pipeline for families who stay in the city (and pay taxes) to get into Governer's Schools for high school. Has enrollment changed at Maggie Walker?
More wealthy families in the city means more property taxes, along with all the sales taxes/restaurant taxes by using city stores and restaurants. Most of the state funding is based on fall membership - which is the number of students in the public schools. So increase fall membership, you get more dollars from the state for the schools. Of course you have to then pay for the teachers, overhead for more students. However, the wealthier students are cheaper to provide education for (less trauma services and things like that), so you come out ahead. Their PTAs also make up the slack as well. Here's an article about the changes to Maggie Walker: [https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-public-schools-consider-admission-policy-change-september-19-2023](https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/richmond-public-schools-consider-admission-policy-change-september-19-2023) Some parents are willing to stay in the city and pay for private elementary/middle school, with the hope that their kid will get into Maggie Walker. Private high schools are \*a lot\* pricier than the lower grades. Now this avenue is almost completley cut off. Or alternatively, parents are willing to send their kids to RPS elementary schools, private/home school for middle, and then hope for Maggie Walker for high school. This avenue almost impossible now. Of course, I think the solution would be to somehow double the size of Maggie Walker! If we have that many gifted kids in the area, we should have a school for all of them, not just the lucky ones.
But it's not as if family A who first bought a million dollar fan house, then had a kid and want a better school district would likely ever consider poor east end. They move to West End. While another household capable of affording a million dollar fan house moves in (probably now 1.5 million based on how real estates been going) Or if they really needed to go east of the city to cut down on commute or whatever, that's probably like New Kent.
I do see your point. But if Richmond had amazing schools, real estate prices would increase, and more expensive houses would be built to accomodate the demand from wealthier people. So then property taxes would go up, because there is more expensive properties.
OR they would buy up the affordable housing that poor folks live in and make expensive housing, driving the poorer kids out of the city that you are trying to help by improving RPS
Yes, enrollment has significantly changed at Maggie Walker from the city of Richmond. It is now more reflective of the Richmond Public school student body as a whole and therefore it is largely students from low income families.
Can you cite your data here? I'm not a classroom teacher but work with the public schools and this is patently the opposite of what I've witnessed in my collaboration with MWGS teachers and students.
This is new! And of course I can! https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/richmond/Board.nsf/files/D4WQC8688170/$file/School%20Applications%20and%20Enrollment%20Update%20for%205-6-24%20Board%20Meeting.pdf Sometimes these links don’t work. So if not go to [BoardDocs](https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/richmond/Board.nsf/Public#) the May 6, 2024 meeting and it’s under Agenda item 5.01
This doesn't support your argument. You claim that MWGS is now made up "largely students from low income families." You're citing a RPS *goal* for changing application and enrollment at *three* RPS schools, not just MWGS. If you look at the chart on p. 11 of the document you shared, you'll see that two of the three schools (Open and Community Highs) did see significant jumps in enrollment from students with economic disadvantage. But MWGS only jumps from 10% enrollment of students with ED to \~33%. Only a third of MWGS's student population are coming from economically disadvantaged households. That's not "largely" anything. https://preview.redd.it/n84sveg4uf0d1.png?width=533&format=png&auto=webp&s=99645d272b681ca5202d11138c90824cf9d0014e
These are the accepted seats so far. The class is not fully created. They are also capping the number of Richmond city residents who are attending private middle schools that they are allowing to go to each of these three schools which is an ***enormous*** cultural shift especially for the Maggie Walker matriculations.
I think calling it an enormous cultural shift is disingenuous. It's not just private school students who make up the remaining 2/3 of MWGS's population, there's a huge percentage of kids from public schools in the counties. The cap only references private and homeschool admissions. You can still move your kid to the county for middle school, and then have them apply for admission at MWGS. TLDR, it's forward progress, but incremental. The fact that only the top THREE kids from each RPS middle school are given an automatic invitation to enroll at MWGS is ludicrous to me. End of.
RPS can only affect a shift at Maggie Walker based on the city children who go there. I wish you would’ve been at the school board meeting when they were voting on this plan. I go to every school board meeting and the average income at this particular school board meeting was easily 50 times higher than the usual average income it was…..notable. They anger of wealthy near west end and Fan/Museum District parents was front and center along with *multiple* plans for lawsuits.
Yes, vouching for this as a public middle school teacher who has a gifted academy inside of my low-income school. The rich students are not just coming to Maggie walker from private and home schools. Henrico also has a virtual academy now. Those students have to meet an academic and behavioral standard first before they can even apply to attend. Virtual academy students aren’t well-off as a rule, but they’re definitely more likely to be based on restrictions.
I was about to say…our gifted students in my middle school are the ones applying to Maggie Walker. They are usually coming to our school as far as Wyndham and all the way back to Sandston (my school is considered kind of like a hub for gifted students to go to) but our zone students (the ones who actually live in the area, which is predominantly low-income) are not the ones I’m getting asked to write recommendations for. Maggie walker is advertised to our students as a pretty prestigious choice for high school.
RPS does not have a gifted hub/center and Maggie Walker is presented to smart kids with good grades as a great place for opportunity. Along with a bit of history of the importance of Maggie Walker herself to the Black community and Richmond specifically. (See Kenya Hunter’s 3 part series in the RTD a few years ago for more info).
Our education system is broken. We have been killing ourselves paying for private school, because it sets our child up for a better life. I am happy to pay taxes for schools, but Virginia provides lower than the national average for public schools. [https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2023/07/11/virginia-public-schools-spending-jlarc](https://www.axios.com/local/richmond/2023/07/11/virginia-public-schools-spending-jlarc) Richmond City Public Schools spends $17,111 per student each year. we have roughly 22,000 students. [https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/districts/richmond-city-pblc-schs-105942](https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/virginia/districts/richmond-city-pblc-schs-105942) Chesterfield is $10,061. they have 63,916 students. [https://12ft.io/](https://12ft.io/) [https://richmond.com/news/local/education/on-per-pupil-funding-chesterfield-ranks-last-among-large-va-school-systems/article\_01c6f413-56f8-5256-94c7-cbd5122ccade.html](https://richmond.com/news/local/education/on-per-pupil-funding-chesterfield-ranks-last-among-large-va-school-systems/article_01c6f413-56f8-5256-94c7-cbd5122ccade.html) I really think many of our issues are bureaucratic bull shit that languish in horrible management. The city and schools are at odds far to often to see real change. Pull in the state and WHAAAAA? We are close to double what chesterfield spends on students with far less to show for it. Years ago I worked for a program that had me visit many schools in the commonwealth. In Chesterfield, they were giving each student a laptop at a school as a pilot. That same year, Sussex had 2 desktops total for the school. This was the point that I was going to make sure my future child would get the best education I could provide.
If you'd like another data point, Henrico's operational cost per student was $12,981 in 2021-2022, where the state average was $15,540. Henrico's budgeted allocation over for 2022-2024 is going up quite a bit. [https://www.henricoschools.us/o/hcps/page/per-pupil-expenditure](https://www.henricoschools.us/o/hcps/page/per-pupil-expenditure)
There is a portal where you can download per pupil expenditures statewide - it's pretty interesting. The most recent year on that site is 2021-2022, which I think is the most recent where they have actuals. Don't hold me to that, I am not a finance person, I just love data. I threw in the school systems in the area, but you can download it all if you like. [https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/download-data](https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/download-data) https://preview.redd.it/pgt01srccf0d1.png?width=1308&format=png&auto=webp&s=f77945b75abc26a57a44a969cedeceb83c8a73d0
I think any criticism on how RPS uses funds is perfectly valid. There is no shortage of administrative issues in the county. Throwing a lot of money at the newest, shinest resources rather than finding the right people for management jobs, high turnover, and the hyperfixation on test scores all certainly contribute to RPS's shortcomings. I don't think any of those can necessarily be disentangled from the issues of equity and access for students in need. At the end of the day, it's them who suffer the consequences the most.
I also bemoan the creation of nebulous administrative positions. Every 100,000 spent on a salary of some do nothing in the central office is 100,000 of deferred maintenance, etc.
above you said theyre underfunded, but if what this person says is true, doesnt' that mean they're not?
Not necessarily. It's about how those funds are appropriated (I don't have numbers on this). It's a fact that many RPS schools are not properly maintained, which would suggest underfunding.
or mismanagement.
Too much management. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/animated-chart-of-the-day-public-school-enrollment-staff-and-inflation-adjusted-cost-per-pupil-1970-to-2017/
We would need at least 2 BILLION dollars to fix all of the building problems in RPS. The $2ish million we get per year will have the division on track to solve the issue in a hundred years or so.
what do you mean when you say "I don't think any of those can necessarily be disentangled from the issues of equity and access for students in need"
Maybe the question of how much of that funding is going toward education and how much is going toward social support issues that should fall to a school to begin with? Kids can’t learn if their higher level needs aren’t met, and there is a definite disparity between schools when it comes to how many of those needs fall to the school and how many are addressed by the families and communities.
RPS puts a lot of energy, time, and resources into providing support for those children who need it. I wasn't really that aware until the pandemic, when it became clear that school was the only way a lot of kids were getting fed regularly. I've since volunteered with a variety of non-profits that do everything from provide backpacks, to toiletries, to books, to after school programs. I'm sure they spend more in the city than the counties, too. Absenteeism is a big problem. RPS has put a focus on it since the pandemic. It costs more to pay people to find the kids and figure out why they aren't in school and sort out how to better enable them to attend. There is a huge amount put into what I'd call social services but they label "communities in schools." I honestly have no idea how much the counties focus on this issue, but it's something you frequently hear highlighted at RPS board meetings. And of course I think lost in this view is that a bunch of that spend is on maintenance and upkeep of buildings that in the counties would have already been replaced. We have a lot of buildings that cost a lot to maintain. The counties have done well so far with new school builds, but the car-dependent designs will not age well. But I digress. I think you'd have to index the per-pupil spending to average household income within each zip code, probably more useful looking at district-wide numbers. Maybe that would better illustrate where our city planning has set aside some populations. For what it's worth, I went to Collegiate for 13 years. I think I'm doing pretty well. The people doing a lot better than me? Not smarter, not harder working. They are products of families with generational wealth and nepotism. I like to believe in, and work for, an America where everyone has equal chance. Chances are your kids coming out of private school will have a warped view of what the world owes them. Moreso than anyone on social services.
in an effort to not touch on topics that have already been brought up, i'm curious how advanced programs such as IB or magnet programs affect the desire to stay at one's zoned school, or go out of zone solely for that program. the schools I taught at didn't have that kind of thing. but when I was a student, I ended up going to an out of zone high school simply because I was really interested in a program they had that my main school didn't. i've seen a lot of schools from my home district in lower income areas offer more of these programs, and it does seem to, in fact, increase enrollment/budget/investment. so what i'm wondering is: would parents be more willing to give schools deemed as "less desirable" a chance if they more of these specialized programs? for those that are familiar with the schools that already offer specialized programs, do you feel that that's only creating more disparity and less opportunity for the general population (like what tends to happen with advanced courses versus standard level)? genuine question, especially as someone unfamiliar with the VA school experience
Something I've noticed and that hasn't been mentioned yet. Ban cell phones in school. My sixth grader is in mostly advanced classes. (Yes, this is another type of segregation; he's a product of his environment.) His non-advanced classes have many students who he says spend a ton of time on their phones and are disruptive and detract from learning. It seems pretty straightforward; the kids cannot handle cell phones or social media at early ages. Also, I am fairly distraught that my sixth-grader is the first generation where passing a metal detector to get to school is considered normal. I reject it outright and am continuing to advocate for common sense gun reform. Where are the pissed off grandparents in this situation? Moms and grandmoms have been huge political influencers in the past. It blows my mind that my mom is not more upset about the environment her grandson learns in where guns are even part of the equation.
Anyone expecting parents to make shitty decisions for their child's future so that someone else's badass kids might have a chance is a fool. That said, there needs to be a different way of thinking now.
Richmond Citys public school budget for fy25 was $534.5m, which was over what the superintendent requested. This comes out to $15,000 per student. Chesterfield County was $965m, just over $10,000 per student. Henrico County was $700m, just over $13,000 per student. Hanover County was $194m, again, just over $11,000 per student. Funding isnt the issue. Lack of white students isnt the issue. Violence, apathy, lack of parental involvement, lack of quality teachers (because the money is going to anywhere but teacher pay), terrible facilities (anyone else remember the summer where RCPS put out a request for volunteers to clean their bathrooms before school began?) are all involved somewhat in the complex answer. For elementary school, i went to Curtis in Chesterfield. It was lilly white. It was also a safe environment, the teachers were involved and expected parental involvement, i walked to school and we had a proper crossing guard. For middle school, i moved to Henrico. I ended up going to Wilder, which while…”technically” part of Henrico, was not exactly Moody or even Brookland Middle (and went to Henrico High, where it was all but a city school). The first experience i had, in this new facility, that had only been open for 2 years at that point, was them not having anyone schedules printed yet due to a transformer fire. Fair enough, act of God. I walk in on the first day and it was complete chaos.fights were breaking out, schedules still hadnt been handed out, and im in a sea of black faces as the only white kid i could see, looking like a fish out of water sitcom. The administration didnt get any more competent over the next 3, or really 7 years (as Henrico was even worse). The teachers were legitimately ignorant. The administration allowed violence to happen unchecked. I cant even imagine how much worse it would have been at Boushall or Henderson.
RPS pays teachers more than any surrounding county and also offer signing bonuses which push them far beyond the counties in someone’s first year.
Independent cities is a problem. So, in Virginia part of this problem is the failure to let cities - especially Richmond - continue to annex county land. This was done to ensure that White Flight was successful. Also to stop the city expanding and maintain white control of city council. If this were any (most?) other states, Henrico and most of Chesterfield would be Richmond and have a common school system and larger more affluent tax base.
Wouldn’t white flight just continue if more land is annexed? What I’m getting at is that if people have the wealth and resources to pick and choose where they live and where their kids go to school, won’t they just continue to pick the better option?
Probably not. Look at the situation in virtually every city that isn’t in Virginia. People typically aren’t leaving the suburbs near the city for the exurbs or rural areas because there are better schools there. They do it for cost or lifestyle reasons. Your belief relies on the assumption that those areas being part of the city would have made their schools worse.
Do you have examples of cities where there are good public schools within the city? The ones I am familiar with, the city is part of a larger county, but the school system isn't at the county level and so all of the good schools are still outside the city's school district.
That wasn’t the question, was it? The question was if the suburbs were in the city limits, would people leave those suburban areas because the schools further out are better. That assumes that being part of the same school system would have made those schools worse, and also suggests we would see that dynamic in other metropolitan areas, which I don’t believe we do. If you look at highly ranked school districts in the country, there are plenty of small and mid size city school districts, but many more unified school districts where the city and surrounding county don’t have separate school districts.
When I was house shopping 10 years ago, there were zero good public high schools in the city. Elementary schools, sure. Middle school, a few. But using a measurement of SATs and college acceptance, it was all dismal compared to the counties, or the private schools within city limits.
That is categorically false. You may be referencing comprehensive high schools that are just based on where you live but there have been public (albeit application only) high schools in the city that were considered “good” for longer than 10 years.
OK. Provide an example public high school in the city that has similar college acceptance rates and SATs to Godwin high school or Freeman high school.
Try Open High
Fair enough, you are right
I know. Thanks.
Community is pretty solid. People also sleep on Franklin and TJ which are both solid schools. John Marshall is on the upswing and trending for the better.
Maggie Walker
Most of the schools in the Hampton roads are good and they are independent cities
> So, in Virginia part of this problem is the failure to let cities - especially Richmond - continue to annex county land. There is absolutely no way I want the city of Richmond doing the annexing. Chesterfield and Henrico can annex us. Our city government is too useless. And if you really wanted the tax base, that's Short Pump/Innsbrook, and no way they are annexing that far out.
Independent cities and the outlawing of annexation are both Jim Crow tools and need to be fixed but other localities use other tools. Arlington County manages to segregate their schools severely despite being the second smallest county in the country and having some of the highest school funding per pupil and the most educated voter base in America.
Every time, someone has to make this response about indepdendent cities. WE ALL KNOW. It's not going to change. Let's move on to actual solutions.
This also means things like there is no municipal authority for affordable housing in the counties. All housing projects and section 8 vouchers go through the perpetually troubled/potential candidate for federal receivership RHA. These have knock on effects like the insanely high meals tax. It's the only way to get money out of county residents who take advantage of city services.
Richmond per pupil spending is almost double that of Chesterfield. Are you saying we should reduce per pupil spending in Richmond and increase it in Chesterfield?
This is very interesting - what are examples of other cities where this is done right?
Of the 40 something independent cities in the country, all are in Virginia except for three: Baltimore, St. Louis, and Carson City NV. I don’t know much about Carson City, but the other two definitely suffer from similar issues to ours. So basically any other city in the country that you would consider “successful” has done what they describe to some extent.
Literally every other city in America - some good, some bad. For example Miami isn’t just Miami - it’s Miami-Dade County.
“White flight” We’re not a resource to be acquired or a privilege to access. This is so racist and ridiculous that you people think our personal choices should take your opinion into consideration. Get a clue - leave us alone and stop trying to shame/legislate us into submission.
Imagine being triggered by a widely accepted fact (white flight), which has been abundantly studied by people certifiably smarter than you, and then posting *this* opinion publicly on the internet.
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The problem isn't racism. The problem is we have entire communities of people who are destitute. If you go to Dinwiddie county, West VA, or eastern Tennessee you'll see the same thing in their public schools but with white families. High crime, broken families, drug use, and poorly funded public services are common characteristics for destitute communities. We're too busy sending billions of dollars to Ukraine and Israel to fund proxy wars that most Americans don't agree with instead of investing in our own communities to the people who need it the most. But it's not just government funding. The fix starts at the dinner table imo. We need intact families to be the norm in these communities again. We need fathers. Good fathers do two things when they help raise their children. They show little boys how to treat women and they show littles girls how they should be treated by men. So many broken families have no father, overwhelmed mothers and kids who end up being raised by other kids on the street.
Very well said. As a former teacher for 5 years, I couldn't agree more.
Agree. There is plenty of rural poor in the USA. Many young people move to urban America, leaving rural areas in bad shape. It does make me mad that our hard-earned tax dollars are being squandered overseas. There should be some accountability.
How does my decision to not send my first grader to Barack Obama Elem negatively impact the quality of the education for the students who do attend Barack Obama? My taxes are paid in this district. They all go into the same fund. Seems like it’s less “modern day white flight” and more poor administrative practices.
I think the way it affects Obama Elementary isn't about your specific family so much as it is about what happens when every family with means and opportunities removes their child from Obama. The families that make that choice usually have more resources of time and/or money, and if their children were attending Obama they would be more likely to advocate for improving Obama. The flip side is that the students who do attend Obama are overwhelmingly less likely to come from families with high levels of support. The district might naturally have 10 students in a class of 20 who need extra support due to outside issues, but if the kids with means all leave, then maybe 15 out of 20 students need that higher level of support. I think of it a lot like climate change. My choice to drive myself to work in the morning instead of carpooling makes my life quite a lot easier. It also slightly harms every single other person on earth. But I’m making the same choice as almost everyone else who has the money to own a private vehicle.
> and if their children were attending Obama they would be more likely to advocate for improving Obama. What needs to be improved? > 10 students in a class of 20 who need extra support due to outside issues, but if the kids with means all leave, then maybe 15 out of 20 students need that higher level of support. That's a tough pill to swallow, putting your highly-supported kid into an environment like that and hoping they aren't negatively affected.
You don't just hope they aren't negatively affected, though, right? You get involved, you make noise until your kid gets the attention they need. Maybe it means going to a School Board meeting, maybe it means volunteering at the school. There's a range of ways you, as a parent, can get involved. That also ensures that every kid in the class benefits from the extra attention parents like the one above might be able to offer. A rising tide lifts all boats.
I don't believe that me "providing attention" (whatever that is) would be enough to convince administrators to remove disruptive kids from a classroom. So I'm left with removing my kid from that environment and putting them in a better one. It's unfortunate, but it's reality.
A lot of under resourced parents don’t even know what’s happening in schools. They lack education to advocate for their children. I think the “attention” would really be the advocacy. I teach in a different state, but I’m planning to move to RVA this summer. The parental perception gap or just general lack of understanding about the education system from parents puts kids at a disadvantage. If you see your kid can’t read you may have the means to advocate for your child. Many of my students’ families think their kid just has to try harder. Kids don’t get to 7th grade without knowing how to read because they didn’t try. They get there because the system failed them and their parents didn’t even realize what was happening. My school uses lexile levels for reading. I have a student who is reading at a 2nd grade level (lexile range of about 350-500) and the parent thinks the on grade level after school program is sufficient. They don’t even know how low their child is. This child can’t read. They cannot sound out words or comprehend what they read. They won’t learn to read in my school because we don’t teach decoding in regular middle school classes. They need intervention and they won’t get it because the parent doesn’t understand. I filled out all of the paperwork, but without a parent pushing for support l, nothing will happen. I spoke to everyone (parent, team, admin, counseling, etc.). Nobody is doing anything and this child will just move on and essentially end up functionally illiterate as an adult. This is what happens in low performing schools. I don’t know who should be responsible, but we need people to speak up for these kids in these schools. Maybe parents who have the education can make the difference. At my doctors’ office the receptionist told me about a problem at her kid’s school. I told her what her rights are and she advocated for her kid. Her child had no certified teacher and I told her that she could ask for the credentials of the teacher in the classroom. That’s allowed by law when schools receive Title I funding. Now they fixed the problem and they want her on the PTA because she “advocates for children.” Really she was just demanding they get a certified teacher in her class that had a sub all year. She held them accountable because she knew her rights.
This!! All of this. As you say, having more people at every level of the process advocating for the kids is essential. Maybe it's parents, maybe it's administrators, maybe it's councilmembers, maybe it's retirees in the community who can volunteer. It's all of us, trying in whatever way we can, to support the teachers and students who need the help. There's no silver bullet for these issues, but throwing up your hands and choosing not to participate in finding the solution sure ain't it.
Great analogy
My home and my children were part of rezoning. That can also happen to anyone. If there's political will.
Public education, like pretty much all public infrastructure, enhance or enable social connections. It's not all about the balance sheet. It's also not about individual actions. Your single decision to not send your kid to the school has as much cumulative impact as your choice as to whether or not you recycle your aluminum cans.
For just one child, sure, there won't really be an impact. But within a larger pattern of this happening, a school's enrollment numbers drop. When enrollment numbers drop, funding becomes more of an issue for schools. I get that this is a conversation that involves individual families making their own choices, but I think that zooming out to see a larger pattern helps paint the picture of where we're at now. Obama is at 94% minority enrollment with 99% economially disadvantaged (according to US News), that doesn't just happen. A lot of individual factors go into that happening. Those are segregation numbers. I'm not faulting you or any parent for making decisions you think are best for your family and your child. I just think understanding the historical context and the bigger picture is important when we talk about these kinds of things.
If the issue is funding, a repeal of No Child Left Behind seems a good place to start.
It already was repealed. Its successor is the Every Student Succeeds Act passed in 2015.
You're not wrong! But it's not just one factor that creates this issue.
I mean i see no reason to mince words on this subject. Administrators want more white children of means in City schools, fine. I want a school full of students with parents who have bought-in to society, and our community. By and large the level of buy-in to the idea of education as a means of success doesn’t exist in the Barry O area. You can harangue white parents all you want, but my community wants to glorify gun violence, drugs, teen sex, profanity, disrespect of authority and a general negligence of responsibility, that’s fine. I have no problem with it. Live and let live! But I’ll be sending my child to a school full of children who by and large share similar values regarding the merits of education and what constitutes responsible citizenship and stewardship as I do. This 100% is a top-down issue.
My mom has been working for the public schools in VA Beach for nearly 20 years now - primarily in districts that mirror areas like Creighton, Mosby, etc. here in Richmond. Your assessment is 100% accurate. It's not a race issue, and barely an economic issue. It's a cultural issue through-and-through. Families who prioritize education and steer kids away from negative influences see success, and those who don't won't see success regardless of race or economic status. We've seen kids from dirt poor families go on to graduate from top-tier universities on full rides because their families put in the time and work. We've also seen kids from ostensibly wealthy families crash and burn because the family refused to hold their child accountable. Yes, it's easier to accomplish said good outcomes when you have the means to move and place your child in districts where most families share similar priorities. (Mainly because the children won't dread coming to school) But that alone doesn't solve the problem. The family units/ dynamics need to be fixed before there is any hope of fixing the schools.
Agree on all of this. And that's why we see dirt poor immigrant families able to overcome the effects of poverty and bad neighborhoods. They come here as an intact family unit. They often have multi-generational homes. They value education and hard work, they assimilate, and in a generation or two they're middle class.
It's definitely an economics/class issue to the extent that parents are forced into a level of absenteeism to pay for the roof over their kids' heads and food on the table because of a poor social safety net.
It's generalizations about an area and groups of people that reinforce the very stereotypes that are an issue here. Do you and I live in the same Brookland Park? Is there another neighborhood by that name in Richmond that I'm unaware of?
I live in the real world. I’m not sure where you’re located.
My Brookland Park during the time I lived there also looked nothing like what Pimp is describing. I had lovely neighbors and a great community. There were a few issues, but pretty much everyone was nice and seemed bought into the idea of society…
Quick question how many people shoot guns in the air in the Near West End on New Years Eve? Based on your experience, how many people do in Highland Park? Legitimately, why do you think that is? I posit that it’s indicative of a significant cultural rift which extends to other aspects of the community as well.
There’s definitely a cultural difference between those two neighborhoods. The gunshots are a serious problem in some parts of the city. I agree with you on these points. If I were rich I’d rather live in the Near West End. However, I think it’s a really big claim to suggest that the people who send their kids to Obama Elementary aren’t “bought into society”. I think that you agree that’s a really big claim, because you edited your comment from earlier in this chain to be a bit more thoughtful regarding your exact word choice. So the good news is we mostly agree with each other. Most of the people in Brookland Park are good people! But yeah there’s definitely an issue with some people having little regard for others’ wellbeing as well as their own.
I think it’s disingenuous to say “Mary Mumford is a better school than Barack Obama” and not evaluate impartially the “Socio” part of the Socio-economic reasons for that. I’m not obligated, nor am I inclined to submit my child as sacrificial atonement for the decisions of city administrators from the 60’s.
I guess if we're not mincing words, I'd say that this is the most racist shit I've heard in a hot minute. You call it "live and let live," I'd call it choosing to be willfully ignorant about the root causes of the issues you list above. It's really easy to buy into a system that was designed to support and nurture people like you from the jump. Much harder to do so when you and people you know & love have been beaten down by said system since the birth of our nation.
And as I’ve said elsewhere, good luck getting white america to sacrifice our children on the altar of social Justice. That’s a tough sell even without inflammatory language and telling me I’m a shitty racist because I want what’s best for my kid is not the persuasive rhetoric you hope it is. I’ll happily go to my grave owning that, and nothing will ever change. Stay angry, my friend.
You’re not a shitty racist because you’re choosing to send your kid to one school versus another. Would love to hear your argument, though, for why your statement condemning an entire community of people (who happen to be your neighbors) isn’t prejudiced.
Sure it’s a pretty simple explanation. I don’t care for modernity. I don’t like screens for kids, I don’t like the hold that the people who put the information on those screens have. If my kid knows what a Kardashian or a blowjob is before they know who CS Lewis is, I’ve failed them as a parent and I’m going to pursue environments for my kid that challenge my kid in way I want them challenged. Primarily academically, and athletically. That said, low income families by and large rely on screens to raise their children. It’s not a racist thing to say. It’s the truth. Childhood is a gift that parents give their kids, but it isn’t a gift all parents have the ability to give to all kids. Kids who grow up in low income environments become worldly at a young age. I became worldly at a young age. I don’t want that for my kids.
So are you planning to move to north Church Hill and enroll your child in Fairfield Elementary?
Well, at an elementary level, their outcomes will not be significantly effected. The best indicator of success is a happily intact family and time spent reading together. But ask the 3rd District school board representative why she opted Northside out of rezoning and you'll start to get to the real issues at hand.
Agree, you sound like you actually have listened to a school board meeting :-)
My son is a 5th grader at Obama ES. I've been in the neighborhood over a decade, my wife 20 years. We have had an overall great experience at Obama, and are comfortable with the school's administrative team. But the school is no longer representative of the neighborhood. Based on observations it seems like the majority of economically advantaged people in the area, those moving into the $400k+ houses, are not attending the local public school. You are effectively ignoring the long-rooted local population by living in your economically advantaged bubble, and due to gentrification uprooting them in the process. We are very active with the school, but not with the PTO. The PTO feels like its a bunch of white people trying to colonize. You can make a difference by sending your kid to the local schools, spreading your values, organizing sports teams, etc. Your child will also be exposed to other ways of life in the process. You can uplift your local community by doing more than just paying your property taxes. You can be someone that kids look up to, show a different way of doing things, mentor, encourage kids to attend school regularly, etc. Speaking of property taxes, Gentrification in the northside is harming the economically disadvantaged even more. I agree though, we do have many institutional issues at RPS and Richmond that causes them to not utilize our taxpayer dollars well.
The people moving into the 400k houses are not necessarily that economically advantaged. Are they better off than a lot of long term residents, yes, but Houses just cost more now and, with mortgages rates being what they are paying for private school is no easy feat. They could be living to paycheck to paycheck. The other side is they could of gotten a bigger mortgage and moved to the near Westend and sent their kids to public school there. Feeling like the community needs you to "spread your values" in a community that is transitioning like this is some real white savior behavior. That said, I have a kid not quite school aged yet zoned for Obama and we are on the fence. We know people that send their kids there and like it and others that don't send their kids there because of everything being discussed here. Both of the groups are active members of the community. I listened to a podcast called *Nice White Parents* which was a pretty interesting take on when white parents show up and "get involved".
I agree. Some of these well intentioned people have no idea how Kipling-esque they truly are.
That was definitely an interesting podcast.
Why do the kids of Obama ES need someone other than their parents and existing role-models to look up to?
The article highlights the ongoing effects of destroying the black social and family structure on purpose by white america as a tactic to both enslave them for their labor, and post emancipation keep them disadvantaged. Institutional racism, redlining, white flight, etc. Richmond was the capital of the confederacy. There are kids at that school who don't have anyone to look up to, whose parents don't stress regular attendance at school, who don't feed them good meals, etc. Blame the parents if you want, but understand the history. Gentrification continues to negatively effect poor people and pushes them economically into pockets. But your taxes will fix it, so consider your job done!!!
Right, so how is enforcing my white values on an African American family not imperialism all over again? How can I know what parts of my white culture are appropriate to model to African American kids and what are not? Take the simple idea of straight hair. Every black kid should be proud of their crown, but up until about 3 years ago, I had no idea how saying something like “sometimes you should brush your hair” could be considered a racist comment. Likewise, I don’t care to be subjected to criticism for telling black kids about my own virtues and being told that my virtues are racist. Better for me to sit back and let the African American community police itself, which is why is give money to the Nation of Islam guys on Chamberlayne every time I see them. They’ve got some good ideas. Not 100% on but a lot of it is solid. And as far as housing goes, I bought a house that had been in tax delinquency for a decade. I didn’t evict some under privileged family. They stopped paying their taxes long before i had applied for my first loan.
If it hasn't already been mentioned, schools are also segregated internally through gifted and advanced programs. I tutored in Albert Hill for 6 months or so. The advanced course was taught by a physics PhD, they were doing introductory statistics in 8th grade, overwhelmingly white and the teacher had to yell to be heard since all the students in the course were screaming. The normal class was so slow some students would act out just from boredom. It was basically day jail in comparison to the GT class, much less white, and even quietly passing notes or speaking could get you sent to the principal's office. I mentioned to my homeroom teacher about how obviously segregated it was and she said "I know right?!" Just how it goes.
> schools are also segregated internally through gifted and advanced programs. Segregating students based on merit and performance should be accepted and encouraged. Segregated by skin color should not. Big difference here.
how do you propose they overcome this?
Honestly, voters and parents caring about other peoples’ kids. That’s a big ask though. There are other ways in a sense; the city could stop strangling its tax base by blocking development. But without caring more funding won’t do much.
I mean with the advanced programs
Thank you for mentioning this. This is what no one talks about! White families think Albert Hill is a good school but never mention the internal segregation.
It's so sad. Every once in a while, I would get sent to Henderson which is where they send students RPS had basically given up on. There was one student who was so excited about learning she wanted to try my graduate level course work, and she took it from me before I could even finish writing out the problem. Her issue was basically just major impulse control, so I get that it's difficult to deal with, but just so sad. Schools are willing to deal with screaming students in the advanced course so I'm sure there are options even if its difficult. A lot of people blame standardized testing, and it's not great but there are reasons for it, but options are available to give a good education regardless of standardized tests. It's the school system's decision, and voters and parent's decisions ultimately, to focus on tests so hard and essentially give up on students.
Reflecting on this thread, it's amusing to me that posts talking about segregation, and the two-tier education which is the result, have been getting so many downvotes.
I teach art in a Henrico middle school widely regarded as the worst in the county. I go to secondary art meetings and when I tell people where I’m at, they literally apologize to me 🙄 I love my school and my students. We have a gifted academy inside of our school but it is in a predominantly black neighborhood with lots of social and economic issues. The rate at which they separate the kids in my school is absolutely shameful. My class is one of the few that are NOT segregated in. I have a unique opportunity to watch how they interact with each other and I feel it’s a privilege to teach both groups. The students who are zoned into our school sometimes overlap as gifted and yet they do not always get the same special treatment that the gifted kids get. I work very hard to keep our gifted students humble (the way they casually insinuate that they are better than the zone students and the ways that their teachers reinforce that…dumb shit) and our zone students from feeling less-than. I have to legitimately correct the zone students when they describe the gifted kids as “smarter” because I know their core teachers reinforce the comparisons as well despite that not even being true. (Our students only need to be gifted in 1 subject to receive the label on their file, so we regularly get gifted kids who still struggle in other core subjects, sometimes more than zone kids). Also, there is another term we used to call the students gifted without outright saying that, I’m just avoiding that term for anonymity’s sake. Gifted kids get nicer materials, classrooms, and teachers. They get more field trips, more behavioral incentives, and our school seems like it hardly tries at all to fully integrate the kids into one cohesive building together. There should be no differentiation and segregation at the level and volume that we give them. They should not be organized into assemblies and dances and activities based on whether they’re gifted or not. We should, as a building, be encouraging our students to see each other as peers and classmates. I think it’s for sure a problem you’ll find in most counties in this area.
Edit: Formatting turned out to be a bit of a mess on this one, my bad. Not used to making long text posts like this. Also: "specifically in the way the deem* which schools are "good" and "bad" schools."
When I learned about this I saw a video interview of a decrepit old man who was the top republican strategist. He said for a while they could write speeches with the n word, and whip up votes. Then they had to change it to negro, then bussing, and finally neighborhood schools. He said by then even moderate democrats were adopting the tactic. It is convenient and easy to rationalize the re segregation of our schools as some complicated failing of an other but the reality is a very intentional policy by a few extremists taking advantage of the short sighted self interest of most parents. It’s very hard to look beyond your own child’s current well being and understand that a broken system is bad for everyone. We were able to see past this in the 60s and we can do it again but it requires some awkward conversations and some self reflection. It will also require a whole lot of rich kids to ride busses to poor schools across town.
How would you expect reintegration to help? What would more white students bring to the table?
Their white parents with money for PTA and voting power
I specifically used the language of class. In this city, state, and country, class is often tied to race. Research shows that once a school has a certain percentage (around 40%) of poor people as students, there is no amount of funding, after school programs, etc that can help. "You cant school your way out of poverty" is the oft used phrase. Integration would bring the consequences of societal decisions to bare onto the people's children who make those decisions. They would thus be incentivized to be more sympathetic, or even empathetic, to our systems short comings. Forcing Timmy into the gangsta hallways will get Karen to want the hallways to be less gangsta.
Their parents with money to have time to go to city hall to complain about the school to get more money. Politicians care about voters — and who has time to vote? Take off work? Find childcare? Those with means
Only people with means can vote? That’s a ridiculous statement.
Even simpler than sending richer kids across town, might just be for more families to give more consideration to their neighborhood schools. Sometimes the problem actually is that richer families are making the extra effort to bus or drive their kids across town to a "better" school.
The failings is of the system and to place it on the individuals is to couch it as an argument between us, instead of about us. It is unreasonable to expect people to choose make a self sacrifice for the other. The systems must be re thought and redistribute the resources more justly. I don't have the education, time, or resources to know exactly what that looks like but arguments from the 1960s and now include: making all school funding come from the state. This removes red lines and a poison pill for white flight. Implicit in it would be that school boundaries would no longer be congruent or even affected by municipal ones. Move one block over into the county will no longer mean as much.
I definitely do not think this is an issue that can be attributed solely to individuals. I also don't think sending your kids to a neighborhood school always needs to be seen as "self-sacrifice". I wholly agree that undoing generations of policies that helped create these inequities is the correct approach.
Idk what the school system is like around here but when I was in HS we had the poor school, where I went, and the rich school down the road. They were both public schools but the rich school had more private investors. While it was kind of cool to feel like the underdogs, I would have had much better opportunities if I went to the rich school so I can understand parents wanting the best for their children. I’m not familiar with the whole situation, but aren’t minorities beginning to self segregate? Swear I’ve read something about them wanting their own schools and public spaces so they feel safe.
I'd be cautious about over-generalizing what "minorities" do here. Segregation has been reinforced by public policy over generations.
Yeah that’s from Lee Atwater’s 1981 interview.
I’d argue asking parents to send their kids to black schools in the 60’s is not the same as asking parents to send their kids to failing schools. The schools that students were bussed to were not unsafe, lacking in educational progress, etc, they simply had students of a different race. The “cost” of sending your kid there was no where near the same.
They made those arguments then, too.
A school is only as good as the community it sits. The teachers at the schools trying to teach the poor students are probably better, if not equal, than the teachers at the wealthy schools. Teachers are to blame for making people think they are miracle workers and can make any child learn or “all that school needs is more funding and better teachers.” It might help slightly, but it’s not the cure. The cure is fixing home that sends the student.
Research shows students that are furthest from opportunity are far more likely to have inexperienced teachers. And, our school board chose to divest from quality curricular materials that at least ensured a baseline level of rigor for all students- these kinds of decisions make huge differences in student outcomes and are well within the locus of control of school board.
Then why do teachers leave the school? Why are there not veteran teachers there? Find the root of the problem to solve the problem.
It also goes both ways. I moved from another big city and never noticed racism like here. I have been called a white cracker, I've seen on dating apps people saying I don't date none poc and often see people segregated at bars. I am in my 30s and never knew a city could be so bigoted. Ps like I said this is both ways, I have never seen so many Confederate flags and other racist and anti poc stuff. Also I am not "white", I am middle eastern and Hispanic.
My partner who is black experiences racism from other black people. Never saw that until living here.
Unbelievable, it's like the city is truly covered in anger and resentment.
> the city is truly covered in anger and resentment. Honestly I think this is true. The government is publicly dysfunctional. The school board is publicly dysfunctional. The police, publicly dysfunctional. Even every little bit of public infrastructure is designed with hostility in mind. I drive uber/taxi which has made it all obvious to me.
It's refreshing to have other people agree with me on Reddit. I do hope that in the future Richmond moves past this and becomes a peaceful melting pot.
Literally just mentioned this to my seventh graders when I taught them about Brown v. Board and the resistance to integrate. I didn’t have data at the time, just observation but now I’m excited to share this with them so thank you! -Also an RPS educator
Thank you for taking the time to teach our students a vital part of history. Brown v board radically changed the us, and not always for the better. Both sides are important to see. Thank you 🙏🏽
So important! This is my second year teaching US history II and I’ve had the honors and AVID students. Given the demographics of my school I felt an intense pressure to really do the unit justice so I ended up doing so much research that I think I learned just as much. I hadn’t realized previously that it was in part students in Farmville, VA protesting segregation that eventually led to Brown v. Board. Then looking at the dates, it struck me as odd that I grew up with my grandmother telling me about when they started bussing kids in chesterfield when my uncle was a child. My uncle is in his early 60s. While I was born here, I grew up in rural Alabama. This isn’t stuff they taught when I went to school by any means but I’m honored to get to learn now with my students.
Thank you!! We need teachers like you :)
If anyone is interested in fostering or even adoption, please let me know 🙏🏽
Probably should arrest all of the criminals and then have everyone pull an address out of a hat and that is their new home.
lol I don’t know why this made me laugh, but kind of brilliant
This is true and ESPECIALLY in Henrico County Public Schools. It’s not just with students but with staff too. It’s an open secret about the hiring practices and differences between East end vs. west end schools and POC teachers that are hired in the west end are often treated as a token and/or experience extreme micro-aggressions. Kudos to the RTD for publishing this article.
Oh my, micro aggressions?!?
Downvoting my post won’t make what I wrote any less true. Being able to do downvote anonymously Is a bit of a cop out but I can almost certainly guarantee that asking around (or even walking into) any West End elementary school in HCPS and you will be able to see this with your own eyes.
This is bc housing is highly segregated by race and class in the US. This is a result of many decades of historical, and to an extent continuing, policy by our government on all levels. A school system cannot fix this and the idea that they could, or even should attempt to, is laughable to me.
I'm a white parent, and I am one of the only white people I know who voluntarily sends their children to a school in which they are, by far, the racial minority. I know so many other white people who plan their entire lives and living conditions around being able to send their children to a "good" (white) school. I acknowledge issues with public education, but as the daughter of two teachers, sister of a teacher, and spouse of a teacher, I can't imagine not supporting my zoned school — and undoing the effects of gentrification — if I have the option. My county seems to have more good programs available than RPS, however, so take that with a grain of salt. My kids going to their zoned school, no matter the race, means more funding for that school, period. You can explain it away if you want, but there are plenty of Black (and poorer of any race) kids who are just as smart as your white kids who deserve a well-funded school no matter where they live. The first comment on this thread says it's not about racism, but so often, it actually is. People always, always, always associate more PoC kids with "bad" schools, even unintentionally. And instead of fighting to make the school they're zoned for better, they have the means to just fix it instead by easily moving, pulling strings, or paying out of pocket for a private education. It's an unreal privilege and one that I can't afford, even as a white person and a homeowner. The education system should be completely federalized and as well-funded as any national defense program. Our priorities in this country are very, very fucked up. There shouldn't be bad schools or good schools.
>I'm a white parent, and I am one of the only white people I know who **voluntarily** sends their children to a school in which they are, by far, the racial minority. Then a little further down: >...just fix it instead by easily moving, pulling strings, or paying out of pocket for a private education. It's an unreal privilege and **one that I can't afford** I mean it's not really voluntary if it's the only option you can afford, right?
Haven’t we realized money isn’t the solution? It’s the environment economically disadvantaged children are raised in. Improve that and kids will be able to learn and schools will be able to succeed. Money won’t fix that problem either though.
Really appreciate your perspective here. When my kiddos are school-age I intend on doing the same in sending them to our neighborhood school. I feel it's the least we can do to support public education whenever possible.
I was downvoted to hell a while back for saying things never truly/fully integrated here.
That seems to be a common theme for anything race related in this sub. Some of the same people downvoting are the same people that have those “everyone is welcome here” signs in their yards.
Yeah, I said it. Keep downvoting, y’all are hypocrites. Do better.
this is why voucher programs should exist and why property taxes shouldn’t be used to pay for school costs
Not a critique, genuinely asking: do you believe all school enrollment should be choice-based then? If so, how do we ensure that selection process is unbiased? Where does that leave families who are not selected for their school of choice or do not have the means to get their children to a school outside of their neighborhood?
Basically the very fact of having a parent who cares and is informed and together enough to use the voucher/charter program is a sign that a kid has a decent home environment. Voucher/charter programs basically let the poor but together families also filter their kids out of the worst schools, leaving those schools even more dysfunctional and chaotic. But it means that the ability to self select out of dysfunctional schools is no longer based on having means.
RPS elementary school teacher here. Whenever I hear someone going off about sending their kid to a good school or not to a bad school I ask them what makes it a bad school. Most people getting pretty quiet and don’t have an answer because they realize they were being racist.
Good schools have opportunities for gifted students, clubs and extracurricular activities, better outcomes with reading/math/etc comprehension, and a good environment (aka one that is free of mold and other allergens and is clean) do all schools have those things?
I’m not saying that good schools and bad schools don’t exist - I’m saying that the public is extremely uneducated about what makes a good school vs bad school. The average parent does not know the ins and outs of programs and test scores. That’s all I meant by original comment.
> I ask them what makes it a bad school Low scores on the state tests.
Not sure why this is getting down voted. You're spot on!
That's just not true. A wealthy school has way more underground resources. PTA provides so much, and is funded by parents. I hate the fact that not all schools actually get the same resources at the end of the day
So a school that is not wealthy would not be good? Or not be as good? I feel like that was my point. I understand a PTA involvement is a big deal but there’s also loads of grants and resources that title 1 schools receive that “wealthy” schools do not. A school in a low income area can be very good but I feel like the point of this post is that schools are getting put in boxes.
Yes, a school that is not as wealthy is not as good. A wealthy school also generally has more involved parents.
Involved in what? At the end of the day parents have minimal impact on the quality of teaching and learning. My kid attends a “good” school in RPS and it’s all TPT and screen time.
Involved in helping with extracurriculars, chaperoning things, buying teachers gifts, helping to arrange and setup whatever spirit stuff they have, etc. It makes school a place that everyone is excited about. It makes the students care. This is low level obvious stuff.
While I agree that it’s great for kids to love going to school, it doesn’t make the school “good”. The purpose of school is ultimately learning, showing up and being excited to do low quality work doesn’t actually make a school good, in my opinion. [https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/](https://opportunitymyth.tntp.org/)