Posted on 01/30/2009 10:52:06 AM PST by markomalley
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said his young daughter will attend public school in Northern Virginia.
In an interview, Duncan, 44, said he was attracted by both the quality of Arlington County schools and the diversity of the student body. He said his 7-year-old daughter, Claire, will enroll in first grade at a county elementary school.
Duncan and his wife, Karen, also have a son, 4-year-old Ryan. Both children sat quietly during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month, reading books and drawing. Their behavior earned them praise from several senators.
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.com ...
Hey, the “nasty comment” didn’t originate with me. You’ll have to take it up with AuH2ORepublican. I was merely responding by making a logical conclusion. “Who do I think is responsible for the condition and the thought process of those kids in the public schools in DC?”, you ask. That would have to be kids themselves. How is it that the conditions/kids in the Fairfax County public school system have managed to garner a reputation for safe schools while the DC schools are not, as evidenced by the responses in this thread? Aren’t public schools public just schools after all? You claim they don’t teach authority, yet the Fairfax County district doesn’t seem to have the same bad reputation as the DC schools.
I am a teacher who has taught in many public school districts, suburban and inner city. I will never ever teach in an inner city district again. You couldn’t pay me enough. They are definately NOT safe. And it’s not the teachers who pose the threat.
However, if you're talking strictly about quantifiable diversity (race/gender/sexual orientation/etc.) then I'm not sure if there's any difference. What usually passes as 'diverse' is bringing in people who really shouldn't be in university and as a result don't succeed, and that doesn't help anyone.
You know as well as I do that “diverse” simply means
“non-white”.
I’d be impressed if she went to the public schools in DC, as opposed to the nice suburbs.
True (at least as far as universities are concerned), but while diversity for diversity’s sake is ridiculous, simply having a mix of people due to various other factors is a neutral. Often when people see ‘diversity’, they assume it was engineered at the expense of academics... and this isn’t always the case. Look in a Computer Science course; it’s plenty ‘diverse’, and academic integrity isn’t sacrificed at all. People automatically construe a variety of ethnicity as either a very good or a very bad thing... but sometimes, it just is.
Duncan’s daughter, however, is enrolled in Arlington County public schools. Much smaller school district, but has some excellent schools.
Yeah, in the sciences/engineering, there are no “diverse for diversity’s sake” people there past the 2nd year, if they don’t have what it takes. I had a lot of good experiences working with people of many different backgrounds while getting my degree.
” ..the crap that DC residents are stuck with.”
It’s a two-way street, isn’t it? DC parents with any funds at all and hope for their children, send them to private or parochial schools, unless they live in the area that has a few decent schools. Otherwise, the schools feed back to the community exactly what the community has fed to them.
I tutored many years ago in a not-so-good DC public school. We’d go 2-3 nights a week and work with the students. Then they would go home ...no support, no back up, no help with their assignments. So each week we had to start anew. Not to say there aren’t other issues, but if parents can’t help their own children, expecting the public schoolto turn out scholarly students is a bit much.
After that, with my own children we lived in a delightful DC neighborhood, wih 15 children under the age of 5 on one half-block. The significance of that figure didn’t dawn on me till my oldest was about to start school. By the time those kids were turning 6, all families but one, including ours, headed out for the ‘burbs.
Of all posts not to use spell check. Ouch.
My bad.
What I meant is that the public schools teach the post modernist meta narrative of victimization, that the students should reject the white man’s system as oppressive and respect their own culture, whatever that is.
I know what you are saying about inner city schools. My nephew just quit a job in a district outside of Philadelphia because it was a lost cause that he didn’t feel like fighting for, especially because there was so little support from the administration.
George and Laura Bush also sent their twins to public school. I think he and Laura went to public schools also.
GWB went to public schools through the eighth grade. Then he was sent to a fancy N.E. “Prep School”.
Barbara went to public schools through High school. (Robert E. Lee H.S. in Midland and was a schoolmate of General Tommy Franks).
I’m not sure about the daughters.
Arlington Schools are far superior to those in Fairfax which is also reflected in the fact the Duncan would choose Arlington. Arlington is a small county with 10% of the student body compared to failing Fairfax or Montgomary Counties. Especially, now during these bad times many students in Fairfax are in trailers and teachers are being laid off. Arlington does not have the same problems because of the great wealth of the people living there supporting the public schools. Arlington is the foundation of rich democratic america - just take a drive in Country Club Hills and it is right there to be seen.
It’s difficult (if not silly) to compare schools in Arlington or Falls Church to those in Fairfax or Montgomery. Arlington has all of 3 high schools; Alexandria and Falls church each have 1.
It could be said some Fairfax/Montgomery schools are better than those in Arlington/Alexandria/Falls Church, and some are worse.
Fairfax does, after all, have THE #1 school in the entire country, with a complement of a half-dozen or so Arlington students, 3 from Falls Church, and none from Alexandria.
I would imagine Duncan moved to Arlington because it does have good schools and is very close to DC, not to mention a seriously liberal slant.
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