WHAT'S IN A WORD: In the Post, the Yu Ying school is "diverse!"

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

At the Times, it needs "desegregation:"
Within one particular human tribe, everyone said that they loathed pubic school "segregation"—but no one could say what it was!

So we were told, in recent weeks, by several top future scholars. Concerning the insight we derived from this episode, we'd rank it as our greatest anthropological learning to date.

The top expert scholars to whom we refer were members of Future Anthropologists Huddled in Caves, the despondent group which reports to us from the years which lie beyond the global conflagration they refer to as Mister Trump's War.

These experts were discussing one of the ways we in our current liberal tribe construct our tribal "fictions"—the mandated declarations of faith which establish tribal membership. They spoke, as always, in the past tense as they described our current liberal morĂ©s.

Everybody hates segregation, but no one can say what it is? In particular, these experts referred to current waves of mainstream upper-end journalism decrying "public school segregation."

They noted the promiscuous way this fraught term is employed, calling it part of the prehistoric process through which tribal bonding has always been formed. "Within this rapidly failing tribe, every sentence had to have a noun and a verb and the word segregation," one scholar mordantly told us.

Once we liberals have declared our loathing of public school "segregation," nothing else we say has to make any sense! So these gloomy anthropologists said, describing the way our tribe fell to ruin—and yes, they offered examples.

Within the past week, they spoke to us about last Saturday's front-page report in the Washington Post. Perry Stein's report about PTO groups started off like this:
STEIN (9/21/19): Mike Dixon left his first visit to his son’s new school deflated. The Dixons had scored a seat at a Chinese-language charter school in the District that families clamor to attend.

His children would be attending a diverse public school—a rarity in a city where most schools are segregated and the student population is overwhelmingly black.

But when Dixon attended a school open house in 2012, he was one of the few black parents in the room. And when he returned for an evening parent meeting, he was again one of the only black parents. He believed he didn’t belong, so he stopped attending.
Stein had made some peculiar claims at the start of her report, these experts skillfully told us:

She said "most Washington schools are segregated," a claim she never explained or tried to define.

She said the District's "student population is overwhelmingly black," a claim she never attempted to quantify, and a claim which has a slightly strange sound.

Beyond that, she referred to a particular Washington public charter school—the Washington Yu Ying Public Charter—as a "diverse public school." With great sagacity, the scholars told us that we should fact-check all three of those claims.

Below, you see some of the things we learned when took this expert advice.

First, is the District's student population "overwhelmingly black?" To our ear, this statement has a rather strange feel, and Stein never offered real numbers.

We'll offer two sets of data today. First, here are the numbers for the District's traditional public schools in the 2017-2018 school year:
Student enrollment, D.C. Public Schools, 2017-2018
(Traditional public schools only)

White kids: 15%
Black kids: 60%
Hispanic kids: 20%
Asian-American kids: 4%
Was that group of schools "overwhelmingly black?" To our ear, that peculiar statement has a slightly peculiar feel.

That said, almost half of Washington's public schools kids attend public charter schools. For demographics of those schools, you can just click here.

Combining numbers from those two groups of schools, here's our best approximation for the total student enrollment in all D.C. public schools:
Student enrollment, D.C. public schools, 2017-2018
(Charter schools included)

White kids: 11%
Black kids: 67%
Hispanic kids: 18%
Asian-American kids: 3%
Is that population "overwhelmingly black?" It's pretty much as you like or perhaps don't especially like it.

Our reasons for checking those numbers will become clear below. Meanwhile, are most of Washington's public schools actually "segregated?"

We don't have the slightest idea how to evaluate that claim. Stein never explained what she meant by that rather fraught claim. As such, her claim illustrates what we were told about modern liberal tribal narrative in this fraught arena:

Once a liberal signaled her loathing of public school "segregation," nothing else she said had to make any sense.

According to these anthropologists, statements like Stein's served the purpose of affirming a tribal "fiction." Such statements served no other purpose, we were convincingly told. In particular, the attempt to convey information played no part in this hard-wired game.

This brought us to the third part of our assignment. We'd been told that we should see if the Washington Yu Ying Charter School was actually "diverse."

For ourselves, we'd say the answer is yes and no. In terms of "race" and ethnicity, the school's enrollment looked like this:
Student enrollment, Yu Ying Public Charter School, 2016-2017
White kids: 30%
Black kids: 36%
Hispanic kids: 5%
Asian-American kids: 10%
Multiracial kids: 19%
On its face, we ourselves would be inclined to call that enrollment diverse! In the abstract, that student enrollment looks A-OK to us!

That said, this school is much more white and Asian, and much less black and Hispanic, than the D.C. public schools as a whole. And not only that! Its students come from much higher-income families than D.C. kids as a whole.

Good God! According to the D.C. Public Schools, 77% percent of its students are "economically disadvantaged."

But holy cow! At the Yu Ying Public Charter, only 10.5% of the kids are "economically disadvantaged!" As such Yu Ying is a school with a heavily middle-class student body, drawn from within a heavily low-income student population.

An irony therefore appears. In Stein's report in the Post, Yu Ying is described as "a diverse public school" within a larger system where "most schools are segregated."

But within the frequently muddled writing which has emerged at the New York Times, Yu Ying would be the type of school which needs to be "desegregated!" Its overall profile is very much like the academically selective middle schools in Manhattan which have attracted that newspaper's ire because they're more white and Asian than the city's schools on the whole, and because they're much higher income.

In the Post, Yu Ying is praised for being "diverse." At the Times, it would need to be "desegregated!" So it goes as our "liberal" tribe continues to move toward Mister Trump's War, or so leading experts have told us. And yes:

This is one of the conceptual jumbles which dogs "elite" thinking today.

Let's return to Stein's most striking claim—the claim that "most [D.C.] schools are segregated." Is that striking claim really true? And what does it actually mean?

As a matter of anthropology, none of that matters, top experts have said. Throughout its relatively brief history, the species in question ran on tribal fictions. In the case of this highly performative tribe, once you said you loathed "segregation," nothing else had to make sense!

"Man [sic] was the tribal animal." So future experts now claim!

36 comments:

  1. "Mister Trump's War" is only his coming battle against impeachment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "his coming battle against impeachment"

      No one said draining the swamp is gonna be easy.

      But it's always fun to watch liberal zombies switching into the panic mode.

      Delete
    2. Hey Bob, I see your favorite rag is not even pretending anymore to be anything other than Goebbels-style propaganda:
      The New York Times mocked for 'Star Wars' themed, anti-Trump video.

      Would you address this latest development, please?

      ...and while on it, why don't you tell us more about "Mister Trump's War". I really enjoy this particular tic of yours.

      Delete
    3. Mao, you really don't know much about Goebbels and his style of propaganda, do you?

      Delete
    4. Right... So, why didn't you post a link, along with a pedantic 5-page claptrap quotation, for everyone to scroll over? Fatigued?

      Delete
    5. Thanks Mao.
      Before your post, I wasn't sure what the latest Establishment talking points were.

      Delete
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      Delete
  2. Substitute the word "income inequality" for "segregation" and see if it makes more sense.

    It doesn't matter how you define these terms (segregation or income inequality) as long as you state what you mean when you get down to looking at figures.

    In social science research, you differentiate between your abstract concepts (which come from theory) and the ways in which you operationalize them (measure them) in the real world.

    In this case, we understand what is meant by segregation or income inequality and we hypothesize that it is bad for learning to be in a segregated school. If you then examine specific cases, you need to state clearly what is meant by segregation or income-based stratification.

    Somerby's mistake is that he is fuzzy about when someone is discussing theoretical constructs and when they are talking specifics. In newspapers, because these are not scientific discussion (not even anthropological), neither is occurring and the terms are being used in everyday language which has neither a theoretical foundation, nor the specificity of operational definition. No one expects everyday language to be precise -- except Somerby.

    I am tired of this evasion. This is nothing more than a way to use negativity and scientific nihilism to attack social science and the desire of liberals (and others) to improve the lives of children and their families in various ways.

    Who does this? Mostly conservatives. They know that science seeks to know truth and truth is the enemy of Republican control of their base, the death of manipulation. So Somerby is no friend to liberals and is too craven to ever state an opinion not clothed in layers of camouflage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aardvark writes:

      No one expects everyday language to be precise -- except Somerby.

      I am tired of this evasion. This is nothing more than a way to use negativity and scientific nihilism to attack social science and the desire of liberals (and others) to improve the lives of children and their families in various ways.

      Who does this?


      The question is not "who does this." After several decades, the question is do the elite of American liberalism, with all their money and brain power, actually want to improve the lives of any of the children and families living in households in the bottom three quintiles of income or, given the lack of credible analysis and proposals they have generated toward that end since the close of the New Deal/Great Society era, do the elite of American liberalism want, as Aardvark does for them here, to be identified as being a generous and compassionate cohort of meritocrats concerned about others, but whose lived commitment is to hanging on to every last perk of status and dime of cash any of them might miss when it comes to improving their own lives and the socio-economic prospects for their own descendants?

      Delete
  3. I'm a little confused. The article says Mike Dixon "was again one of the only black parents [at a school open house]. He believed he didn’t belong, so he stopped attending."

    They seem to be saying that Mike Dixon stopped attending school open houses. The first time I read it, I thought it meant that Mike Dixon's son stopped attending the Yu Ying school. I suspect that's what they really meant.

    Either was, it was an unfortunate decision IMHO.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dixon initially stopped attending the meetings, because he felt he didn’t belong there, based upon his experience at an open house. Did you read beyond that point? The whole point of the focus on Dixon was that he decided to go back, and became passionate about his involvement.

      Delete
  4. 'So it goes as our "liberal" tribe continues to move toward Mister Trump's War, '

    What about your tribe of Trumptards, Somerby ?

    ReplyDelete
  5. ‘Once a liberal signaled her loathing of public school "segregation," nothing else she said had to make any sense.’

    Stein mentions “segregation” once. She doesn’t “signal” anything about it. She brings it up in the context of a rarity in DC: a diverse school, which is the focus of the article. And what she said beyond that actually did make sense, since it is about the reality of a racially diverse school and how the parents of the kids there have dealt with and been affected by that diversity.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Here was a recent article from the same reporter:

    “D.C. schools try to meet students where they live”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-has-the-biggest-parent-home-visit-program-in-the-country-is-it-working/2019/09/15/21d06124-d56d-11e9-86ac-0f250cc91758_story.html

    It’s about DC’s home visit program.

    Somerby didn’t mention this one.

    Because it didn’t include the word “segregation.”

    Those liberals and their virtue signaling...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Somerby’s objection seems to be that the Post writer describes the Yu Ying school as diverse, whereas he claims the Times would describe it as segregated. (‘But within the frequently muddled writing which has emerged at the New York Times, Yu Ying would be the type of school which needs to be "desegregated!"’).

    And why does he think the Times would make this claim? Apparently, he thinks it is because there are more whites and Asians in that school than in the general school age population. But that isn’t really the objection that the Times (ie their journalists) raises, is it? The objection actually is that school populations at selective schools, such as selective middle schools and the specialized high schools, are vastly skewed towards white/Asian, when black/Hispanic children predominate in the general public school population.

    No one would actually object to a racial profile such as Yu Ying’s. It’s unlikely that a school with that diversity actually exists in NYC.

    Most of Somerby’s past discussion of NYC schools has focused on the specialized high schools, not the selective middle schools. Perhaps he could provide a link to his own post about NYC selective middle schools and a Times article dealing with it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Why would you think that a school with diversity can't "actually exist in NYC"? It took a few minutes in the google to find Edward R Murrow High School, where in 2018 the breakdown was

      White kids: 27%
      Black kids: 23%
      Hispanic kids: 21%
      Asian-American kids: 25%
      Multiracial kids: 3%

      Delete
    2. @deadrat
      “Its overall profile is very much like the academically selective middle schools in Manhattan which have attracted that newspaper's ire because they're more white and Asian than the city's schools on the whole, and because they're much higher income.”

      Note that Somerby says “middle schools”, and not “high schools”.

      Also note that I said it wasn’t likely, not that it was impossible.

      Got you to look, though.

      Delete
    3. Is that the sound of goalposts being dragged to new location? I think it is.

      You did say it wasn't likely, but it turns out to be very likely.

      Of course, true enough, that was for a high school. Did you want me to look up a diverse middle school in NYC? Or do you think you can check for yourself?

      You did get me spend about two minutes looking. What prize do you get for that?

      Delete
    4. School diversity and classroom diversity are not the same thing. Academically ambitious parents count on honors/AP/IB classes to segregate their little geniuses from the riffraff of whatever color. So, if one digs, digs, digs into Regents test scores at wonderfully diverse Edward R. Murrow High School, one will find the usual.

      Here’s where it’s at:
      https://www.nycenet.edu/OA/SchoolReports/2017-18/Dashboard_Appendix_2018_K525.pdf

      Physics is at the very bottom. It tells a tale.

      Delete
    5. @deadrat
      “it turns out to be very likely.”

      Somerby mentions not just “middle schools”, but “selective middle schools.” In order to show that it is very likely, you need to tally the number of selective middle schools with Somerby’s percentages vs ones without, then provide the results. You or he also need to show a Times complaint about this kind of school, with fairly even racial percentages, in order to justify his accusation. You will find instead that the complaint is about schools that are lopsided towards white/Asian rather than schools that are evenly distributed like Yu Ying. The stories about selective middle schools complained that a handful of these middle schools provided the bulk of the enrollment to the specialized high schools, and that these feeder schools were heavily white and/or Asian.

      Delete
    6. Edward R. Murrow is not an ordinary high school.
      https://www.praxistutors.com/single-post/2016/01/01/Edward-R-Murrow-High-School-How-to-Apply

      Gee, it seems as though school evaluations are complicated. Who knew?

      Delete
    7. @deadrat
      And, just for grins, Somerby further adds “academically screened middle schools.” So you have to add that to the analysis and search criteria. Not all screened schools are academically screened.

      Delete
    8. @deadrat:

      DC isn’t NYC.

      Murrow High School, New York:
      White kids: 27%
      Black kids: 23%
      Hispanic kids: 21%
      Asian-American kids: 25%
      Multiracial kids: 3%

      in New York, here are the percentages in public school:
      26% black,
      40.5% Hispanic,
      15% white,
      16% Asian

      The numbers at Murrow aren’t really horribly out of proportion for NYC, as it turns out. It’s a decent cross section. Whites and Asians are somewhat over-represented, Hispanics somewhat underrepresented. But not bad.

      Delete
    9. “You did get me spend about two minutes looking. What prize do you get for that?”

      U triggered, bro?

      Delete
  8. It could be said that Somerby is engaging in his own form of “virtue signaling.” He reflexively objects to any news story or academic study that contains the word “segregation”. Does he object because he cares about the kids, or because he wants to signal his own virtue as a “true” liberal, as opposed to all those fake ones? YMMV. If he cared about kids, it would perhaps behoove him to examine studies that show how segregation is bad for kids, rather than dismissing them out of hand, or acknowledge the difficulties that are being highlighted by stories such as Stein’s, where the subject is how racially diverse parents have to learn to cooperate in a changing environment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TDH doesn't care about kids. He only cares about bashing liberals.

      Delete
    2. @1:43 IMHO Somerby objects to the word "segregation" because he considers it to be a distraction from realistic ways to improve minority education. He has argued that integration is impossible in places like NYC because there are too few white students. OTOH he believes that some specific aspects of teaching are where realistic gains are possible. E.g., he has mentioned inappropriate textbooks for students who are behind grade level.

      Delete
  9. Somerby has posted a great example to apply Reardon's finding about income segregation vs racial segregation.

    As Somerby notes, the school would be considered segregated by NY Times standards but is diverse according to racial standards and in the Washington Post. The Charter Public school is selective and has attracted almost entirely middle class students regardless of race/ethnicity. According to Reardon, this is the kind of school that should be offering more seats to poor students because those poor students (again regardless of race) will do better among middle class students than grouped with mainly poor students. So Reardon's study implies that a school like Yu Ying needs to be less income-segregated and admit more poor students, even though it is racially diverse. Because grouping by race doesn't determine achievement outcomes, grouping by income does.

    If Reardon's study is relatively new, it isn't surprising that both journalists and school administrators are thinking about segregation in terms of race instead of income. Hopefully the attention drawn to Reardon's study by the NY Times article will change that.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I hate to break this to you Bob, but there are bigger things going on in Washington now that you should or could be writing about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Trump is a liar and a thief. And a traitor. Reminds me of DinC.
      Also Trump is Putin's bitch.
      Somerby could give a shit.
      Give him a 24 year old female Ivy league graduate who is a reporter; Bob will say that God is good and God is great.
      History will describe Trump as a traitor. And Bob is a self described "liberal".
      Current day republicans are bigots and racists. I know it, they know it, and Somerby knows it.
      Enjoy yourself; It's later than you think.

      Delete
    2. Somerby hasn’t found a right wing talking point that he can pass off as his own with a straight face yet.

      Delete
    3. Does he make a living with this garbage? Or is he on Social Security and doing this as a hobby?

      Delete
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