I have no issue with people who wish to live more among their sort, whatever criteria that is. To me, the difference is in awareness and interaction or engagement. My area is diverse in many ways. We all interact with respect and interest. Many do good for those in need. But my immediate neighborhood (call it a half mile square,) except for some college students, is not economically or racially diverse. I don’t think you just judge the setting. Rather, the actions.
My kids’ private hs was/is diverse, though not much. The school insisted on interaction without regard to SES, race, religion, etc. So it’s what you practice, more than what you say.
One of the reasons we chose public school. We have an okay public down the street. Very diverse, majority minority ( as is our town), big range of income levels, offers a good variety of APs, But has very few NMS (National Merit) and not many kids score high on AP. Many people in our affluent neighborhood send their kids to private school where they are educated with a handful of wealthy minority kids, but mostly rich white kids, have same variety of APs but more NMS.
Kid #1 I thought would thrive in an environment with more smart kids, if we define “smart” as NMS, but he also needed more practice in being around people who weren’t like him. He was/is a quieter, shyer kid who benefitted from being around all kinds of people in a structured, supportive environment (school and living at home). Kid #2 was socially more adept, but more prone to turning into a “bro.” Good for him to make friends with less privileged kids to tone down those tendencies. Honestly, my kids could live in a bubble their whole lives, never interacting with people not like them. But I didn’t want that.
And we are Jews. There are so few of us in this town that even though we live in a more Jewish part of town, there are still just a handful of us. There was a Jewish Day School, though, for lower grades when we moved here. I didn’t choose that for my kids because 1) the education wasn’t as good as public school and 2) I wanted my kids to be around non Jews, too. We did live in the part of town that had more Jews in it, but didn’t choose Jewish Day School, so I guess we compromised.
My kids’ HS sounds like @Lizardly ‘s. Majority minority, and a big spectrum of income levels. I think the latter is what’s missing in many people’s “diverse” schools. Class diversity. My kids’ school was…adequate. Most CC parents would have opted out, I think. But they did fine, went to fine colleges, and are comfortable with diversity in diverse ways – ethnic, religious, class, even aspirational.
I don’t expect to convince others’ of that worth, but for us, it was right. And as I said above, contributed to them being the kind of people they are, putting their values front and central.
S was definitely the minority in his charter school which was great for him to see how others live. Our neighborhood and area are full of gated communities, beamers in the drive way, etc. His charter school is primarily low income inner city minorities, bars on the windows of stores and homes,etc. Many (significant % way north of 50%) who will be first in
their family to go to college, even if it’s CC. Great people who value family a lot. Many of the Hispanic parents don’t speak English. S has become very comfortable communicating in Spanish with a lot of slang thrown is. Funny I ask him why Spanish class is so hard and he answers by saying Spanish class isn’t really Spanish.
All in all it’s been good for him to see a much different world than the comfortable confines of home.
When my kids were growing up, we lived in a town that was super white and affluent. While I liked the schools (for a while, anyway), I wasn’t very happy with the demographics, so I chose a church that was a lot more diverse, both in ethnicity and income. I explained this choice to the kids so that they would understand it was about values as much as it was about finding a church with good programming, etc. When we needed to change schools, we moved to a town that was much larger and more diverse in ethnicity, if not in economic status, and sent the kids to a very diverse Christian school.
But the best education came accidentally. During my daughter’s senior year and my son’s sophomore year in college, we moved up to rural Maine to start a new business and new lifestyle. Our daughter followed us up here after she graduated to work for a year before starting grad school. The majority of people here are poor, and have only a high school diploma, but they have outdoor skills that are truly impressive.
Most parents will want their kids to go to the best schools in their area, which are almost inevitably those where most kids come families with high incomes and high levels of college education. High SES status in turn will correlate with certain racial characteristics.
My kids went to public school. I have a belief in community. I could not pull my kids out of the public schools when other parents could not. It’s only if we stand together that all kids succeed. If you take your kid out of public schools then your voice and your passion are lost to the public schools. We didn’t have black box theater or art supplies but we had a community. My kids, who have long since graduated, can get along with anybody they work with. What’s that worth?
We have one neighborhood in our town that is heavily Jewish because it’s within walking distance of a conservative temple. I’d guess about a quarter of the white people in my neighborhood are Jewish. (Reform generally since we aren’t within easy walking distances of any of the many temples in town.) Interestingly I think there are more Jews in my generation, and fewer with the young families moving in. In the NYC area, it actually tends to be WASPs who are in the minority. Lots of Catholics and the Protestants tend to be African-American.
My voice sure isn’t lost in our public school just because I opted to homeschool my own for 4-6 years. I work in the public school.
FWIW, my kids also get along with anyone they work with and are highly sought after as leaders within their jobs, church, and community.
The choice one makes for schooling has absolutely nothing to do with that latter part. Plenty of kids in our public school are good at getting along and plenty aren’t. That bit depends upon personality the most and a fair bit of what they learn at home. School tries to teach manners, but we definitely don’t get through to all.
We tried to keep our kids in public school but gave it up and transferred them to private after a very tough time in middle school. The 1st day of class, the gifted & talented SS teacher that S has for 2 years was upset with S because he asked her Qs she couldn’t answer and then ignored him for the next 2 years (so immature).
My D was given an F because she was ill and unable to turn in a home ex project (making a pillow) while ill. I had called and asked if they needed it turned in while she was ill and got no response so she brought it when she was well and returned to school so she got an F!
Fortunately, the kids overcame these incidents but I thought they were signs the kids needed to move on. S really thrived in prívate school. D made lifetime friends there where she had a very tough time socially before then—she found her tribe.
My kids attended the local public ES and MS. My oldest attended the local HS (which was quite diverse) but younger child attended a STEM magnet school. The magnet was predominantly upper middle class (or more) and much less diverse. We were aware of this from the start but made the choice based on other social and academic factors and ultimately what worked for our child. Both kids have friends from a variety of backgrounds.
I think the point being made is that there are lots of ways you can express racial bias that don’t have to do with being explicitly racist or even making microaggressions. One way is to choose to have your kids attend schools that aren’t diverse, but it can also come up when it comes to what businesses you frequent, what media you consume, what friends you have, and so on. I know a lot of people that live in diverse areas, but apartment from taking public transportation and walking outside, rarely interact with non-white people.
My son goes to a large public school and his circle of friends is incredibly diverse, with kids probably of a dozen or more various backgrounds, including many Asians but not only. I love this but I’m not really sure if this counts in people’s minds or all of these kids are lumped together as “white” because they’re from middle-class educated families as opposed to inner city.
We lived in a diverse neighborhood when my kids were young. They thrived, running in a pack with kids of different races and ethnicities. They attended a private school that wasn’t very diverse, but their time outside school was. When they were 5 & 10, we moved to a very white suburb that exH wanted to live in. Big houses, far apart. It was tough for my kids, and I wish we’d never done it. Not really due to the diversity, but taking them away from that great friends group.
We chose our current house in part because of it’s location - walking distance to all levels of schools, which also meant a block away from public housing. We are firmly in the middle class, buy I have always wanted my children to understand that those who are less fortunate are just as worthy as they are. There is some ethnic diversity, but more economic. My youngest attends a magnet school in a nearby city, where the majority qualify for free lunch, and the student population is majority minority - black or Hispanic. She is learning the unfortunate reality that most of the top students are the suburban kids, but I think that may help drive the message that they are the more privileged or advantaged among their classmates, and the others would do just as well with the same advantages. Kids do pick up on the things we do, and the decisions we make, and often notice the reasoning behind some of those decisions - even when we ourselves don’t always acknowledge them.
To me, education is solidified by an individual’s experiences. Racial understanding is no different than any other learning process. The best results are at least amplified, if not discovered, by experience. The book and the lecture hall are just starting points.
Raised in upper middle class neighborhoods, I was not only sheltered from blacks, but also Italians and Irish as they were considered the labor class. Of course, we were not racists as my mother explained that she was raised by a black nanny. Things actually changed when I was sent to a white, Episcopal boarding school. All was “normal” until three back students from the old Belgium Congo were sent to the US by way of France on scholarships provided by the Belgium government as part of their nation building. I shared a room with two incredible soccer payers who spoke French and English better than many classmates. They used their tribal dialect to communicate directly with their teammates as they moved down the field, We never lost a game!
While walking down the hall with a roommate, one student shouted racial slurs at this star athlete. I had heard that this had happened before, but never experienced it. Before I knew it, the offending commentator was pinned to the wall about a foot off the ground, but never struck as he was instructed never to insult him again. It was an educational slur directed at this worldly, well traveled citizen. Experiencing the emotions of this experience could not be duplicated by a lecture on race relations. I do not advocate violence as a solution, but do identify with the depth of the race problem.
I believe that my later experiences in city politics, the US army, hiring co-workers, recruiting minorities and working with white co-workers were enhanced as a consequence of this and other interracial experiences. Experiences that cannot be found in an all white environment.