Schools, Schools, Schools: Part 1

We signed LB up.  She is officially a 6%er having gotten into her new school by lottery. It's a small community charter dual language school (they offer Spanish and Portuguese tracks, and she will be in the Spanish track). Our little unicorn baby.  I feel cautiously optimistic about our choice, but I can also see the messed up ways that our current distressed system of public education structured our choices. I like our neighborhood school a lot.  It offers some things that the charter does not: gym every day, a gym that can be used for indoor recesses, a big (if seriously rundown) facility, a stage, a community of people who live nearby.  But the way the system is structured, we can only choose the charter now.  And if it doesn't work out, we can go back to our neighborhood school, but we can't move the other way.  So LB will start out as a unicorn.

And the class and race dynamics: the school LB got into is a school White People Want (WPW).  As a district 80% of kids in Providence Public Schools are classified as low-income, and 91% are kids of color-although in terms of total population, Providence is slightly less than half white people.  Latinos make up the majority of kids in the district.  Our neighborhood school has long been both the blackest and whitest elementary school in the city, but lately has been drawing fewer white kids (although there are still plenty of white kids in the neighborhood) and more latino kids.  At least in Elementary, Providence schools work on an 80/20 formula.  To register your child, you go to the office in South Providence, take a number, sit in a spartan room full of rows of chairs, with a big sign that says "do not form a line, wait for your number to be called." When you go back into the office, you submit say yes or no to the lottery for the public (not charter) dual language option, and then you submit 3 ranked choices.  Your zoned school is established by your address, and zoned schools draw 80% of their students from their zone and 20% from out of zone.  As our zoned school has become less popular, the zoned spots don't usually fill.  It is all very complicated.  And schools don't seem to do a very good job of outreach (and clearly don't have resources to do a good job of outreach).

The result: the most desirable school among people we know is the other Eastside elementary that is out of our zone, and it's 40% white (likely the whitest public school in Providence).  Our neighborhood school is about 20% white, and I believe African American students make up the largest single racial demographic group-and I can't help but think that a rising percentage of African American students correlates with the school becoming less popular among white parents, although white parents don't say so.  LB's new school will be both highly diverse (majority latino, 25% white kids, 10% black kids, slightly majority low-income kids) and unrepresentative of the district.

Providence loses wealthy white families (WWF) (and I'd lump me and LB in that category even though the feds say we qualify as a low-mod family) at every point.  Demographically whites in the city skew older than other groups, so more elderly whites and more young latino families, white families move out to the suburbs to afford more house, to avoid city taxes, and to send their kids to suburban schools, the city has a strong culture of independent schools-so there are 5 independents and at least 3 religious schools within walking distance of my home.  Charters like LB's  are among the most racially balanced schools in the city, but they take more than their share of white kids and not-poor kids.

So here we are in a district with big, old, crumbling schools, full of poor kids, kids who are learning English, kids who have experienced trauma and dislocation (at my own work, I hear about life in wartime, refugee camps, families separated, from our high schoolers). And the kids have problems, but the problem is not the kids.  For reasons I still don't understand, the state pays RI cities less per pupil than it does in the suburbs.  And the money follows the student here, so charters pull more money away from urban schools with their fixed and expensive crumbling physical plants.

So what is diversity in a school system where most of the kids are low income and most are kids of color?  What moral responsibility do WWF have to stay in the system?  And what special sauce do WWF bring to the system?

I can see the ways that diversity benefits the high schoolers I know in Providence.  That diversity does not necessarily include WWF kids.  Instead kids who came here from the DR a few years ago, get really into KPOP and start learning Korean on the internet.  These kids are cosmopolitan in a way I certainly never was.

I don't like the cultural arguments that tell us in more or less veiled language that poor kids of color need to learn with white kids of privilege so that they can learn the cultural habits of whiteness and wealth, so they can get respectable, so that the rising tide will lift their boats.  But there are ways that being in proximity to wealth and power help people glean wealth and power (and by glean I do mean, collect the leftover bits after the harvest).

A school with more WWFs likely have more people who have easy access to lawyers, politicians, and high-level administrators.  When they complain about unequal funding formulas and rundown schools, their voices are amplified.  In the best case, access to power benefits all the kids in the system.  In reality, it often means more resources for the schools and programs used by WWFs, but even then perhaps there is a marginal benefit for all.  But if WWF bring resources, they are also remarkably good at segregating those resources for themselves and people like them.  The whitest and wealthiest school in our district is a neighborhood school-because it takes most of its students from the wealthiest and whitest neighborhood.  Other schools consolidate WWFs in "gifted programs" which are based on tests that measure a child's relative advantage in life.  And we have an exam high school, which is the last in the city to hold onto WWFs.

Without those opportunities to segregate resources, even fewer WWFs would stay in the system, and likely the system would be in even worse shape (and when WWFs leave for the suburbs they take their tax payments with them, and the district's per child money is for kids who enroll, so when kids go to independents, the public school system has to deal with its heavy sunk costs with even fewer dollars).

And the issue of public schools and individual morality: I don't think WWFs should be too quick to claim the high moral ground for choosing publics.  Most of us who do have a decent public option, as well as kids who are able to function within that option.  And I don't think moral responsibility requires us to keep our kids in a situation that is miserable.  I definitely judge parents who call out public schools as crap, rough, failing...without ever visiting those schools-and I think many of those judgements are based on evaluations of the race/class makeup of the school, and of WWF peer pressure.

But even as I have sympathy for parents who choose charters (that includes me) or independents or "better" publics, it troubles me to make the comparison between opting out of public schools and residential white flight in the 1950s through the 1970s.  When white people fled to the suburbs, some of them did so because they didn't want to have black neighbors, others feared the loss of value in their properties, some were moving for other reasons-to get a shiny new house, to be close to family.  But in the end it didn't really matter whether WWFs moved because of racist motivations, mixed motivations, or motivations unrelated to race, what mattered was that most of the white families left and they took everything of value that they could carry, and that loss of white wealth massively destabilized american cities.

And also helped created our underfunded urban schools (my school historian friend tells me that before the 1960s, urban schools were the best and best funded in the nation).  When we act as individuals, we are also acting as a group.  That collective action has power beyond our seemingly individual act.  Even if our individual action is based on motivations other than race, if the collective result of our individual actions perpetuates and increases the inequality in a society structured by racial inequality, then the effect of our individual action is to perpetuate racism.

Misery and Kindness

Finally, I got a picture of my little girl in the big snow!  Blurry and shadowed, but I just wanted a New England picture for posterity.  But she hates to put her feet on snow.  Today was mild enough that we took the bus home from the Aurora Kiddo Dance Party (you should check it out if you live anywhere near Providence), and LB even walked a bit.

This winter has been a misery of cancelled plans and wet feet, and broken hips, collapsed roofs, and hypothermia.  This story that's been making the rounds on Boston social media is a good example of the everyday suffering of trying to function in the endless cold and snow.

In the piece Barbara Howard discusses stopping in her car to pick up and mom and child waiting late a night at a snowy bus stop.  The other side of our current suffering is our increased kindness.  Each day along my bus route, riders work to get the lady with the walker and the guy with the cane safely on and off the bus.  From the bus, I watched an older man collapse in a slippery crosswalk on a busy street at dusk.  Two drivers immediately used their cars to block him from traffic and then carried him to the sidewalk.  So many "you want to hold my arm?" to unsteady crossers, and a "at least take that guy on crutches!" to the driver of an overfull bus.

It's never easy to get around as a person with mobility issues, or as a parent with a young child and multiple bags.  But those needs are so often invisible.  Barbara Howard must have driven by moms with kids at bus stops on other late nights, but this was the night she stopped.  Because our own suffering has made us more aware of the suffering of others and more sympathetic to them.  It's a beautiful thing in this world.

"The cold never bothered me anyway": a post brought to you by Wonderful Wednesday

LB has declared herself for Team Frozen and she also has decided that she only wears sundresses despite it being October in New England.  I can't say I've been very gracious about the situation, but I'll admit she's cute.

I bought these Dr. Marten's chelsea boots and I think I'm in love.  These are by far the butchest item of clothing I own, and since I was wearing a pink coat and red shoes and coming dangerously close to twee, that's probably a good thing.  Also I walked three miles while wearing these and suffered only a vaguely worrisome numbness in one foot, no bleeding blisters like back in the day.

Today was blustery, but LB and I got to school and back home okay with only some light rain and strong wind.  Now it's raining like crazy with thunder and lightening and it's very cozy to be in here and not out there.

Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I feel sad.  This past weekend was great.  I had a friend in town and Providence appointed herself very well.  The weather was lovely, the city was charming, the food was good, and the conversation was excellent.  One of the best things about my current situation, has been checking back into friendships, rediscovering what kind and interesting people I know and how much I enjoy their company.

Thanks for the prompt Amanda

Fun with Children

Just to keep it real, LB is intermittently shrieking as I write this post.

It was a good LB weekend.  It didn't start that well when B rolled in at 11:30am from where evs'* after planning that we would have family breakfast and get an early start for the pumpkin patch.  But we saw it through and did our duty to our child, and ate some New York System hot wieners for our troubles.

We went to PRONK, which was great!  I think last year, LB wouldn't have been into it-too loud and weird.  But this year she didn't want to leave and we even got to march for a bit.  Next year we'll follow the parade downtown and watch some of the performances.

LB has been playing a game I call in my head "Ebola Clinic." It involves patients with tummy aches who are moved by cart to a hospital made from a converted shed and then locked inside.  When Fisher Price comes out with their own Ebola Clinic, don't say I didn't warn you.

And of course there was the obligatory pumpkin patch.  Amazingly we have pumpkin patch pictures for every year beginning when LB was in utero.  This year's trip was a good one.  LB ran around like a real child.  She scavenged animal feed off the ground, and had strangers sharing with her, and then tried to convince the strangers to feed the llamas.  We bought her an ice cream cone filled with animal feed and she actually fed it to a goat, and it was amazing.

LB still has her shrieking, screaming, annoying times, but we've been getting along so well.  Maybe I can only handle one source of angst in my life at a time, and right now it's not LB.  It's also easier now that she can talk more and tell me what's wrong (even if it's totally irrational).  Good times.

*In this phase of our separation she is free to spend her nights as she pleases....not going to rant....about anything...

"We will sing and play and have a good day!"

• That's the new morning song in the preschool 2 class.  LB is moving on up on Tuesday, thankfully with her classmates.  And her new teacher is warm and kind and sensible like her old teacher.  And she has already learned the new morning circle song (see title).  But she's still struggling with the transition back to school after vacation weeks ago.  It's so hard to hear her say "is it stay home day. I want stay home day."

• LB: eating huge amounts, lots of screaming and whining, and has at least three big falls in the last week-we are thinking growth spurt.  I went and got LB early on Friday so we could get an ice cream treat and go to the library and go to the park.  All was well.  We stopped to watch some kids swimming in the fountain, and then as LB ran toward the park she took an unintentional flying leap and landed on her head and knees.  I was afraid she was bleeding from her mouth, but it was just remnants of strawberry ice cream.  But her knees were really bad.  We left a Baltimore style blood trail before a nice stranger ran and got us some bandaids from his first aid kit.  

• I love Labor Day.  Who can object to someone who says "Have a great Labor Day!"

• Yesterday we went on a family heritage food tour of Fall River, MA.  We hit Hartley's Pork Pies and Patty's Pierogis.  Both were great, but next time we will eat in at Patty's and then get pies to go at Hartley's (we ate Hartley's in our car because they have not seating and then go some cold pierogis to fry at home).  Patti's seemed cute and friendly, and definitely worth eating in.  We also looked longingly at the several Coney Island hotdog purveyors on Main Street.  Next time we'll have to research the best one and stop there.

• I've become such a downtown (downcity) Providence booster.  Providence is a great little city.  Amazing Gilded Era architecture (just don't look at City Hall for too long-you might go blind because it is the ugliest 2nd Empire building ever built).  Good coffee shops, good restaurants, good hotels (I so want to stay at the Dean), good bars, some real live book stores, parks, pop-up shops, and a mall with a movie theatre right downtown if you need a break from all the hipness.  Everyone should spend a weekend here.  And all super walkable.  

• We signed up for service with Munroe Dairy and now I can have not only local milk, but both Hoodsie Cups and Autocrat syrup delivered to my door.  That's Rhode Island.  Sadly the HCs don't come with the little wooden spoon, which is an essential element to full experience.

"Let's forget about the tongue-tied lightning/Let's undress just like cross-eyed strangers"

This summer has proven surprisingly complicated.  And those complications have shifted my vision of a good summer.

Family stuff done
more Maine
beach time
visit with friends
go to the local splash park

Nothing says summer fun like cowering on a bench at the splash park!

 go swimming
lots of time on our back porch
lots of music
fireworks at home!
ice cream for dinner
sparklers (with only one injury)

signed up for milk delivery

family time at a hipster wine bar downtown

LB's first dentist appointment in on Monday


My stuff done
swimming in the ocean
a fitness class (and if you know me, you know how much it sucks)
regular jogging and stretching
3 pairs of shoes

a lot of clothes
a haircut
my first time getting my eyebrows threaded
appointments scheduled for all of the dental work I need
weekly dinner at Ken's Ramen
lots of music
a significant amount of alcohol

Complicated.

"Tight t-shirt on a real sweet girl"

Rhode Island has an inferiority complex, apparently we came in last in a poll of state residents who rate their state THE BEST place to live.  Maybe RI isn't the best place to live, particularly for those of us who aren't perched in a Newport mansion, but I still have a little crush on RI.

My childhood New England rests somewhere between The Beans of Egypt Maine and a Wyeth painting, with a dose of Emerson and some Necco Wafers.  I wish Providence had bakeries like Portland, ME, a Northampton juice bar, some Vermont rusticness, and a closer ocean.  But, even without that stuff, Providence is a good town.  It's cute and artsy and has good food and drink.

RI is a cultural junction between northerly New England and New York.  The working class New Hampshire (you don't even have to specify white, because everyone was) accent I grew up with is mostly missing.  Instead you get a little uppercrust northerly New England, mixed with a lot of New York with hints of the DR, Guatemala, Mexico, Liberia, and wherever.