Wow, as a parent of a child with a tic disorder and a child with more global developmental needs, this statement is very privileged.  My child with a tic disorder needs to have access to chewing gum and daily physical activity (a few times per day), and to not have his needs dismissed, lest he chew off his lips and exhibit undesireable classroom behaviors that are out of his control.  My second child will most likely need a special education classroom when she enters school.  I wish my financial stability/privilege would make my kids flourish regardless of what schools they attend.  But no, I have to make sure they have recess and an administration that accepts a parent advocating for their children’s needs.

One privilege we all have in Seattle Public Schools is school choice.  For 2008, only 16 families listed Madrona as their first choice for Kindergarten (and 54 have been assigned there!).  All but 16 Seattle families are oozing privilege and are racist.  Or maybe they know how to increase their odds of getting a good education.

And again, Kaaren Andrews/Madrona do not represent the Black community.  Disparaging people who do not agree with the Administration of this particular school as racists is denying the multi-faceted needs and desires of the entire Black community, because it suggests that this one school and how it is run represents an entire race.  And middle aged White women who claim to be more in touch with their privilege because they agree with another White woman about what Black kids need should check themselves, rather than patting themselves on the back for being “willing” to work with the underprivileged.

You deliberately misconstrue what I said & meant. Publicizing your comments is not a “threat.” If Kaaren Andrews’ admirers want to support her by using racial stereotypes I think their intolerance should be “outed” for all the world to see. We’ll let the public judge whether or not the terms of your support for her are considered fair by the broader public. You can come here and vilify me and feel terribly smug & self-righteous doing so. But in vilifying me you vilify an entire community that doesn’t share your taste for the Kool Aid. I think that community and the broader Seattle community deserve to hear the terms you use to defend the School & attack those you perceive as its enemy.

Besides, by giving notice to you about my intent you have toned down yr comments & written in a more tempered way. I guess what I said worked. No racial stereotypes about eco-strollers or fat wallet stereotypes w. yr last comment. When you realized that others besides me would see yr vilification you cleaned up yr act a bit.

You don’t know anything about me. Yet you typecast me as privileged merely because I have a nanny. You typecast me as someone who has no sympathy or understanding for issues of racial inequality and diversity. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Typecasting & ignorance such as you have shown is the basis of intolerance and prejudice, which you display in spades.

If I were “privileged” I wouldn’t send my child to a public school at all. But I have a commitment to public education. My father spent his life as a public school teacher. The only thing that would turn me from sending my child to a public school would be having Madrona as his only option, which thankfully is not the case.

Even numerous African American families won’t send their children there for the very same reasons I won’t. It has nothing to do with race though it is convenient for you to bring up the race card (yes, the issue of “privilege” is a euphemism for race). I have every interest in promoting education in which all ethnic groups are integrated into a curriculum & in which everyone learns to their fullest.

Further, if Madrona were 99% African American and had the same quality teaching staff & learning experience as TOPS I’d send my child there in a heartbeat. So don’t go beating the drum about racism or my unwillingness to send my child to a school that is majority minority. That’s horsecrap. It just allows you to set up a convenient straw man you can knock down instead of dealing with the real issues as everyone outside of the principal, School staff & parents see them.

“The percentage of students living in poverty, living in foster care, living in struggling neighborhoods who attend TOPS is minute in comparison to Madrona K-8.”

This is utterly false. You haven’t even bothered to do any research before making such a claim & it shows. Don’t go trying to make TOPS out to be a bastion of privilege. One quarter of its students participate in the subsidized meal program. A sizable portion of the student body are from poor first generation immigrant families. And if you think they don’t face the same hardships and tribulations that Madrona families face then you’re not only being uncharitable, you’re just plain wrong. No, it’s not 70% like Madrona, but it’s a big number. And the difference bet. TOPS & Madrona is that this one-quarter feels entirely welcome & integrated into the overall school experience. The same can’t be said at all for Madrona where so many have felt so bad for so long that they’ve voted with their feet to leave.

You don’t want Kaaren Andrews distracted by me fr. yr child’s education. Yet she was so distracted from your son’s education that she attended a Madrona Community Council meeting where she lied about the Madrona Playfield incident. If I were you I’d be concerned about why a school principal would feel so defensive that she’d feel compelled to create a fiction in order to protect herself and her children.

the diversity you see there [at TOPS] is based on race and ethnicity and not the attendant poverty that all too often and all too unfortunately accompanies them.

You have contradicted yrself. You say that TOPS has racial & ethnic diversity but not poverty, while you also say that poverty ‘accompanies’ race & ethnicity. How does it accompany race & ethnicity, just not at TOPS?? And the statement is flat wrong for the same reason I mentioned above.

“The overwhelming likelihood is that your child AND my child will flourish regardless of the schools they attend…”

The difference bet. you and I is that you’re willing to have yr child participate in a social experiment for the sake of a theoretical idea of justice & equity. I won’t use my child as a guinea pig in that way. I won’t trust a School to do the right thing by my child when everything I know about the School tells me it either won’t or can’t. I won’t trust that the enrichment I provide to my child is enough to make him flourish despite the inadequacies of the public school he attends. And you know what, my child attending TOPS will come out of his education with all the strong social justice commitments that you & yr children will have. The only diff. will be that he’ll have spent eight years being constantly intellectually challenged & stimulated in addition to the social values that he’ll uphold. Plus he’ll be a damn site more tolerant & open-minded than you.

“My challenge to you is either to put the full force of your money, your time, and your intellect into this particular challenge or to gracefully step out of the way of those who have embraced it.”

There is nothing worse than a smug, self-satisfied over-ideologically committed lefty. I know because I’m a lefty myself. Imagine trying to give me lessons in politically correct attitudes toward education. I’m a citizen of this city as much as you & I have every right to criticize the inadequacies of this particular public school. So trying to get me to keep quiet is a losing proposition.

One of these days the District will realize Madrona is a failed school & try to do something real to rectify that. Until then, I’ll be right here calling them as I see them.

@AntiIgnorance:

…you feel SPS and Kaaren Andrews were not responsible in dealing with two middle school students fighting in a public park during non-school hours, I’m sure that in your middle school experience no fights happened, but alas, they did in this instance. Privlege sneaks in here because it’s you assuming the school is funded well enough to have supervision during unsupervised times, and also you forgetting to mention that most of the population at the park during non-school times are Nannies with small children

You correctly claim the School has no responsibility to supervise its student during non school hours. But in fact the fighting incident happened DURING school hours. Every school in Seattle was in session when it happened. Madrona happened to have a late start that day. Despite that, these 75 children were dropped off before they should have by their parents. In fact, the District agreed with my concern about the lack of supervision & Andrews’ supervisor told me that future Madrona late start days WOULD be supervised at the Playfield. So if the School had no responsibility in this instance why did the District essentially admit it did have a responsibility by changing School policy??

You also know so little about Madrona Playfield that you make the presumptuous assumption that it is frequented “mostly” by nannied with children. Actually, it is frequented by mothers, fathers (like me) and some nannies with children. I fail to see why citizens of the city, taxpayers and users of the playfield can’t expect the School to supervise its students. In fact, I’m glad the District agreed with me and not you in this case.

you cannot live life underneath the microscope of this one incident shaping your view of this tireless woman and staff…

I don’t. My judgment of the School & her is based on research and first-hand accounts of numerous parents who told me of specific incidents that informed their own judgments about the School. I would never make a decision about something so important based on a single incident.

There has been NO successful and long standing measure of integration that has happened since the Civil Rights movement.

That’s an interesting & quite sweeping generalization based on little more than yr own unsupported opinion. TOPS is a perfect refutation of what you say. And I’m simply not prepared to say the solution to failing public schools is to segregate them by race for the sake of some educational experiment.

it can be nothing more than ignorance and prejudice

Ah, there you go again, playing the race card. How convenient. How easy a way to dismiss any value or validity in anything I & other critics of the School may have to say. It allows you to remain comfortable in yr little ball while the heathens & racists rage against you outside.

In a million years do you think I would mention your petty blog to Kaaren Andrews?  In a million years do you think I would want her distracted by your vitriol from insuring my son’s education? 

Your own refusal to acknowledge your extreme privilege is astonishing.  TOPS is an excellent school, to be sure.  But the diversity you see there is based on race and ethnicity and not the attendant poverty that all too often and all too unfortunately accompanies them.  The percentage of students living in poverty, living in foster care, living in struggling neighborhoods who attend TOPS is minute in comparison to Madrona K-8.  Which means the services to support those students at TOPS are high, whereas they are stretched thin at Madrona K-8.  What the administration and teachers at Madrona K-8 have done in response is not to cry “Demographics!” as many would do, but to say, no matter what, we will not let our children pay the price for this inequity.  And when you spend time reading the writing on the walls (as Anti-Ignorance so aptly encouraged you to do), you will see that they are succeeding in supporting and honoring the students.

The overwhelming likelihood is that your child AND my child will flourish regardless of the schools they attend because they come from homes where the parents are educated and financially stable.  I acknowledge my privilege and the inherent obligation to not simply enjoy and protect the benefits that it allows me. 

Privilege is simply not the case for the vast number of students at Madrona K-8.  Which means that they and their families know the best way to increase their odds of having a say in their own futures is the education they get now.  States are now projecting prison beds based on third grade reading scores.  We can no longer afford to look at the extreme effects of institutionalized poverty and its devastating connections to race without understanding that the antidote in this moment is not just education, but measurable, provable learning.  We must level the playing field by doing exactly what Madrona K-8 is doing, understanding that equity is measured in outputs, not inputs.

My challenge to you is either to put the full force of your money, your time, and your intellect into this particular challenge or to gracefully step out of the way of those who have embraced it.

Sorry we discovered the blog, it took us a while, had to put the kids to sleep, no Nannies here. Digressing, What you fail to understand is, every school is it’s own independent monster underneath an umbrella. Just because the numbers at TOPS may be similar (which they’re not), but if they were, it still wouldn’t mean the issues and population they serve are the same.

This does involve privlege due to the fact that you feel SPS and Kaaren Andrews were not responsible in dealing with two middle school students fighting in a public park during non-school hours, I’m sure that in your middle school experience no fights happened, but alas, they did in this instance.  Privlege sneaks in here because it’s you assuming the school is funded well enough to have supervision during unsupervised times, and also you forgetting to mention that most of the population at the park during non-school times are Nannies with small children, was your Nanny the one watching your children? That’s quite the PRIVLEGE to have, I wonder if the majority low income students parents at Madrona have that PRIVLEGE? Did you offer your Nannies number to those children?

Maybe that could have helped. The problem with feelings is, they can ebb and flow. In a perfect world, I wish the incident never happened, I don’t want our kids fighting or causing other children to be unsafe, but alas, this world is not perfect and these things happen, despite race or class.
But you cannot live life underneath the microscope of this one incident shaping your view of this tireless woman and staff, committed to education for ALL children. The problem with the help being offered at that time is it, FELT (feelings again), to the Madrona staff and traditional community that the efforts (And all paths to hell are paved with good intentions), while well intended by the new familes and community members, were being done to create a two tier system. There has been NO succesful and long standing measure of integration that has happened since the Civil Rights movement.
Normally what happens is the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Facts and numbers nationwide prove this, Garfield and Washington Middle School prove this locally. The Madrona community did not want this, and thus “white flight” Again, all well intentioned, but there were and are those that stayed, and continue to contribute, which puts into question others motives.

The bottom line becomes, you’ve had a microsecond experience with Kaaren Andrews and Madrona? Ever volunteered? Ever read the writings on the walls? If her lone attribute is the easy job of raising test scores, being a one trick pony, then that needs to spread across the nation.

Go to the school, spend 1 month there, not 1 hour, and maybe your opinion would change. But into you’ve walked a mile in those shoes, I honestly feel (That word again) like it can be nothing more than ignorance and prejudice, and if that’s the case, it’d make you a two tricky pony.

Nor does she spend her time hand-holding the fat-wallet, eco-stroller, white - uh…I mean, Madrona - mommies (whose best friends even though they’re never invited to dinner are gay, black, poor).

And more of the same:

…Instead of knocking the people that care and work tirelessly in an effort to equally educate all kids, it’s easier to blog and whine and cry about how it made, you feel. I wonder how many of the 90% African American, and 80% free and reduced parents that Madrona serves have access to this neat blog. God bless privledge [sic], and god bless all of you.

And it is too bad that another cheerleader has to resort to calling those of us who reject Andrews’ leadership racist in doing so:

those truly committed stay and fight, those whom are scared, of their own internal demons and true motives, run and find shelter.

And this:

We haven’t left like those of you who have fled in cowardly fashion under the cover of vilifying Principal Kaaren Andrews instead of owning your own inherent bias and fears.

I don’t have any demons regarding Madrona School. The fact that you project demons onto me says a lot more about your prejudicial assumptions than it says anything about me.

At any rate, these comments indicate precisely why Andrews and her supporters have ratcheted up the racial tension in the community in its relationship with the School. Instead of trying to understand the problem they react angrily to criticism and point fingers back at us. This is precisely what is miserably wrong with Andrews approach to community relations. Clearly, either Andrews or staff and parents at the School have orchestrated this PR campaign on her behalf. It’s pretty pathetic and shows how defensive she and her folks are.

I also think it’s interesting that TOPS is educating a significant minority school enrollment and doing so in a way that is welcoming and inclusive to all ethnic groups within the school, including those who are non-minority. So please don’t get all gushy about Andrews and Madrona having the key to educating minority youth successfully. Lots of other public schools in this district do it and they do it far better and in a far more diverse way than Madrona does.

What AGhast is asking, in regards to park supervision on a “late start” day is for every school in America to be responsible and supervise the activities of it’s children during non-school hours. Do Saturdays and Sundays count? Pagan holidays? The last I checked, when faced with a challenge, those truly committed stay and fight, those whom are scared, of their own internal demons and true motives, run and find shelter.

Racist? I’m not so sure, I don’t use that word lightly. But for someone on here to have a 5 year old and state their child will, “never attend” Madrona, with no knowledge is foolish and ignorant. No school is perfect, none will ever be, but instead of knocking the people that care and work tirelessly in an effort to equally educate all kids, it’s easier to blog and whine and cry about how it made, you feel.

I wonder how many of the 90% African American, and 80% free and reduced parents that Madrona serves have access to this neat blog. God bless privledge, and god bless all of you.