School Choice and Diversity

So i was at a birthday party two weeks ago and the topic came up about selecting schools and where to live and raise your family as it relates to schooling options.

I have anal Type A professional friends who do weird things like seriously analyze, and think and plan out their life decisions...down to using logical matrixes to help make the decisions! Yes MATRIXES!

Two Friends with equal dilemma over where to purchase a final home to raise their children: (1) in an affluent, less diverse and expensive county with Excellent PUBLIC schools; or (2) in an upperly mobile middle to upper middle income very DIVERSE community with Horrible schools. The latter would mean the families would most likely result to sending their children to private schools. In this area, that ranges from $5,000 to $25,000 a year per child!!

Both created "matrixes" and came up with two entirely DIFFERENT resolutions

Friend 1: She lived in an upperly mobile, middle to upper income neighborhood with her husband. They recently gave birth two young sons about a year and a half apart. According to Friend 1's matrix, the cost of sending two children to private schools for 12+ years each would cost them $120,000 to $600,000. They drove the distance between their jobs and the new home to ascertain the gas, mileage and wear and tear costs and considered the commute time each way and time away from the children. In the end, from their matrix, they decided that increased mortgage and property taxes they'd have to pay in a higher rent district over the course of their child-raising years would NOT surpass the cost of paying for private schools. As for diversity, Friend 1 admitted that there are severe negative emotional and psychological effects from going to a school where one is the only one or two minority in a classroom, as she had been raised in such an environment. Nonetheless, in this particular neighborhood, there is a significant Asian and Hispanic population, which makes it not as bad though their kids will still be the only brown child in their class for quite a while.

Friend 2 did his own matrix and determined the exact opposite. With two young daughters, he calculated the cost of sending the girls to private schools for 14+ years and determined that the inflation, increase in property taxes, he and his wife were better off staying in their culturally rich and diverse community. They also weighed more heavily the value and importance of self-doubt and self-esteem issues that often arise when children are the only one of a particular race in a classroom.

Perhaps, the fact that one friend had two boys and the other two girls factored in the difference in decisions.

It was food for thought because I have a friend who lives in a culturally diverse neighborhood in a great county with excellent public schools, but when they went to investigate the feeder public school, they were shocked to learn that the hispanic and black children did substantially poorer on standardized tests, were overrepresented in remedial level classes and that just didn't sit too well with them. In the end, beginning at 2 years old, both their boy and girl have (and will) go to predominantly white PRIVATE schools that cost upwards to $25,000 per year! YIKES!!!

I suppose its up to the parents to make sure the children are grounded and do not get culturally lost and do not have identity crises. The key is to expose them to diverse situations outside the classroom and to raise them with a strong sense of pride and awareness...because LORD KNOWS the influence of the media and of other kids is VERY POWERFUL AND OVERWHELMING.

what a challenge