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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   30068 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023

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but they're really looking for good peers because they don't want their kids to fall in with a bad crowd or be bullied. Unless you're an immigrant, you don't say that out loud.

Yes you do. You leave out the part where the ‘bad crowd’ can often be identified by the prominent skin color, but lots of parents say the quiet part out loud that they’re looking for their kids to have peers from stable middle class families. It’s what’s keeping catholic schools full(and catholic school tuition might well be cheaper than buying a house zoned for a ‘good school’- it certainly has less risk of bussing). It’s the main red tribe explanation for why poor kids do worse in school, too.

Now I’m not discounting that there might be some pockets of the blue tribe who pretend that they’re more concerned with their child’s access to a science lab than with their peer group, but it definitely doesn’t seem predominant.

If middle-class parents were told that their school district boundaries were to now include a neighborhood full of poor Chinese kids, there would be no complaint.

Yes there would. Middle class whites don’t want to have to become tiger moms to keep up with class rank.

Now I’m not discounting that there might be some pockets of the blue tribe who pretend that they’re more concerned with their child’s access to a science lab than with their peer group, but it definitely doesn’t seem predominant.

NJ is lousy with those types, but the peer group is already table stakes for them. These are the parents who want their kid to go to Princeton-Plainsboro* school district, with the robotics program and space camp and telepathy lab and what have you, rather than a more normal decent school district. Also all their kids are simultaneously geniuses and need extra help with their ADHD and/or high-functioning autism.

Yes there would. Middle class whites don’t want to have to become tiger moms to keep up with class rank.

Yep, that group exists too, the term they tend to use is "pressure cooker".

* OK, it's actually West Windsor, there is no Princeton-Plainsboro whether it's a school district or hospital.

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