Race at the Top by Natasha Warikoo

Author:Natasha Warikoo [Warikoo, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC043000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / American / Asian American & Pacific Islander Studies, EDU000000 EDUCATION / General, EDU025000 EDUCATION / Schools / Levels / Secondary, SOC070000 SOCIAL SCIENCE / Race & Ethnic Relations
ISBN: 9780226636818
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2022-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Exiting for Private School

As far as I could tell, families never left the Woodcrest public schools in order to attend another town’s public schools. They either shifted to a private school, or moved because a parent’s job took them to a different metro area altogether. No one in Woodcrest—parents, school staff, or local leaders—could name a family that moved away from Woodcrest so their children could attend a different public school. In addition, when I asked parents whether, if they could go back in time, they would have moved to Woodcrest again (or stayed there, for the few who grew up in Woodcrest), nearly all said they would. One exception was a white mother who said she “might have” stayed in the same urban district in which she lived prior to Woodcrest, giving the caveat that if her family hadn’t moved, “our kids probably would have ended up in private schools at some point.” The only other parent who expressed a preference for other public school districts was Shivani, a US-born Indian American mother whose daughter struggled with mental health–related illness. In a high-performing district like Woodcrest, the only imaginable alternative for most parents was private schools.

Woodcrest parents sought private schools mostly to provide a less stressful environment to their kids. Parents seeking less stress in private schools is not unusual: a study conducted by the National Association of Independent Schools found that one of the four main reasons parents enroll their children in independent schools is dissatisfaction with a school that “is focused almost solely on test scores and academic curriculum.” These parents seek “a school that will focus on [their] child’s social and emotional development.”31

Almost all the Woodcrest parents I met whose children attended private schools were white. Robin, a white mother of two who moved to Woodcrest for its schools before her children were born, pulled her younger child from Woodcrest public schools after eighth grade for a private high school. She claimed to be “not your average parent in Woodcrest. I try not to be.” She went on to contrast herself to “other” Woodcrest parents:

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