Elite NYC school publishes anti-racism manifesto

[Metaphor]

Sources: Multiple, but an article here:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dalton-alum-anti-racism-manifesto-public-schools-future

and the actual list here:
https://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2020/12/teacher-demands-at-dalton.html

The school itself is Dalton, which practices its equity credentials by charging a cool US$55k/year tuition - affordable, I'm sure, to even the most meagerly endowed multi-millionaires.

I have not included the full list of demands, but have curated a few for your reading pleasure.

I hope Dalton administration implements every single one of these proposals, and I am not being sarcastic.

Proposals



Equitable Outcomes and Self-Evaluation

1. Commit to racial equity in leveled courses by 2023; at that time, if membership and performance of Black students are not at parity with non-Black students, leveled courses should be abolished.

• Research suggests that Black students, students of color, and low-income students are more likely to be tracked into lower-level courses, creating segregated learning environments that affect students’ educational trajectories. In the High School, there have been persistent complaints of de facto racial segregation in some “Advanced” courses. Dalton should ensure that there is no correlation between race and placement or grades in all tracked courses.

1. Dalton’s student body, faculty, staff, administration, and trustees should be representative of New York City in terms of gender, race, socioeconomic background, and immigration status by 2025. Dalton should publish yearly updates regarding the demographics of each of these groups.

• As “an intentionally diverse community,” “an inclusive, democratic community,” and to ensure access and equity in the institution, Dalton should reflect the city in which it is located. Dalton has already made some progress on this front: for instance, 25% of the school’s top leadership is Black or African American, which reflects the demographics of New York City. Dalton should continue to diversify its community—from students to faculty to leadership—and publish comprehensive data about its progress each year.

Anti-Racist Pedagogy

1. Adopt a two-pronged approach to course-related content changes: 1) Institute a divisional requirement for courses that explicitly center Black liberation and challenges to white supremacy. The requirement should be equivalent to or greater than the smallest requirement for any other department. 2) All other existing course content and departmental work via Dalton by Design should undergo an audit to ensure that content is guided by Dalton’s commitment to anti-racist education and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

• In the same way that subjects such as English, art, physical education, and mathematics have been embedded within the Dalton experience, so too should coursework that is explicitly anti-racist. No Dalton student should graduate without taking classes that center race, identity, difference, and social justice.
• Furthermore, we should take this opportunity to review all of our content and pedagogy across all divisions. While we acknowledge that diversifying curriculum is not a solution in and of itself, centering Black experiences, scholars, authors, and primary sources can be part of a broader strategy to align our classrooms with our stated values.

1. All faculty, staff, administration, Parent Association volunteers, and trustees should undergo yearly anti-racist training.

• This proposal builds on work that has been ongoing in Equity Leadership Groups, new faculty and staff onboarding, and recent professional development efforts at the end of the 2019-20 school year. Dalton should build in time during the school year for these groups to collaborate with their colleagues and with experts from outside Dalton.

1. Administrators, faculty, and staff should produce individual public anti-racism statements. Faculty should also include anti-racist resources for each class they teach. Each department/grade level should publish its DEI-related efforts in an annual report.

• Anti-racism statements and resources provide an opportunity at the individual level for engagement with students, colleagues, and the broader Dalton community. Administrators, faculty, and staff should use these statements to describe the specific ways they have adapted their practices and curriculum to align with Dalton’s commitment to anti-racist eduation. Departments should also clarify their expectations for teachers, and produce an annual report on progress and other new initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Public statements help make the work visible to the wider community; the DEI office should not be the only mechanism by which we hold each other accountable.

Needed Personnel and Equity in Hiring

1. Expand the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to include at least 12 full-time positions: one Director, one Office Assistant, three full-time staff members per division, and one full-time staff member for PE/Athletics.

• In keeping with Dalton’s commitment to small class sizes and personal attention, we should budget for more full-time positions to support our community as we make these important changes to the school. At the divisional level, three staff members could collaborate on work that is faculty-, student-, and parent-facing.
• It is especially important for PE/Athletics to have a dedicated full-time staff member; PE/Athletics is housed in a different building and operates on a different schedule from the rest of Dalton. Furthermore, research suggests that PE/Athletics are important sites of racial identity formation.

1. Hire a staff member outside of the DEI office whose entire role is to support Black students and students of color who come forward with complaints and/or face disciplinary action.

• The outpouring of pain from current students and alumni reflect ongoing trauma in the Dalton environment that has been underappreciated and unaddressed. Black students deserve to have a full-time advocate to support and validate them as they navigate a predominantly white institution.

1. Hire a psychologist in every division with a specialization on psychological issues affecting “ethnic minority populations,” as defined by the Council of National Psychological Associations for the Advancement of Ethnic Minority Interests. Expand services to support students coping with race-based traumatic stress.

• Research suggests that racism has persistent negative psychological effects on the well-being of Black students and students of color. It is vital that Dalton invests in safe spaces where our Black students know they will be supported, and in people who reflect their backgrounds and can validate their experience.

1. Implement name-, school-, and salary history-blind recruitment and hiring practices for faculty, staff, and administrative roles; require diversity statements as part of every application; publish expected salary range in every job posting; and publish data regarding the racial makeup of every stage of every hire.

• Implementing explicitly anti-racist safeguards for recruitment, hiring, and promotion can be effective ways to reduce bias in recruitment and hiring. Research suggests the use of diversity statements early in a hiring process can be an effective strategy to improve equity in faculty hiring. Dalton should commit to publicly explaining the mechanisms that it employs to prevent discrimination in recruitment, hiring, and promotion.

1. Review and audit all vendor and third-party contracts to ensure that Dalton is partnering with Black-owned businesses wherever possible. Publish yearly reports detailing Dalton’s vendors and third-party contracts.

• For a variety of reasons, Black-owned businesses lag behind white-owned businesses in profits, employment, and survival. Nonetheless, Black-owned businesses tend to employ more Black people than their white-owned counterparts, and they are an important tool for economic advancement in the Black community.

1. Retain all security/maintenance/dining/other contracted staff without reduction in salary or benefits, regardless of whether Dalton is able to physically re-open facilities.

• Black workers have suffered record job losses since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they are disproportionately represented among essential workers who must risk their health in order to continue working. Dalton must prioritize the health and security of its staff—no one is disposable. Our staff are beloved members of the Dalton community, and they should be supported in the same way that we are supporting administration and faculty.

Institutional Resources and Commitments

1. Provide child and elder care support for faculty and staff, and any families who qualify for financial aid, especially if Dalton remains primarily online due to COVID-19. Dalton should also restructure its parental leave policies for employees; rather than 6 weeks of paid leave and 6 weeks of unpaid leave, Dalton should follow the lead of companies like Netflix and offer a full year of paid leave for new parents.

• Families with young children have lower incomes than households without children, and “for parents of color, the lower income level associated with having a young child is compounded by the broader labor market disadvantages faced by people of color.” Access to high-quality child care is essential for child development and intergenerational social mobility; it is also unaffordable to the vast majority of Americans, and especially to Black families, who have significantly less wealth on average than white families.
  

1. Commit to paying all Dalton employees—especially staff and independent contractors—at minimum a living wage for New York, as calculated by MIT’s Living Wage Calculator. Ensure racial equity in the proportion of full- and part-time workers; independent contractors; faculty, staff, administration, and associate teachers; and publish information regarding the racial makeup of each of these categories every year.

• According to the Urban Institute, “Structural racism continues to disproportionately segregate communities of color from access to opportunity and upward mobility by making it more difficult for people of color to secure quality education, jobs, housing, healthcare, and equal treatment in the criminal justice system.” Studies also suggest that Black and Hispanic employees are more likely to be concentrated in less remunerative, more precarious occupations. As part of a commitment to structural anti-racism, and to ensure all employees can live in the city in which they work, Dalton should commit to salary floors for all employees that reflect the living wage—not the minimum wage—for New York.

1. Double individual faculty and staff professional development (PD) allotment if it is used to service student debt.

• Student debt is both a symptom and cause of the racial wealth gap. On the day of graduation, Black college graduates owe on average $23,400—$7,400 more than their white counterparts; four years later, their average debt balloons to $53,000, twice that of their white peers. Black students in doctoral and master’s programs were also more likely to borrow money and graduate with debt. One recent study suggests that the median debt for an average Black graduate student borrower is 50% higher than that of a white graduate student borrower.
• One of the most meaningful changes Dalton could make for the long-term financial safety of its Black faculty and staff would be to commit to paying any outstanding student debt upon employment; failing that, Dalton should double the PD allotment for employees who use the money to service student debt. We believe this would also help Dalton stand out from other schools to attract and retain top teachers.

1. Publish the endowment investment portfolio and immediately divest from private prisons and detention centers; companies that manufacture technology, equipment or weapons for police; companies that use prison labor; the bail-bond industry; and other companies as determined by a committee of students, faculty, parents, and trustees. At least half of the committee participants should be Black.

• In alignment with the Movement for Black Lives, Dalton should immediately divest from the “criminalizing, caging, and harming of Black people.” Marbre Stahly-Butts, Executive Director of Law for Black Lives, says that divestment and reinvestment are parts of a broader strategy to “reallocate power and resources back to our safety, back to our health, in ways that help us thrive, and don’t criminalize or dehumanize us.” For Dalton to be a structurally anti-racist institution, it must ensure that its financial resources do not contribute to ongoing dehumanization and harming of Black people.

1. Going forward, any Black student or student of color who appears in Dalton’s promotional materials should receive reduced tuition, or be retroactively compensated the equivalent amount if they graduate before their likeness is used. Similarly, any Black student or student of color who does work or provides consultation with the school regarding anti-racist and/or DEI initiatives should receive reduced tuition. Dalton should convene a committee of students, parents, alumni, and outside consultants to determine an appropriate compensation policy. At least half of the committee participants should be Black.

• The previous few weeks have been a stark reminder that Black students and students of color do not receive the same educational experience as their white peers. For some of these students, the benefits of attending Dalton are undermined by otherness, exclusion, and trauma. Nonetheless, Dalton relies on the presence and participation of Black students and students of color. Dalton says, “Our mission to educate students...hinges on their capacity to think critically and make ethical decisions that stem from a core belief in the value of difference, a real sense of cultural fluency, and a sincere and empathic regard for interdependence and the ways in which diversity enriches the way that we see ourselves and each other” (emphasis added). The presence of Black students and students of color affirms Dalton’s legitimacy as an appropriately multiracial, cosmopolitan, modern school; their participation is necessary for the “conscious collaboration, hard work, and dialogue” within the school. In this way, Black students and students of color make unique contributions and create value on behalf of Dalton. Just as Dalton compensates staff and faculty for the value they create for the school, it should similarly compensate Black students and students of color.

 

[Trausti]

Expand the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to include at least 12 full-time positions: one Director, one Office Assistant, three full-time staff members per division, and one full-time staff member for PE/Athletics.

What is the point of a diversity officer other than to enforce orthodoxy? Should just call them commissar or gauleiter to be honest about it.

 

[Toni]

I'm not sure what your issue with Dalton is?

Are they not racist enough for you? Should they treat their employees less well? Is the parental leave too much?

Do you know anyone who has attended Dalton? (Actually I know a several former students)

Edited to suggest that maybe you just don't send your kid there?

 

[laughing dog]

Why are the policies adopted by adults for a private school that does not force anyone to attend nor to adopt those policies some sort of fodder for concern?

As an aside, a former head of Dalton school was Donald Barr, father of William Barr, the latest Attorney General of the United States.

 

[ruby sparks]

I realise that this is a bit controversial, and the usual media sources have pounced on it, but I'm not sure quite how controversial it actually is or should be.

Nothing here significantly worries me.

Ok, you could, for example, say that the focus is on race....but...we're reading the school's anti-racist policy specifically. so....that's naturally going to focus on racial issues.

I think you could say (in general terms and not just about Dalton and schools like it and not even about schools at all but about social issues in the USA generally) that for example socioeconomically-disadvantaged white people (and Asians) do not get the equivalent attention and support that their African American (and Latino) counterparts do, and are therefore somewhat neglected, and I think that's a fair criticism of 'equity-based policies' such as this one, to some extent. But only to an extent. There are, I think, additional issues for African Americans, for example, and those have to do with race and American history, so at least some additional emphasis on race is warranted, imo. Whether there is too much focus on it is another question. It think it may be the case.

For example, if you're a socioeconomically-disadvantaged white kid going to such a school (and if you are attending, then as with many of the black kids, it'll be because you're bright, but on a scholarship) you're going to experience broadly very similar adverse issues, but slightly less, because at least you're white.

So there may be, relatively-speaking, too much emphasis on the race issues, and not enough on equity and diversity generally (by which I mean not just racial diversity).

There might be a few other criticisms too (some of the aims are equal-outcomes-based, for instance). But I can't say I'm appalled. Despite the criticisms, I think such policies could be part of change for the better and I am inclined to cautiously, and with a few reservations, broadly applaud them. I think an anti-racism policy is as valuable as an anti-bullying policy, for instance.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm not sure what your issue with Dalton is?

I did not say I had one.

Are they not racist enough for you?

Dalton is both institutionally and systemically racist, according to its own faculty. Quite why they presided over and enabled such racism you'll have to ask them.

Should they treat their employees less well? Is the parental leave too much?

Do you think it's too much?

Do you know anyone who has attended Dalton? (Actually I know a several former students)

I know nobody who attended Dalton and I doubt I ever will. As you know, I live in Australia. As you may or may not know, even though I would never complain about my income--keeping in perspective that I am probably in the global 5% of income earners--I certainly do not earn anything near enough to send any child to a $US55k /year elite school, nor, apparently, do I keep a social circle where somebody could.

I'm glad you move within super-elite circles, Toni. I've always wanted to attend a NYC party hosted by a gross rich multi-millionaire. Does champagne really come out of a fountain?

Edited to suggest that maybe you just don't send your kid there?

If I could afford to send a child of mine to a US55k /year, I wouldn't. What a shocking waste of money. I'm surprised you don't object to elite private schools, but perhaps I've misjudged you.

 

[Metaphor]

Why are the policies adopted by adults for a private school that does not force anyone to attend nor to adopt those policies some sort of fodder for concern?

I didn't say I was concerned.

In fact, I hope they implement every single policy.

 

[Derec]

Nothing about what Dalton is doing is "anti-racist". Quite the opposite.
And some is incredibly idiotic, like threatening to abolish courses in which black students do not perform as well as white (and presumably Asian) ones. Will not teachers grade black students on a curve to assure "parity" or results and thus be what Dalton, in best imitation of 1984 Newspeak, calls "anti-racism".

 

[Trausti]

Why are the policies adopted by adults for a private school that does not force anyone to attend nor to adopt those policies some sort of fodder for concern?

I didn't say I was concerned.

In fact, I hope they implement every single policy.

So true. Things didn't get better until Robespierre, too, lost his head.

 

[Toni]

I did not say I had one.

I'm sorry if I was confused because you decided to create a thread about a small private school in NYC and their policy statements.

Dalton is both institutionally and systemically racist, according to its own faculty. Quite why they presided over and enabled such racism you'll have to ask them.

Oh, I think they'd be more than happy to tell anyone who asked.

Should they treat their employees less well? Is the parental leave too much?

Do you think it's too much?

I'm not complaining about Dalton or their policies. But no, I don't think it's too much. Parental and family leave in the US is a very bad joke in most work places. I've listened to smart, well educated, medically sophisticated young women say that they 'hope they have to have a cesarean' because then they'd get a longer (but still far too short) maternity leave. The policies in the US regarding maternity/parental/family leave are barbaric and harm people and society.

Do you know anyone who has attended Dalton? (Actually I know a several former students)

I know nobody who attended Dalton and I doubt I ever will. As you know, I live in Australia. As you may or may not know, even though I would never complain about my income--keeping in perspective that I am probably in the global 5% of income earners--I certainly do not earn anything near enough to send any child to a $US55k /year elite school, nor, apparently, do I keep a social circle where somebody could.

I'm glad you move within super-elite circles, Toni. I've always wanted to attend a NYC party hosted by a gross rich multi-millionaire. Does champagne really come out of a fountain?

My family income is similarly comfortable and no, I don't run in elite circles, if by elite you mean wealthy enough to pay $55K per for a preschool program. No doubt that some among my acquaintance could afford that tuition but most have better sense. Besides which, we live well over a thousand miles away from NYC. But I do know people who attended Dalton back in the day (obviously, no current students or, as far as I am aware, no parents of current students). Believe it or not (and you would know, if you had carefully read the statements from Dalton) not all Dalton students come from uber wealthy families. And believe it or not, a certain kind of person with a certain comfortable but not obscenely large bank account feels it is their absolute duty to make tremendous sacrifices to provide their children with the very best possible advantages they can, starting before preschool age. A not surprising number of them think that means spending big bucks on elite preschool-grade 12 education.

I realize that you don't read my posts very carefully but during my preschool years, my family lived in a 3 room house with no indoor toilet. We moved into a larger home with an actual bathroom shortly after but it was some years before we could afford the modest brick ranch (in the US that means a single story home, not an actual ranch) that I grew up in. My relatives were farmers and not wealthy ones. My parents were first generation off of the farm. Yes, before I retired (early) I earned a good living and my husband an even better one. We're comfortable enough but very far from fountains of champagne flowing from anything (but I do have a nice bottle of prosecco we will open on Christmas) and in fact, are just now able to afford to update our very old house and the eliminate knob and tube wiring we did not realize was throughout the house but which discovery explained A LOT. I've never been to Europe (thanks pandemic) despite my ambition to do so since I was about 14, or Australia and frankly I thought my Camry was a luxury car. We were able to pay for most of our kids' university educations (at far less that $55K/year per kid), had to pass on paying for law school (hence the delay in all of the updates for our very old house). Hell, I balked at paying $20K for an 'elite' high school that offered an advanced program that would have benefited one of our kids except that it wasn't really that great and well, we figured paying for college tuition for the sibling in college was more important. We don't regret that either, because that expensive school just wasn't that good. We're comfortably on the low edge of upper middle class. And neither ashamed of our low or high station nor feeling downtrodden that we don't have more. We're fortunate and we know it. We were just joking--and shaking our heads in amazement the other day at our good fortune that a bit of equipment was still under warranty when it died and while we will have to pay labor to have it replaced, we are not panicked at the bill, even though it is coming right at Christmas time. Wasn't always like that for us. Trust me on that.

What a shocking waste of money. I'm surprised you don't object to elite private schools, but perhaps I've misjudged you.

Despite some of my family's opinions, I'm not really a communist or at least not enough of one to object to how other people spend their money as long as they do it legally. I definitely understand a parent's desire and even feelings of responsibility/imperative to do their utter best for their child. I may have too many pairs of shoes but I don't regret not being able to afford $55K for tuition at any level of schooling. Doing so might have given my children access to rubbing shoulders with some really wealthy people but I honestly would not want them anywhere near the likes of the Trump kids or anything similar. And, fwiw, as anti-elitist as this may sound, my kids do not seem to have any regrets about not having been raised rich. They know quite well that they had a lot more than a lot of their K-12 classmates and they all know how to work hard at doing grungy work as well as more.. intellectual and financially remunerative work. We live pretty much in a jeans and t-shirt kind of world, except when we have to wear jackets and dress shoes, etc.

OTOH, I will fight to my dying day to ensure that every kid gets the opportunity to have an excellent education. Personally, I think the best way to undermine the elitism that fosters and is fostered by so many schools, of which Dalton is only a very minor player, is for the publics to outperform and outcompete them. Oh, publics will never touch them for the snob appeal but who cares about that? Let them eat cake. It's bad for their teeth and waistlines but that's their look out. That's why they have personal trainers. I'll just happily spread around as much granola as I possibly can.

 

[laughing dog]

BTW, Dalton does give scholarships based on financial need https://www.dalton.org/admissions/tuition-and-financial-aid/financial-aid) in the form of grants.

 

[Rhea]

Sources: Multiple, but an article here:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dalton-alum-anti-racism-manifesto-public-schools-future

and the actual list here:
https://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2020/12/teacher-demands-at-dalton.html

The school itself is Dalton, which practices its equity credentials by charging a cool US$55k/year tuition - affordable, I'm sure, to even the most meagerly endowed multi-millionaires.

I have not included the full list of demands, but have curated a few for your reading pleasure.

I hope Dalton administration implements every single one of these proposals, and I am not being sarcastic.

I am interested, I would not have expected you to endorse all of these proposals. It seems like a departure from your stand on previous school topics. What makes this one different for you?

 

[Trausti]

Sources: Multiple, but an article here:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dalton-alum-anti-racism-manifesto-public-schools-future

and the actual list here:
https://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2020/12/teacher-demands-at-dalton.html

The school itself is Dalton, which practices its equity credentials by charging a cool US$55k/year tuition - affordable, I'm sure, to even the most meagerly endowed multi-millionaires.

I have not included the full list of demands, but have curated a few for your reading pleasure.

I hope Dalton administration implements every single one of these proposals, and I am not being sarcastic.

I am interested, I would not have expected you to endorse all of these proposals. It seems like a departure from your stand on previous school topics. What makes this one different for you?

Lol.

 

[ruby sparks]

Sources: Multiple, but an article here:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dalton-alum-anti-racism-manifesto-public-schools-future

and the actual list here:
https://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2020/12/teacher-demands-at-dalton.html

The school itself is Dalton, which practices its equity credentials by charging a cool US$55k/year tuition - affordable, I'm sure, to even the most meagerly endowed multi-millionaires.

I have not included the full list of demands, but have curated a few for your reading pleasure.

I hope Dalton administration implements every single one of these proposals, and I am not being sarcastic.

I am interested, I would not have expected you to endorse all of these proposals. It seems like a departure from your stand on previous school topics. What makes this one different for you?

I believe he endorses the policies on the basis that the school will go downhill and it will serve them right for being so woke.

 

[Metaphor]

I'm sorry if I was confused because you decided to create a thread about a small private school in NYC and their policy statements.

People on this board seem very interested in controlling what topics I post about. I don't know what your 'confusion' is about. I post on topics that interest me, and I'm sorry--for you--that the topic list isn't from Toni's pre-approved list of parochial subjects Metaphor is allowed to post on.

I'm not complaining about Dalton or their policies.

I don't recall complaining.

But no, I don't think it's too much. Parental and family leave in the US is a very bad joke in most work places. I've listened to smart, well educated, medically sophisticated young women say that they 'hope they have to have a cesarean' because then they'd get a longer (but still far too short) maternity leave. The policies in the US regarding maternity/parental/family leave are barbaric and harm people and society.

Since you asked, here's my take: I don't think parental leave should depend on the particular kind of occupation you have. So if a country has parental leave, it should be paid for by the government and it would be a flat rate pegged to the national minimum wage. One year paid maternity leave is a platinum-capped policy, and it's the kind of indulgent idea that only white-collar employees of ridiculously wealthy institutions could dream up. It reminds me of the "take as much annual leave as you want" policies, always spoken of in glowing terms, as if any company but a wealthy tech firm could do it, and as if any blue-collar wage earner could experience it.

I also don't think it's fair to the childless.

My family income is similarly comfortable and no, I don't run in elite circles, if by elite you mean wealthy enough to pay $55K per for a preschool program. No doubt that some among my acquaintance could afford that tuition but most have better sense. Besides which, we live well over a thousand miles away from NYC. But I do know people who attended Dalton back in the day (obviously, no current students or, as far as I am aware, no parents of current students). Believe it or not (and you would know, if you had carefully read the statements from Dalton) not all Dalton students come from uber wealthy families. And believe it or not, a certain kind of person with a certain comfortable but not obscenely large bank account feels it is their absolute duty to make tremendous sacrifices to provide their children with the very best possible advantages they can, starting before preschool age. A not surprising number of them think that means spending big bucks on elite preschool-grade 12 education.

I do not doubt that there are some students at Dalton whose parents are making tremendous sacrifices to send their child there. But that family would still be insanely rich by worldstandards.

I realize that you don't read my posts very carefully but during my preschool years, my family lived in a 3 room house with no indoor toilet. We moved into a larger home with an actual bathroom shortly after but it was some years before we could afford the modest brick ranch (in the US that means a single story home, not an actual ranch) that I grew up in. My relatives were farmers and not wealthy ones. My parents were first generation off of the farm. Yes, before I retired (early) I earned a good living and my husband an even better one. We're comfortable enough but very far from fountains of champagne flowing from anything (but I do have a nice bottle of prosecco we will open on Christmas) and in fact, are just now able to afford to update our very old house and the eliminate knob and tube wiring we did not realize was throughout the house but which discovery explained A LOT. I've never been to Europe (thanks pandemic) despite my ambition to do so since I was about 14, or Australia and frankly I thought my Camry was a luxury car. We were able to pay for most of our kids' university educations (at far less that $55K/year per kid), had to pass on paying for law school (hence the delay in all of the updates for our very old house). Hell, I balked at paying $20K for an 'elite' high school that offered an advanced program that would have benefited one of our kids except that it wasn't really that great and well, we figured paying for college tuition for the sibling in college was more important. We don't regret that either, because that expensive school just wasn't that good. We're comfortably on the low edge of upper middle class. And neither ashamed of our low or high station nor feeling downtrodden that we don't have more. We're fortunate and we know it. We were just joking--and shaking our heads in amazement the other day at our good fortune that a bit of equipment was still under warranty when it died and while we will have to pay labor to have it replaced, we are not panicked at the bill, even though it is coming right at Christmas time. Wasn't always like that for us. Trust me on that.

So, what was the point of telling me you knew Dalton alumni? The only point I could think of was that you were indirectly telling me to shut the fuck up, because it wasn't my place to comment on the policy of places I've never been to. The same thing happened in the Cornell thread. And now you tell me you knew people who graduated decades ago, as if the Dalton of decades ago is the Dalton of today, and you are simultaneously in a better position to comment on Dalton policy but also your working-class credentials remain intact.

 

[ruby sparks]

BTW, Dalton does give scholarships based on financial need https://www.dalton.org/admissions/tuition-and-financial-aid/financial-aid) in the form of grants.

Yes, and I read that not-well-off white kids report the same or similar problems with not feeling fully included (by their very wealthy peers) with the only difference being that they do not feel a bit excluded racially as well. There have also been reports of perceived bias from staff.

If I had one criticism of the school's diversity policies it would be that there's too much emphasis on race as opposed to including more about socioeconomics as well, or better still, making it (a diversity policy) largely about socioeconomics, but adding race in as well, possibly even secondarily. Though the former (socioeconomic issues) do get a few mentions. And on its website, Dalton says it is committed to diversity of all varieties, including those two, but also religious, family structure and sexual orientation.

Dalton schools seem to have started out as very progressive just over a hundred years ago. There are now over 50 in the Netherlands for instance. However, the New York one is not typical, in that it's so very expensive. It's the only Dalton School in the USA, but it was the original one. So I read.

 

[ruby sparks]

I don't recall complaining.

Lol. As Trausti might say.

 

[Metaphor]

Sources: Multiple, but an article here:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/dalton-alum-anti-racism-manifesto-public-schools-future

and the actual list here:
https://thenakeddollar.blogspot.com/2020/12/teacher-demands-at-dalton.html

The school itself is Dalton, which practices its equity credentials by charging a cool US$55k/year tuition - affordable, I'm sure, to even the most meagerly endowed multi-millionaires.

I have not included the full list of demands, but have curated a few for your reading pleasure.

I hope Dalton administration implements every single one of these proposals, and I am not being sarcastic.

I am interested, I would not have expected you to endorse all of these proposals. It seems like a departure from your stand on previous school topics. What makes this one different for you?

Oh, I haven't endorsed them. I don't think they are good. I think they are deeply problematic, in fact. But I still hope every single one is implemented.

I think critical race theory, and the current "antiracism" mania that is sweeping large numbers of institutions in America, is a dangerous, malicious, racist, and vulgar religion that cannot coexist with secularism. But I think nothing will halt its progression until it hurts people economically. If it hurts people economically and they still clamour for it, then I suppose America has chosen her course.

And so, for people to truly understand what it is they are consenting to while minimising collateral damage to the general public, I think private institutions that do not take public money and don't have widespread ownership in the form of shareholders, should start implementing antiracist demands, and not in half-measures either.

If the institution isn't particularly rich (like the public Evergreen State University), it's going to be difficult to weather the downturn in enrollment that institution will experience (Evergreen State went from 3,600 students in 2017, just before its craven, milquetoast president capitulated to nearly every demand from the Evergreen mob, to 2,000 students in 2020).

But Dalton is rich. I mean, I haven't seen their books, but the fuck if US$55k/year per student isn't making them rich, then I don't know what could.

Let's see if Dalton can afford to pay off black staff student loans. Let's see if they can afford to give one year paid parental leave to all staff. Let's see what parents think about the removal of courses where black students don't match white students in achievement. Let's see what white students will think when they are taught from kindergarten that they are inherently racist and they can only atone, never be cured.

Maybe they can do all of these things. Maybe they'll thrive. There will be damage to staff and students who don't believe the same religion, but they can always leave, I suppose.

 

[Toni]

People on this board seem very interested in controlling what topics I post about. I don't know what your 'confusion' is about. I post on topics that interest me, and I'm sorry--for you--that the topic list isn't from Toni's pre-approved list of parochial subjects Metaphor is allowed to post on.




I don't recall complaining.

But no, I don't think it's too much. Parental and family leave in the US is a very bad joke in most work places. I've listened to smart, well educated, medically sophisticated young women say that they 'hope they have to have a cesarean' because then they'd get a longer (but still far too short) maternity leave. The policies in the US regarding maternity/parental/family leave are barbaric and harm people and society.

Since you asked, here's my take: I don't think parental leave should depend on the particular kind of occupation you have. So if a country has parental leave, it should be paid for by the government and it would be a flat rate pegged to the national minimum wage. One year paid maternity leave is a platinum-capped policy, and it's the kind of indulgent idea that only white-collar employees of ridiculously wealthy institutions could dream up. It reminds me of the "take as much annual leave as you want" policies, always spoken of in glowing terms, as if any company but a wealthy tech firm could do it, and as if any blue-collar wage earner could experience it.

I also don't think it's fair to the childless.

My family income is similarly comfortable and no, I don't run in elite circles, if by elite you mean wealthy enough to pay $55K per for a preschool program. No doubt that some among my acquaintance could afford that tuition but most have better sense. Besides which, we live well over a thousand miles away from NYC. But I do know people who attended Dalton back in the day (obviously, no current students or, as far as I am aware, no parents of current students). Believe it or not (and you would know, if you had carefully read the statements from Dalton) not all Dalton students come from uber wealthy families. And believe it or not, a certain kind of person with a certain comfortable but not obscenely large bank account feels it is their absolute duty to make tremendous sacrifices to provide their children with the very best possible advantages they can, starting before preschool age. A not surprising number of them think that means spending big bucks on elite preschool-grade 12 education.

I do not doubt that there are some students at Dalton whose parents are making tremendous sacrifices to send their child there. But that family would still be insanely rich by worldstandards.

I realize that you don't read my posts very carefully but during my preschool years, my family lived in a 3 room house with no indoor toilet. We moved into a larger home with an actual bathroom shortly after but it was some years before we could afford the modest brick ranch (in the US that means a single story home, not an actual ranch) that I grew up in. My relatives were farmers and not wealthy ones. My parents were first generation off of the farm. Yes, before I retired (early) I earned a good living and my husband an even better one. We're comfortable enough but very far from fountains of champagne flowing from anything (but I do have a nice bottle of prosecco we will open on Christmas) and in fact, are just now able to afford to update our very old house and the eliminate knob and tube wiring we did not realize was throughout the house but which discovery explained A LOT. I've never been to Europe (thanks pandemic) despite my ambition to do so since I was about 14, or Australia and frankly I thought my Camry was a luxury car. We were able to pay for most of our kids' university educations (at far less that $55K/year per kid), had to pass on paying for law school (hence the delay in all of the updates for our very old house). Hell, I balked at paying $20K for an 'elite' high school that offered an advanced program that would have benefited one of our kids except that it wasn't really that great and well, we figured paying for college tuition for the sibling in college was more important. We don't regret that either, because that expensive school just wasn't that good. We're comfortably on the low edge of upper middle class. And neither ashamed of our low or high station nor feeling downtrodden that we don't have more. We're fortunate and we know it. We were just joking--and shaking our heads in amazement the other day at our good fortune that a bit of equipment was still under warranty when it died and while we will have to pay labor to have it replaced, we are not panicked at the bill, even though it is coming right at Christmas time. Wasn't always like that for us. Trust me on that.

So, what was the point of telling me you knew Dalton alumni? The only point I could think of was that you were indirectly telling me to shut the fuck up, because it wasn't my place to comment on the policy of places I've never been to. The same thing happened in the Cornell thread. And now you tell me you knew people who graduated decades ago, as if the Dalton of decades ago is the Dalton of today, and you are simultaneously in a better position to comment on Dalton policy but also your working-class credentials remain intact.

Maybe you should check out the parental leave policies in European countries? FWIW, there are several reasons I support generous parental leaves. First of all, it helps parent and child form a strong bond. And should the parent need some extra help in that way, it provides the flexibility that a lot of working people don't have in order to access some interventions. I'm thinking about post partum depression, help with breast feeding, learning about appropriate developmental milestones, etc. Secondly: I think that parental leave should be MANDATORY for fathers and for mothers. Not necessarily taken concurrently but the only way to remove the stigma is to make the policy apply equally to men and women. I don't happen to think that's really fair to women who have a lot of physical changes and possibly surgery to recovery from that men do not but the point has been made that new mothers can perhaps recover better if they have a strong and strongly invested partner who is also on leave and who can share some of the work, take on tasks too physically daunting for someone recovering from surgery or just a normal delivery, sleep cycle disruption, etc. Point taken. Not all women have this in a partner, but it can sometimes be fostered if the expectation becomes that men are involved in the infancy of their offspring, not just the mothers. Of course it also should apply to adoptive parents, non-childbearing partner in same sex relationships, etc.

Getting baby off to the best start possible helps all of society, including employers and the coworkers who are not the parents. The returning workers are prepared to actually do the work to the best of their ability and training, are less likely to need time off for a sick baby, and a host of other benefits to parent and company. Of course in my ideal world, a work week would be something like 9-4 with a generous lunch break (which, btw, is standard in some countries). Obviously, some types of work would not be 9-4 or M-F but the same idea: about 30 hrs/week. Yes, this would require more workers. Yes, we have plenty of unemployed people. Sounds like a problem and the solution.

BTW, I think that employees should also get generous leaves in order to recover from their own illnesses and injuries or to help loved ones who need the help. I think we are ALL better off when we treat each other better and when we are flexible with one another.

As far as why I mentioned that I know some Dalton alumni, what I meant was that they are just people. None of them are uber wealthy, but some do have more money than others. Dalton today is very much like Dalton of a few decades ago, judging by what I've been told by former students. It was liberal, exclusive and heavily populated by kids from wealthy families then and is now. The amount of money is different but everything is more expensive today. And my take is that people are more crazy about making sure their little darlings have all the advantages today than they were before but maybe not.

Yeah, I know families that make tremendous sacrifices to send their kids to Dalton would be insanely wealthy by worldwide standards. So would I be and so would you be and neither of us would spend that kind of money on a private school even if we had it. Which neither of us do. Hell, when I lived in a 3 room house with my parents and two of my siblings, I was way better off than most of the world THEN. FWIW, I agree with you that is an insane amount of money to spend on preK-12 education. I like to think I'd be more inclined to give that tuition money to public schools or food shelves, or whatever. But I'm not that wealthy so maybe I wouldn't. Maybe spending that kind of money would seem to be perfectly normal and even necessary. I don't think so but that's not my life. I don't think that I get to decide how other people spend their money, so long as it's not on illegal things.

No, I wasn't telling you that you should just fuck off because you're from someplace far away from Cornell. I am often bemused at the things you think worth posting about and more than a little irritated when multiple people try to explain that you aren't really understanding the situation but you are sure that you are because of some right wing rag, never mind that the article you link is in direct contradiction to what the actual policy or whatever it is you are criticizing about actually says. And you discount people who have actual first hand knowledge or expertise. I honestly don't think you have a very good understanding of the university system in the US or even of the Ivies. I think you would be shocked and in total disbelief if I told you that a degree from Harvard is just not that impressive to most Americans. It is to some, sure. But the Ivy league world is a pretty small world. A lot of extremely bright, extremely well qualified students never even consider applying to an Ivy because of cost or because it's too far away from home or because it's just not a world they are interested in. There are, after all, excellent universities that are not Harvard or Princeton or Cornell. AND depending on what you want to do with your life, a degree from Harvard might be totally inappropriate as well as very expensive.

I would be really interested to learn more about Australia and its educational system and how workplaces are organized, etc.

I think that society would be better off if people worked to live rather than lived to work. If people performed jobs for pay that paid enough and had flexible enough hours/expectations that people could enjoy their lives. Reduction in stress would have great implications in terms of health benefits, and productivity.

 

[ruby sparks]

My kids went to a local Quaker school. It also had a longstanding progressive ethos. It was very, very difficult to get into (performance in an academic entrance test being more or less the sole criteria and the school heavily oversubscribed because of its academic success). Now, it also took, and made a point of encouraging applications from, bright but socioeconomically disadvantaged kids (tuition fees not an issue because it's a free, state-funded grammar school) and, my wife (who teaches there) and several other teachers I know well would say that some of the kids did struggle a bit, socially, because most of the kids were from better off families living in the good part of town, where the school was/is. But, it was only a limited problem. The school did take steps to integrate all students. I heard one anecdote about Dalton NYC where at Christmas break, a lot of the wealthy kids would be off on holiday to, say, the Bahamas or what have you, while the poor kids just spent the break at home in Brooklyn, say, and one poor kid said that he was told his parents mustn't love him very much in that case. Now, I think, in the school my kids went to, that sort of attitude would be unlikely to be so stupidly explicit, and if it ever was, I'd say the school would be having a word with the rich kid, and their parents. Ditto if religion was being used to exclude, it being our local equivalent of the USA's race issue. And there were and are a small minority of non-whites too, and the school would have tried to stamp out any bother on that front.

My point is school's can do something about such problems, whatever they are where that school is, so an anti-whatever policy is in principle a good thing, imo.