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>TBH the harder part of the bay area and kids is actually finding an affordable place to live that have good schools. Translation: it's expensive to live where

>TBH the harder part of the bay area and kids is actually finding an affordable place to live that have good schools. Translation: it's expensive to live where rich people live. "Good schools" is a flimsy proxy for wealthy, exclusive suburbs. Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood". I would not feel good about letting "good schools" influence where I live, or buy a home.

jimmywanger 10y ago
> Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood" There is no need to inject race. Plus, in the bay area, many good schools are comprised of mostly minorities. Good schools in the bay area just mean good schools, as based on standardized testing methodology, class sizes, dollars per student, extracurricular activities available, and acceptance rates to selective colleges. You can definitely pay a lot of money to send your child to good private schools.
- kasey_junk 10y ago
  "Good schools" has been code for non-integrated schools for a very long time in this country. It might be true it doesn't mean that in the Bay Area, it doesn't mean that in my specific neighborhood either, but pretending like the comment is "injecting" race into the discussion ignores American history.
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  - cgag 10y ago
    Sounds more like good schools happen to be white schools in a lot of places. Doesn't seem like code to me.
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    > "Good schools" has been code for non-integrated schools for a very long time in this country. Citation needed. I have lived in this country for a long time, and have never hear it used in this manner, and Google searches turn up nothing. > pretending like the comment is "injecting" race into the discussion ignores American history "Pretending". Way to jump to conclusions. If you're proposing that an innocuous phrase like "good school" is forever tainted by history, that is a small and petty view of the world. That's like saying "honky tonk" has racist connotations because of the word honky.
    - kasey_junk 10y ago
      https://fairhousing.com/news-archive/press-releases/national-fair-housing-alliance-files-sales-discrimination-complaint https://fairhousing.com/news-archive/press-releases/national... Here for instance was a fair housing organization filing a lawsuit suggesting that real estate agents used "good schools" as a proxy for race in attempts to racially steer buyers. Its in the normal lexicon enough for Urban Dictionary to consider that the top definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good%20schools http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good%20school... I'm not suggesting saying "hey they are doing a great job over there, my kid goes to a good school" is enough to assume that the person is saying their kid goes to a white school, but in the context of a discussion about real estate pricing, distance to city centers, etc, the term "good schools" has connotations. That you are unaware of them is fine, but it wasn't the original commenter that injected those connotations, they've been around for a long time.
      - jimmywanger 10y ago
        > Its in the normal lexicon enough for Urban Dictionary to consider that the top definition Urban dictionary and one isolated lawsuit doesn't a pattern generally make. I can accept that this term has been used in a certain way as a code phrase signifying something else, but that's been true of so many phrases and terms that it loses all significance. (Is nice restaurant also coding for no minorities?) The original statement that's objectionable is I would not let "good schools" influence where you live and buy a home, which is ridiculous. Taking school district reputation and test scores when buying a house is neither racist or something to be ashamed of, no matter how many quotes you put around "good school".
fennecfoxen 10y ago
> Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood" Eh. The Bay Area isn't where you're from. Actually, relatively few people in the Bay Area use the term "good schools" at all because they tend to have few children and the idea of school quality isn't on their radar. > wealthy, exclusive suburbs Honestly if you wanted to say Bay Area residents were coding racism into how they talk about where they live, you could point to the San Francisco fetish where people AVOID suburbs like Oakland and the East Bay, though honestly that's _actually_ because of all the public-transit-accessible hipster coffee spots in the one and the violent crime and strip-mall Starbucks and sprawling freeways with hours-long commutes to work from the other.

jimmywanger 10y ago

> Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood" There is no need to inject race. Plus, in the bay area, many good schools are comprised of mostly minorities. Good schools in the bay area just mean good schools, as based on standardized testing methodology, class sizes, dollars per student, extracurricular activities available, and acceptance rates to selective colleges. You can definitely pay a lot of money to send your child to good private schools.

kasey_junk 10y ago
"Good schools" has been code for non-integrated schools for a very long time in this country. It might be true it doesn't mean that in the Bay Area, it doesn't mean that in my specific neighborhood either, but pretending like the comment is "injecting" race into the discussion ignores American history.
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- cgag 10y ago
  Sounds more like good schools happen to be white schools in a lot of places. Doesn't seem like code to me.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > "Good schools" has been code for non-integrated schools for a very long time in this country. Citation needed. I have lived in this country for a long time, and have never hear it used in this manner, and Google searches turn up nothing. > pretending like the comment is "injecting" race into the discussion ignores American history "Pretending". Way to jump to conclusions. If you're proposing that an innocuous phrase like "good school" is forever tainted by history, that is a small and petty view of the world. That's like saying "honky tonk" has racist connotations because of the word honky.
  - kasey_junk 10y ago
    https://fairhousing.com/news-archive/press-releases/national-fair-housing-alliance-files-sales-discrimination-complaint https://fairhousing.com/news-archive/press-releases/national... Here for instance was a fair housing organization filing a lawsuit suggesting that real estate agents used "good schools" as a proxy for race in attempts to racially steer buyers. Its in the normal lexicon enough for Urban Dictionary to consider that the top definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good%20schools http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=good%20school... I'm not suggesting saying "hey they are doing a great job over there, my kid goes to a good school" is enough to assume that the person is saying their kid goes to a white school, but in the context of a discussion about real estate pricing, distance to city centers, etc, the term "good schools" has connotations. That you are unaware of them is fine, but it wasn't the original commenter that injected those connotations, they've been around for a long time.
    - jimmywanger 10y ago
      > Its in the normal lexicon enough for Urban Dictionary to consider that the top definition Urban dictionary and one isolated lawsuit doesn't a pattern generally make. I can accept that this term has been used in a certain way as a code phrase signifying something else, but that's been true of so many phrases and terms that it loses all significance. (Is nice restaurant also coding for no minorities?) The original statement that's objectionable is I would not let "good schools" influence where you live and buy a home, which is ridiculous. Taking school district reputation and test scores when buying a house is neither racist or something to be ashamed of, no matter how many quotes you put around "good school".

fennecfoxen 10y ago

> Where I'm from, "good schools" is a nice way of saying "it's a white neighborhood" Eh. The Bay Area isn't where you're from. Actually, relatively few people in the Bay Area use the term "good schools" at all because they tend to have few children and the idea of school quality isn't on their radar. > wealthy, exclusive suburbs Honestly if you wanted to say Bay Area residents were coding racism into how they talk about where they live, you could point to the San Francisco fetish where people AVOID suburbs like Oakland and the East Bay, though honestly that's _actually_ because of all the public-transit-accessible hipster coffee spots in the one and the violent crime and strip-mall Starbucks and sprawling freeways with hours-long commutes to work from the other.