Benedict Option For Secular Liberals

A reader writes:

I find it interesting how many people on all ends of the political spectrum insist that BenOp requires heading to the hills, when there are examples of other versions everywhere. And not just orthodox Christian ones. There are secular BenOps all over the place. (So… SecOps?) Seriously. What else would you call what’s happening with education in New York City?

Here, from the NYT, is what he’s talking about:

A look at the history of District 3, which stretches along the West Side of Manhattan from 59th to 122nd Street, shows how administrators’ decisions, combined with the choices of parents and the forces of gentrification, have shaped the current state of its schools, which, in one of the most politically liberal parts of a liberal city, remain sharply divided by race and income, and just as sharply divergent in their levels of academic achievement.

In 1984, two years before Ms. Shneyer started kindergarten, less than 8 percent of the district’s 12,321 elementary and middle school students were white. Not a single school was majority white, and the only school where white students made up the biggest group was P.S. 87 on West 78th Street. At the time, many white parents would not even consider their zoned schools. James Mazza, who served as deputy superintendent, and then superintendent of the district, from 1988 to 1997, recalled in an interview that parents would sometimes come into his office carrying a newspaper with the test scores of every school in the district and explain that they didn’t want to go to their zoned school because of its place on the list. Though scores are often used as a shorthand for quality, they correlate closely with the socioeconomic level of the children in a school.

“We tried to encourage people to make the decision about what school to attend based on more information than test-score results,” Mr. Mazza said, adding that that was often difficult. So the district pursued another strategy for attracting white, middle-class families: adding gifted classrooms, dual-language programs and schools that were open to all students from around the district.

Thanks to these options, more white families began sending their children to District 3 elementary and middle schools. Today, over a third of the roughly 14,000 elementary and middle school students in District 3 are white. But they are unevenly distributed. All but one of the zoned elementary schools below West 90th Street are now majority white. But because white parents elsewhere in the district take advantage of alternatives to their zoned schools, elementary schools in more ethnically diverse neighborhoods, like Manhattan Valley and Morningside Heights, remain largely black and Hispanic, and poor. Their test scores trail those of the district’s mostly white schools, and as the neighborhoods gentrify, their enrollment is declining.

(Back to the reader’s comments):

Upper class liberals are segregating themselves from minorities just as completely as white southern conservatives did in the era of school desegregation. These people have the opportunity to send their kids to school with blacks and latinos, but don’t. In fact, they spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to avoid doing just that. Of course, others take another path and just move to the exurbs. Still others go full monasticism for their kids and send them off prep schools in the mountains.

Why? They will tell you it’s for “academic excellence.” But really that’s just a code for “those other people don’t value what I value.” Which of course is exactly what the white Christian southerners said, right?

The key to all of this, I think, is that the BenOp is way easier when you either don’t know or don’t admit what you are really doing. A lot of potential BenOp fellow travelers really don’t want to confront or otherwise sandbag their existing parishes. They don’t want to admit that what they are doing is not working. So for those who have to ADMIT it, it’s really hard.

Look at the rich liberals. Look at the links. See them squirm and object when it’s pointed out what is really happening. NO! THIS IS NOT A REJECTION OF MINORITIES! We LOVE minorities! Look at my music collection! I went to Harvard with an Iranian guy, and there are like three Indian guys in my orthopedic practice! Diversity!

Sure.

Maybe they don’t reject their neighborhood minorities because of their skin color. That would be declasse. No. We just… really care about STEM classes! Or… we really care about the arts! Of course, this is saying that people living in their neighborhoods DON’T care about STEM and the arts. Or don’t care as much. And, you know, those families just so happen to be black and latino.

Fact is, those black and latino families are way more likely to be led by single mothers. They are more likely to religious. They are more likely to engage in super gauche activities like smoking and smacking their kids to punish them. The SecOp families know that it takes a village. It takes a culture. It takes a forceful rejection of the liquid modernity of their neighborhoods. So they build their own institutions and build walls around them and keep the smokers and kid smackers out, so Bryson can concentrate on getting into Princeton without, you know, those people. And those Indian guys from the orthopedic practice send their kids to the private school, too, so … diversity!

Sure.

We know BenOp does not require heading to the hills because the Dalton School is totally BenOp for secularists. And it’s not in the hills.

Amen. Oh, the lies people tell themselves to conceal from themselves and their friends what they’re doing and why.

Look, I don’t fault any parent of any racial, religious, or socioeconomic background for trying to get the best educational situation they can for their kids. I don’t blame anyone for wanting their kids to be in a school that’s safe, orderly, and focused on learning, and where the students, their parents, and their teachers share the same values. This is normal human behavior. But come on, let’s not be hypocrites about it, okay?