The school is located in a quiet residential neighborhood of one-story, single-family, middle-class homes. Each is fronted by a large swath of green grass. The houses sell for twice the amount of houses in the Lower Richmond area (See Table C2 for detailed data).7 Land seems plentiful and lots are larger than in the city; parking near the school is ample, except on nights when there is a scheduled event and parents swarm to the school. The school grounds and the surrounding neighborhoods are extensively landscaped. There are so many trees, flowering shrubs, and flowers that when the seasons shift, the presence of nature is almost overwhelming. In fall, burnt-orange-colored leaves carpet the ground; in spring, a sea of yellow daffodils appears, while overhead, white and pink dogwoods pop into bloom.
There are no stores within walking distance of Swan or the surrounding neighborhood. The local shopping district lies along a major road; the stores are huge and set back from the street, behind large parking lots. Shoppers may choose among many different retailers, including several discount stores. The selection of products is wider and more attractively priced than in the city. Because the stores are so large, families frequently drive between stores located only a few blocks from one another. Children also need to be driven to their various activities and usually need a ride in order to visit friends (some, however, are permitted to ride their bikes to friends’ houses). Despite the reliance on cars in this suburb, traffic congestion usually is not a problem, and drivers tend to drive more sedately than is common in the city. The roads are in strikingly better condition than those in Lower Richmond’s vicinity. There are fewer potholes on suburban streets and snow removal is prompt, often within twenty-four hours of a snowstorm. Thus, in January, when the parking lot at Lower Richmond School was dangerously icy for several days running, the lot at Swan School was completely clear of snow and ice.
During interviews, some adults mentioned how “dangerous” they considered the city and noted that they avoided it. Despite parents’ anxiety about crime and their concern for the safety of their children, it is common for family members to leave valuable objects such as bikes, baseball mitts, or bats lying in their yards unattended. Burglary and petty theft occur rarely in the neighborhoods near Swan, and armed robberies on residential streets are almost unheard of. Generally, there is less concern about crime than in urban areas.
The neighborhoods surrounding Swan School are predominantly white, but Black families are present as well and Black students constitute almost 10 percent of the school population (with less than 5 percent Asian and Hispanic students). A “multicultural” theme predominates, with quilts, posters, assemblies, and curricula devoted to the topic. Despite this close attention to multiculturalism, the emphasis on diversity is largely symbolic since, unlike at Lower Richmond, here nearly all students, educators, administrators, and service personnel are white.
Parents and district administrators are strongly positive in how they view the school and the district. At back-to-school night, the assistant superintendent stressed the “special feeling” apparent at Swan and underscored the district’s interest in hearing from parents. He provided his telephone number and encouraged audience members to call. Teachers at Swan have access to more supplies than do their counterparts at Lower Richmond; there is a photocopier for their use and ample paper and art materials. Referrals to special education are less common and less bureaucratic. Parents must formally agree (by signing a permission form) to have their children tested for learning problems, but the paperwork generally takes weeks, not months, to be processed. At Swan, most children in the fourth grade, including the low achievers, perform at grade level; in reading, many of the students are two or three years above grade level. Although both Lower Richmond and Swan offer computer training, art, music, choir, and gym, the character of the coursework, supplies, and instruction at Swan is more elaborate. For example, at Lower Richmond, the students enjoyed making art projects out of Popsicle sticks. At Swan, the children used square pieces of white cloth and dark black ink to make banners with Japanese characters on them. The choir at Lower Richmond is open to whomever attends practices; the children perform at local nursing homes. The choir at Swan is “select”; children must audition for their positions. With the help of an extensive fund-raising effort, the choir traveled by bus to the Midwest to perform in a competition, and, as a result of arrangements made by the music teacher, the children also visited a recording studio during the school year. Finally, parent participation is far greater at Swan than at Lower Richmond. The two schools are comparably sized, but the Swan PTA meetings attract ten times more participants than those at Lower Richmond, and the suburban organization raises (and spends) significantly larger sums. For example, the Swan PTA spent around $3,000 annually to provide supplemental school assemblies. They sponsored “artists in residence” as well as puppet shows, plays, and other professional performances. They also helped out with the annual school fair, which is a much more elaborate event than Lower Richmond’s.
Still, parents and educators at Swan complained of problems, albeit different ones from those that plagued Lower Richmond. Economic security generally is not an issue. Most children come from families where both parents are employed outside the home, often as professionals, such as lawyers, social workers, accountants, managers, teachers, and insurance executives. Many mothers work full time outside the home. Some teachers at the school worry that the children do not receive sufficient attention at home because their parents are “too busy.” Ms. Nettles, noting that during the first few weeks of the school year ten of her twenty-six students did not do their homework, comments:
I have been here seven years, and it has been getting worse. There are changes in family life; more two parents working and single-parent families. Parents come home and for obvious reasons they don’t want to deal with it [homework] to make sure it happens.
Parents also often have an exaggerated sense of their children’s accomplishments. For instance, they describe their children as “being bored” with schoolwork when, from the teacher’s perspective, these children have not mastered the material. In addition, parents can be quick to criticize teachers. As this third-grade teacher reports, the mother of a high-achieving student was outraged to learn that her daughter’s grade had been read aloud:
She came in one day [to complain] because I had read Chloe’s grade [aloud] as an eighty-six and Chloe was humiliated—because Chloe does not get eighty-sixes.
The teacher feels that the mother does not have an accurate view of her daughter’s performance:
Chloe is very, very bright and in the addition and subtraction pretest she got a fifty-eight. Her mother was telling me how bored she was. “Chloe has done this and knows it so well.” I showed her the fifty-eight. Well, she was absolutely shocked.
Parents watch teachers closely and do not hesitate to intervene on their children’s behalf. As one third-grade teacher reported, “Mothers are influenced by the PTA. [The principal] himself has said that he thinks the PTA is trouble. You know, it’s a close-knit little group.” Parents’ robust sense of entitlement is evident to the teachers, as this Swan teacher makes clear: