Beth wore this snazzy outfit for last year's Fourth of July holiday / Friday dog walk. I don't have any reason to wear red, white, and blue (denim) today other than the sheer awesomeness of the combination, but that's good enough for me.
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| From styleatacertainage.com |
I like the practice of using a denim shirt as a substitute lightweight denim jacket. This slightly oversized denim shirt works well for this purpose (though I can't manage to make the tied-at-the-waist button up shirt thing work at all).
As for sneaking in another little pop of color with this aqua and red fan necklace? It's all good.
Red mixed-media short-sleeved blouse (Nordstrom), $5.36/wear
*Black and white geometric reeds skirt (JCP), $11.30/wear
Denim shirt (thrifted, Target), $1.00/wear
Black LifeStride flats, $1.23/wear
Aqua/red fan necklace (Target), $1.54/wear
Outfit total: $20.43/wear
These comfy black flats are a somewhat surprising #2 MVP in the shoes/boots category with 17 wears during the Work the Wardrobe Challenge.
In other news...Robert sent this Slate article on "majority minority"/segregated public schools.
One of the things not discussed in the article, but that I have some recent experience with, is how different definitions of "segregated school" can give very different pictures of schools within a district. One common definition identifies schools that are either 80%+ white or 80%+ students of color as "segregated." When you have a district that is close to 80% students of color, it's very easy for your schools to appear segregated--the better your district does at having each school represent the demographics of the district, the more "segregated" schools you will have. This definition also only looks at white vs. non-white, not the diversity within the non-white category.
Of course, there is no denying that the reason some districts (e.g., many urban districts) have such high proportions of students of color is that white families have fled to the suburbs. But then you think of something like the McAllen, TX ISD, which is 92% Hispanic--surely all of their schools are "segregated."
There is to me a somewhat strange disconnect between the pressure on districts to have schools that are not segregated and the broader race-based residential patterns in the country. I mean, I'm sure that most districts could do better than they are at integrating their schools (though the things required to make this happen are often some combination of unpalatable to white parents and logistically difficult/costly), but there is only so much a district can do, particularly when the student population is heavily skewed white or non-white.
There was an extremely annoying article in the local newspaper this year lauding suburban districts for improving the integration of their schools in the last couple decades--i.e., they had fewer schools that were 80%+ white. The article also lambasted the urban districts for becoming more segregated--i.e., they had more schools that were 80%+ students of color.
Um, hello, this shift in segregation happened with little to no effort on the parts of the districts--it was a natural consequence of the overall increase in the region in the relative numbers of students of color. When a mostly white district experiences an increase in students of color, that makes it much easier for schools to be less than 80% white. (I mean, sure, it's nice that these historically-white suburbs have not created special segregated schools for their incoming students of color, but the change is a natural consequence of the change in the racial makeup of their schools.) When a mostly non-white district experiences an increase it students of color, that makes it much harder for schools to be less than 80% students of color.
I think that the discussion of racial segregation is an interesting, relevant one at the state or national level, but it's frustrating when districts are targeted and held accountable for the racial makeup of their schools without regard to the overall racial composition of the district itself.
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