Arlington magazine - Public school exodus cover

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think that evaluation of math skills in elementary has gone waaaay downhill since COVID. Kids used to take actual math tests on paper. They could get partial credit by showing their work. Now every math test is on the iPad, there is no partial credit, and many of the offered tests have major errors.

Last year I asked to see one of the tests after my daughter failed it and it was riddled with errors in the questions. Shockingly bad. The teacher hasn't even looked at the questions and just recorded the scores. After all, it was the official test software supplied by APS and was supposed to mimic the SOL. Why wouldn't it be correct? Unfortunately, it's total crap.

All classroom unit math tests should be on paper. Partial credit should be available if you show your work. That's how teachers learn where students have gaps. [/quote]

Yes I recall you posting about this incessantly last year. Time to get a new soapbox. [/quote]

Impressive that you remember PP’s posts from last year. Seems like you spend most of your time on DCUM.[/quote]

haha, yes i probably do spend too much time on dcum. but this post stood out cuz the PP posted so much about this one teacher and this one test. there are problems in aps yes, but any system can have one bad apple. seems like pp is obsessed with this one point.[/quote]

I get tired of hearing people rant about the same thing over and over on dcum without doing anything about it. Join a committee. Make a public comment to the school board if it bothers you that much. [/quote]
It's not one teacher or one test, it is software rolled out across APS at all elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:My high school student hasn't done much in terms of research papers. I do worry about what that means in college.

I definitely remember writing research papers before college, but I was also taught how to make an actual outline. Somewhere along the way, having study skills be an actual independent class that every student had to take went away. Our kids are struggling because of this.

My personal belief is that they will still be able to succeed just fine in college; but they will have a learning curve at the beginning much steeper than they otherwise would. Colleges are well aware that students are coming out of high school less/ill-prepared for college writing. There will be introductory ENG classes where, hopefully, they get caught up; and there are often writing support efforts for those who need extra help learning to write at the college level.

NOVA has an intro ENG course required for all students, as well as a class about basic study skills, etc. I don't think that's entirely unique to NOVA. The fact that even a community college needs to require a student skills class for its students speaks volumes about what our high schools are producing and allowing to graduate.

That's nice and for wealthy students you are right and they can will have time and energy and parent urging to go get help and even pay for tutoring or private essay coaching.

But look at Wakefield. They churn out students who can't read very well and they certainly can't write very well but they manage to get along and they get A's in high school so by all accounts it looks like they are going to be fine in college. Except they get there and they don't. And many of those kids have more limited resources one of them being time. If you are a college student who needs to work and every single class requires some degree of reading and writing and it's struggle to do that then add in doing that for 5 classes and guess what you get? A kid who drops out before fall break. But that's ok because APS can brag about the students that get admitted to college. It doesn't matter that they aren't capable of doing the work to stay there bc their high school education was so lacking.

Yeah I was a poor kid at an elite school. I worked 15 hrs week in a work study job (dining services because it paid more than library jobs), had to bike or walk everywhere for basic errands (haircuts were a 3 bus trip), and didn’t even know my writing was bad until near end of semester when it was too late.

And did you overcome it or quit by fall break and never return?

I barely graduated and had a miserable college experience and was unable to head to med school.

Lots of people are unable to head to med school, or drop out of med school. My question was more about whether or not you made it through college. There are non-college pathways to success, too.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I’m a DP and I read it. Thank you for posting this. I am grateful to hear these perspectives. It is beyond unacceptable that students are reporting [b]they were never assigned a research paper during their entire time at APS. To this day I can remember some of the research papers I was assigned in my (excellent) public high school. My first research paper was assigned in 5th grade. We had a unit on using the library for research and we all had to write a 2 page paper. I’m not sure if we should expect research papers from 5th graders, but by high school it should be standard for all English and History classes.

How in the world is this not happening? Is the student wrong?

That is BS. Kids do have research papers starting in ES.

APS kids do research *powerpoint presentations* in ES. They don't write research papers. If you want your kid to learn actual writing, you need to supplement during the summer. This doesn't change in middle school. Our oldest just finished Swanson, and he never wrote a research paper while he was there. His projects were mostly powerpoint presentations and posterboards. APS does not teach writing the way that most of us learned it. They deserve all the criticism they are getting right now about the writing instruction.

My DC wrote a research paper at TJMS in 8th grade last year using APA style. I was very impressed by the scope of the assignment.

What class was that in at TJMS? My former Swanson student has no idea what APA is... I'm the PP and I can tell you that my kid did nothing but powerpoints and posterboards in 8th grade last year. He got more grammar instruction from his Latin teacher than his English teacher. (Thank god for Dr. Stowell!) It is infuriating that there is so much inconsistency across APS.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think that evaluation of math skills in elementary has gone waaaay downhill since COVID. Kids used to take actual math tests on paper. They could get partial credit by showing their work. Now every math test is on the iPad, there is no partial credit, and many of the offered tests have major errors.

Last year I asked to see one of the tests after my daughter failed it and it was riddled with errors in the questions. Shockingly bad. The teacher hasn't even looked at the questions and just recorded the scores. After all, it was the official test software supplied by APS and was supposed to mimic the SOL. Why wouldn't it be correct? Unfortunately, it's total crap.

All classroom unit math tests should be on paper. Partial credit should be available if you show your work. That's how teachers learn where students have gaps. [/quote]

Yes I recall you posting about this incessantly last year. Time to get a new soapbox. [/quote]

Impressive that you remember PP’s posts from last year. Seems like you spend most of your time on DCUM.[/quote]

haha, yes i probably do spend too much time on dcum. but this post stood out cuz the PP posted so much about this one teacher and this one test. there are problems in aps yes, but any system can have one bad apple. seems like pp is obsessed with this one point.[/quote]

I get tired of hearing people rant about the same thing over and over on dcum without doing anything about it. Join a committee. Make a public comment to the school board if it bothers you that much. [/quote]
Oh yes, because no one has ever complained about the APS writing curriculum before. If you don't want to read it, there's a scroll feature for that. [/quote]

do you complain where it matters? do you work to improve it? or do you just rant on here?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think that evaluation of math skills in elementary has gone waaaay downhill since COVID. Kids used to take actual math tests on paper. They could get partial credit by showing their work. Now every math test is on the iPad, there is no partial credit, and many of the offered tests have major errors.

Last year I asked to see one of the tests after my daughter failed it and it was riddled with errors in the questions. Shockingly bad. The teacher hasn't even looked at the questions and just recorded the scores. After all, it was the official test software supplied by APS and was supposed to mimic the SOL. Why wouldn't it be correct? Unfortunately, it's total crap.

All classroom unit math tests should be on paper. Partial credit should be available if you show your work. That's how teachers learn where students have gaps. [/quote]

Yes I recall you posting about this incessantly last year. Time to get a new soapbox. [/quote]

Impressive that you remember PP’s posts from last year. Seems like you spend most of your time on DCUM.[/quote]

haha, yes i probably do spend too much time on dcum. but this post stood out cuz the PP posted so much about this one teacher and this one test. there are problems in aps yes, but any system can have one bad apple. seems like pp is obsessed with this one point.[/quote]

I get tired of hearing people rant about the same thing over and over on dcum without doing anything about it. Join a committee. Make a public comment to the school board if it bothers you that much. [/quote]
It's not one teacher or one test, it is software rolled out across APS at all elementary school. [/quote]

which software? did you bring this to APS's attention? how? where?

or do you just like ranting on here anonymously over and over about the same thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I’m a DP and I read it. Thank you for posting this. I am grateful to hear these perspectives. It is beyond unacceptable that students are reporting they were never assigned a research paper during their entire time at APS. To this day I can remember some of the research papers I was assigned in my (excellent) public high school. My first research paper was assigned in 5th grade. We had a unit on using the library for research and we all had to write a 2 page paper. I’m not sure if we should expect research papers from 5th graders, but by high school it should be standard for all English and History classes.

How in the world is this not happening? Is the student wrong?

That student is wrong, perhaps not about their individual experience, but it’s not the norm. My kids definitely have done them in ES, maybe they’re not called that, but they’ve had writing assignments that are age-appropriate “research papers.” And same for MS, obviously a lot closer to a real research paper at that point.

I do think the writing curriculum is lacking, but I think that’s a problem at the National level, and even when I was in college, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my ENG professors complained that none of their students could write a good paper. I don’t know what the answer is, but it might have something to do with public school teachers largely having education degrees, while private school teachers often have other degrees, like English, for example. You can’t major in English without learning how to write well, and you can’t teach how to write if you can’t do it well yourself.

PP is misinformed. In order for a teacher to teach English in grades 6-12 in VA, they must have an English degree, and usually have a Masters, too, given the competitive nature of English teaching jobs. Education degrees are only seen in grades K-5.

That's not true for middle school. English teachers in middle school just need a BA (in any subject) and an English endorsement. Under VA law, you can get the English endorsement with 21 semester hours in English-related coursework. (A BA degree is roughly 120 semester hours.) My kid's APS MS English teacher has a BA in interior design according to LinkedIn...

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think that evaluation of math skills in elementary has gone waaaay downhill since COVID. Kids used to take actual math tests on paper. They could get partial credit by showing their work. Now every math test is on the iPad, there is no partial credit, and many of the offered tests have major errors.

Last year I asked to see one of the tests after my daughter failed it and it was riddled with errors in the questions. Shockingly bad. The teacher hasn't even looked at the questions and just recorded the scores. After all, it was the official test software supplied by APS and was supposed to mimic the SOL. Why wouldn't it be correct? Unfortunately, it's total crap.

All classroom unit math tests should be on paper. Partial credit should be available if you show your work. That's how teachers learn where students have gaps. [/quote]

Yes I recall you posting about this incessantly last year. Time to get a new soapbox. [/quote]

Impressive that you remember PP’s posts from last year. Seems like you spend most of your time on DCUM.[/quote]

haha, yes i probably do spend too much time on dcum. but this post stood out cuz the PP posted so much about this one teacher and this one test. there are problems in aps yes, but any system can have one bad apple. seems like pp is obsessed with this one point.[/quote]

I get tired of hearing people rant about the same thing over and over on dcum without doing anything about it. Join a committee. Make a public comment to the school board if it bothers you that much. [/quote]
Oh yes, because no one has ever complained about the APS writing curriculum before. If you don't want to read it, there's a scroll feature for that. [/quote]

do you complain where it matters? do you work to improve it? or do you just rant on here? [/quote]
Who made you the board police? Geeze.

[Anonymous]

The troll who doesn't want to discuss the crappy math software probably has an ownership interest in the company or is employed by APS and getting kickbacks. There's no other reason they'd be so invested.

The program is called Master Connect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I’m a DP and I read it. Thank you for posting this. I am grateful to hear these perspectives. It is beyond unacceptable that students are reporting [b]they were never assigned a research paper during their entire time at APS. To this day I can remember some of the research papers I was assigned in my (excellent) public high school. My first research paper was assigned in 5th grade. We had a unit on using the library for research and we all had to write a 2 page paper. I’m not sure if we should expect research papers from 5th graders, but by high school it should be standard for all English and History classes.

How in the world is this not happening? Is the student wrong?

That is BS. Kids do have research papers starting in ES.

APS kids do research *powerpoint presentations* in ES. They don't write research papers. If you want your kid to learn actual writing, you need to supplement during the summer. This doesn't change in middle school. Our oldest just finished Swanson, and he never wrote a research paper while he was there. His projects were mostly powerpoint presentations and posterboards. APS does not teach writing the way that most of us learned it. They deserve all the criticism they are getting right now about the writing instruction.

My DC wrote a research paper at TJMS in 8th grade last year using APA style. I was very impressed by the scope of the assignment.

What class was that in at TJMS? My former Swanson student has no idea what APA is... I'm the PP and I can tell you that my kid did nothing but powerpoints and posterboards in 8th grade last year. He got more grammar instruction from his Latin teacher than his English teacher. (Thank god for Dr. Stowell!) It is infuriating that there is so much inconsistency across APS.

It was in English class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The troll who doesn't want to discuss the crappy math software probably has an ownership interest in the company or is employed by APS and getting kickbacks. There's no other reason they'd be so invested.

The program is called Master Connect.

Not all schools use it. My kids don’t have that and do math work on paper, both at ES and MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The troll who doesn't want to discuss the crappy math software probably has an ownership interest in the company or is employed by APS and getting kickbacks. There's no other reason they'd be so invested.

The program is called Master Connect.

How does Master Connect work? Do the kids do scratch work on paper and then input their answer? If so, could they turn in their scratch work for partial credit? Knowing how they arrived at the answer is important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The troll who doesn't want to discuss the crappy math software probably has an ownership interest in the company or is employed by APS and getting kickbacks. There's no other reason they'd be so invested.

The program is called Master Connect.

Not all schools use it. My kids don’t have that and do math work on paper, both at ES and MS.

We were told all APS elementary schools are required to administer the test so Syphax can have the data. It's done at school, so you probably wouldn't even know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The troll who doesn't want to discuss the crappy math software probably has an ownership interest in the company or is employed by APS and getting kickbacks. There's no other reason they'd be so invested.

The program is called Mastery Connect.

How does Mastery Connect work? Do the kids do scratch work on paper and then input their answer? If so, could they turn in their scratch work for partial credit? Knowing how they arrived at the answer is important.

My kid gets scratch paper, but it wasn't collected or graded. The scores are "standards based" so it's probably up to the teacher to determine how to use them for report cards. But it is one way that students are getting evaluated by APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have one in private and one in aps.

The one in aps just wanted to stay with their friends but hopefully that will change after first day of middle school and we can have them both in the same private school.
Aps is terrible.

So are you
- your neighbor

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My high school student hasn't done much in terms of research papers. I do worry about what that means in college.

I definitely remember writing research papers before college, but I was also taught how to make an actual outline. Somewhere along the way, having study skills be an actual independent class that every student had to take went away. Our kids are struggling because of this.

My personal belief is that they will still be able to succeed just fine in college; but they will have a learning curve at the beginning much steeper than they otherwise would. Colleges are well aware that students are coming out of high school less/ill-prepared for college writing. There will be introductory ENG classes where, hopefully, they get caught up; and there are often writing support efforts for those who need extra help learning to write at the college level.

NOVA has an intro ENG course required for all students, as well as a class about basic study skills, etc. I don't think that's entirely unique to NOVA. The fact that even a community college needs to require a student skills class for its students speaks volumes about what our high schools are producing and allowing to graduate.

That's nice and for wealthy students you are right and they can will have time and energy and parent urging to go get help and even pay for tutoring or private essay coaching.

But look at Wakefield. They churn out students who can't read very well and they certainly can't write very well but they manage to get along and they get A's in high school so by all accounts it looks like they are going to be fine in college. Except they get there and they don't. And many of those kids have more limited resources one of them being time. If you are a college student who needs to work and every single class requires some degree of reading and writing and it's struggle to do that then add in doing that for 5 classes and guess what you get? A kid who drops out before fall break. But that's ok because APS can brag about the students that get admitted to college. It doesn't matter that they aren't capable of doing the work to stay there bc their high school education was so lacking.

Please share with us the actual data that you have that shows that Wakefield students “by all accounts look like they are going to do fine in college” but “they get there and they don’t.”

+1 Yes, please share the data. My kids and many of their friends who attend or attended Wakefield have taken advantage of the AP Capstone program offered there, and their AP scores suggest they have the skills they need to be successful in college-level courses:

https://wakefield.apsva.us/ap-network/

oh my god did you seriously ignore the majority of the students in the school who are not taking AP classes? Ohhhh wait that’s right if course you did bc you made sure your kids were segregated and weren’t with “those kind of kids”