New Great Schools Ratings Released for FCPS/APS High Schools

[Anonymous]

Did anyone notice that FCPS school system has dropped from a 7 to a 6? MCPS, LCPS and Arlington VA are all still rated 7. Race to the bottom, FCPS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So to summarize:

Performing above expectations
Marshall (by a lot)
Falls Church
Annandale
Stuart

Performing roughly as expected
TJ
Langley
West Springfield
McLean
Woodson
Madison
Oakton
Robinson
Lake Braddock
Chantilly
Centreville
South Lakes
Fairfax
Westfield
Hayfield
Edison
West Potomac
Herndon

Performing below expectations
South County (by quite a bit)
Mt. Vernon
Lee

I would only say that Marshall is truly performing above and South County below (and maybe Mt. Vernon). The rest are probably still performing about where you would expect (Falls Church, Annandale, Stuart, and Lee) - one point variation on the scale could involve lots of factors.

I'd probably be inclined to give Lee the benefit of a doubt. Annandale and Falls Church (with 52 and 53% FARMS rates respectively) performed as well as Herndon with only a 36% FARMS rate. That's strikes me as fairly impressive.

Yep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DCUM crowd will laugh, but it's positive that Stuart went from a 2 to a 3. One of Karen Garza's best moves was to load up the school (and Glasgow) with some of the best administrators in FCPS.

Agree

That area has a great commute downtown and some nice housing stock. There is better potential for Stuart than some of the other underperformers. If they can get it up to a 4, millenials will do the rest.

+1

I see strong potential for improvement in all the closer-in schools if they can hold it together. Those shorter commutes are just too attractive.

I would put the potential for improvement in this order:

Falls Church - multiple strong ES feeders (Fairhill, Camelot, Mason Crest); one of two MS is a strong AAP center (Jackson), and good location

Wakefield - nicest facility of the bunch and continued gentrification of South Arlington, but risk of more subsidized low-income housing

Stuart - has the nicest single-family neighborhoods of the closer-in lower-ranked schools, but also a large low-income, Hispanic population in the pipeline for another decade

Edison - recently renovated building and some nice feeder schools and neighborhoods, but a less desirable location

Annandale - proud tradition, but hurt by repeated redistrictings of single-family neighboroods out of AHS and FCPS's decision to turn Poe MS into the highest FARMS MS in the county

TC Williams - many people move to Alexandria with an expectation they will do private, and it's hard to shake the "Yail or Jail" reputation

Lee - saddled with large pupil placements to AP schools, plus no one with a choice really wants to live in central Springfield

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did anyone notice that FCPS school system has dropped from a 7 to a 6? MCPS, LCPS and Arlington VA are all still rated 7. Race to the bottom, FCPS!

You can't compare FCPS and MCPS GS ratings, because they are state-specific. FCPS has higher SATs (one basis for an apples-to-apples comparison) than MCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are all HSs pushed down 1 rating because they need to make TJ a 10 and need to differentiate between TJ and everything else? It's more like a state ranking/tiers right, instead of true rating. Which is why you can't compare across states.

What? I don't understand what you are meaning about rankings?
TJ is the only 10 in FFX APS etc, because it is much further ahead of the pack. Your school can't be a 10 in comparison.

Right. That is what I was trying to say. TJ is a 10, making it impossible for any other school in VA to be a 10 because nothing else compares. And the 9s are the next tier, etc. If TJ disappeared one day, all remaining schools would +1.

So not a true "rating" calculated numerically, but a ranking of 10 tiers across the state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

Wish I could say I've figured this out. I want my kids' exposed to economic and cultural diversity, and maybe even a little (monitored) hardship (like being a linguistic minority) but Goddamn if I want them to receive anything but the best education.

This. This. And more this. And I imagine most of the "liberal elite" feel this way. But what's the alternative? To be fine raising your kids in a rich white bubble? Or to be fine with your kids getting a bad education? Like PP, I want to a majority-minority high school with a > 50% FARMS rate. And I do want better educational and extra curricular opportunities for my kids. So, I get that this attitude I'd off putting. But, not sure what the alternative is.

But is it truly accurate to say the lower-rated GS schools in FCPS provide a bad education? I'm not convinced. Not all high-FARMS, majority-minority schools are created equal.

This is how I feel. Maybe there is an order of performance among the " bad" schools, but I have to believe they have plenty to offer.
This is florida - where schools largely suck, or Compton.
These scores are driving people away from these schools and doing so much harm. Yes, we need info, but this system is terrible for our area and the kids.

X100

Great Schools. Pfft. Should be called "White Schools." In 5-10 years the school systems will be bussing kids and rezoning like crazy to undo the segregation that these simplistic, reductive "scores" are causing.

And I love their little "the more you know" PSA about diversity: "Studies show that diversity in school leads to long-term benefits for students. Discover why!"

No thanks. I get it. What I'd like to discover is what your organization is doing to prevent the white flight that your reductive scores cause.

Great Schools should be basing their ratings on the performance of each school relative to its average HHI. That would be a much more accurate ratings system. As it stands these ratings tell us little more than the wealth of the peer group, which has little to do with variables like teacher quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

Wish I could say I've figured this out. I want my kids' exposed to economic and cultural diversity, and maybe even a little (monitored) hardship (like being a linguistic minority) but Goddamn if I want them to receive anything but the best education.

This. This. And more this. And I imagine most of the "liberal elite" feel this way. But what's the alternative? To be fine raising your kids in a rich white bubble? Or to be fine with your kids getting a bad education? Like PP, I want to a majority-minority high school with a > 50% FARMS rate. And I do want better educational and extra curricular opportunities for my kids. So, I get that this attitude I'd off putting. But, not sure what the alternative is.

But is it truly accurate to say the lower-rated GS schools in FCPS provide a bad education? I'm not convinced. Not all high-FARMS, majority-minority schools are created equal.

This is how I feel. Maybe there is an order of performance among the " bad" schools, but I have to believe they have plenty to offer.
This is florida - where schools largely suck, or Compton.
These scores are driving people away from these schools and doing so much harm. Yes, we need info, but this system is terrible for our area and the kids.

X100

Great Schools. Pfft. Should be called "White Schools." In 5-10 years the school systems will be bussing kids and rezoning like crazy to undo the segregation that these simplistic, reductive "scores" are causing.

And I love their little "the more you know" PSA about diversity: "Studies show that diversity in school leads to long-term benefits for students. Discover why!"

No thanks. I get it. What I'd like to discover is what your organization is doing to prevent the white flight that your reductive scores cause.

Great Schools should be basing their ratings on the performance of each school relative to its average HHI. That would be a much more accurate ratings system. As it stands these ratings tell us little more than the wealth of the peer group, which has little to do with variables like teacher quality.

Test scores don't lie idiot, whatever makes you feel better

[Anonymous]

Test scores don't lie idiot, whatever makes you feel better

Remind me please which test scores Great Schools base their ratings on? Is it both SOL and SAT or SOL alone? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Test scores don't lie idiot, whatever makes you feel better

Remind me please which test scores Great Schools base their ratings on? Is it both SOL and SAT or SOL alone? Thanks.

SOL, but the SAT scores ranking would be identical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

Wish I could say I've figured this out. I want my kids' exposed to economic and cultural diversity, and maybe even a little (monitored) hardship (like being a linguistic minority) but Goddamn if I want them to receive anything but the best education.

This. This. And more this. And I imagine most of the "liberal elite" feel this way. But what's the alternative? To be fine raising your kids in a rich white bubble? Or to be fine with your kids getting a bad education? Like PP, I want to a majority-minority high school with a > 50% FARMS rate. And I do want better educational and extra curricular opportunities for my kids. So, I get that this attitude I'd off putting. But, not sure what the alternative is.

But is it truly accurate to say the lower-rated GS schools in FCPS provide a bad education? I'm not convinced. Not all high-FARMS, majority-minority schools are created equal.

This is how I feel. Maybe there is an order of performance among the " bad" schools, but I have to believe they have plenty to offer.
This is florida - where schools largely suck, or Compton.
These scores are driving people away from these schools and doing so much harm. Yes, we need info, but this system is terrible for our area and the kids.

X100

Great Schools. Pfft. Should be called "White Schools." In 5-10 years the school systems will be bussing kids and rezoning like crazy to undo the segregation that these simplistic, reductive "scores" are causing.

And I love their little "the more you know" PSA about diversity: "Studies show that diversity in school leads to long-term benefits for students. Discover why!"

No thanks. I get it. What I'd like to discover is what your organization is doing to prevent the white flight that your reductive scores cause.

Great Schools should be basing their ratings on the performance of each school relative to its average HHI. That would be a much more accurate ratings system. As it stands these ratings tell us little more than the wealth of the peer group, which has little to do with variables like teacher quality.

+1

The unfortunate truth is you could shut the average wealthy kid in a room alone with a textbook and they'd probably still score better than the average ESL/FARMS kid with full classroom instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Test scores don't lie idiot, whatever makes you feel better

Remind me please which test scores Great Schools base their ratings on? Is it both SOL and SAT or SOL alone? Thanks.

SOL, but the SAT scores ranking would be identical.

Not quite. TJ, Langley and McLean would still be at the top, but Marshall and West Springfield (GS 9) both have lower SATs than Madison, Oakton, Woodson, and Chantilly (GS 8), Yorktown (GS 7), and Washington-Lee (GS 6), and West Springfield also has lower SATs than Robinson and Lake Braddock (GS 8) and South Lakes (GS 6).

[Anonymous]

Fairfax falling to a 6. It used to be a solidly middle class county with pockets of wealthy.
The county has been overrun with poverty. The score reflects that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax falling to a 6. It used to be a solidly middle class county with pockets of wealthy.
The county has been overrun with poverty. The score reflects that.

Got it the first time.

You can go back now to pondering why no Arlington high school is higher than a 7, and why the APS School Board can't figure out how to build a fourth high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax falling to a 6. It used to be a solidly middle class county with pockets of wealthy.
The county has been overrun with poverty. The score reflects that.

Got it the first time.

You can go back now to pondering why no Arlington high school is higher than a 7, and why the APS School Board can't figure out how to build a fourth high school.

FCPS is huge and has a very uneven distribution of income. Where is is good, it is excellent. Where it is bad, it is really bad. And there is not a lot in the middle of the bell curve. We can all say we wish the schools were more even, but geographically that's tough. The Eastern county is killing us. Killing ACPS too. But, I bought a nice SFH in a GS 8-10, ES, MS and HS zone for under 700k. So you can get GS 8 schools without buying a million dollar home. Whereas, you can't get a GS 8 high school in APS, not matter what you spend.

And I'm sure all the parents of kids starting ES are thrilled about APS's overcrowding issues. By the time those kids start HS, the SB is still going to be trying to make the Ed Center work, or have moved on to 2 shift HSs or whatever else.

We've all got our issues. FCPS's is definately demographic. I can't figure out how we keep being ranked up there with Arlington in most educated, most affluent, and be getting poorer. But there you have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax falling to a 6. It used to be a solidly middle class county with pockets of wealthy.
The county has been overrun with poverty. The score reflects that.

Got it the first time.

You can go back now to pondering why no Arlington high school is higher than a 7, and why the APS School Board can't figure out how to build a fourth high school.

Rather be on the upswing... than... well...