Fleeing APS schools for FFX County

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We came from FFX to APS. I do have some concerns about the need for a fourth HS and Arlington's seeming inability to plan and figure this out. But we moved because of commute, which frankly as mentioned above FFX cannot fix, and we have no plans to leave APS.

In the case of our IEP student, APS has been gobs better. WAY more responsive and helpful. Overall for both kids (IEP and non IEP), the rest of it is remarkably similar to FCPS. All this handwringing seems overwrought. It's basically the same.

Former APS parent here. There are no schools in APS on par with the top tier in FCPS. APS appeals primarily to white people who don’t want their kids challenged too much, especially by Asian kids who excel academically.

Or alternatively, to play off your nonsense, maybe Asians don’t want to go to schools with large Latino populations.

Ding ding. We have a winner.

There are very few middle and high schools in FCPS with large Asian populations that don’t also have substantial numbers of Hispanic kids. But only APS has found the magic formula for repelling Asians while simultaneously perpetuating a large performance gap between the white kids and everyone else (this is why the high schools are now rated so poorly by Great Schools).

Uh, no, Asian immigrant families like big McMansions, not Arlington shitshacks. That (and TJ) are why they live in Fairfax, instead of Arlington. --Signed, child of Asian immigrants.

I believe you, I once went to a furniture store in western FFX and the whole place was full of gigantic, garish, palace furniture that wouldn't fit in my driveway, much less my sh1tshack home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, so AAP is untouchable for dealing with overcrowding, and instead it was better to put kids in an office building whose outdoor space was some four-square grids drawn on a blacktop. Got it.


I don't understand this. What is being described here?
In instances where AAP centers have resulted in overcrowding, FFX has created new AAP centers, redrawn the AAP lines, and also created Level IV programs at feeder schools. AAP has not been "untouchable."


PP has asserted that if FCPS faced the kinds of overcrowding APS is, it would disband choice programs and turn them into expanded neighborhood schools to accommodate more students. AAP is a choice program, and yet when FCPS has faced terrible overcrowding, it hasn't disbanded those programs in order to better manage neighborhood school capacity.

When FCPS considers disbanding TJ to deal with overcrowding, then you can talk about HB Woodlawn.

TJ is a Governor's magnet school that is located in FFX county. It is open to FFX, Loudoun, and Arlington counties (and others who pay into it). They cannot just "disband" it to make room for more in FFX. To compare it to HB Woodlawn is ridiculous and ill-informed. If you live in Arlington, you surely know that some Arlington kids go to TJ.

And I don't know why you continue to cling to this idea that FFX needed to disband AAP to manage overcrowding. All they needed to do, and did do, is open more AAP centers and create more Level IV programs. They've done that, and will continue to do that.

AAP growth is out of control. FCPS has allowed people to push their way into the program and this has degraded the quality of the program. If everyone is special, then no one is special. AAP has really been a way for parents to get their kids out of schools they don't like and this in turn negatively impacts base schools[b] (while the students being pushed into AAP programs aren't super intelligent, they are probably likely to pass the SOLs). So more and more students who can pass the SOLs are removed from the base schools. FCPS has made a monster.

Sounds exactly like what Arlington parents do by choosing choice schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, so AAP is untouchable for dealing with overcrowding, and instead it was better to put kids in an office building whose outdoor space was some four-square grids drawn on a blacktop. Got it.


I don't understand this. What is being described here?
In instances where AAP centers have resulted in overcrowding, FFX has created new AAP centers, redrawn the AAP lines, and also created Level IV programs at feeder schools. AAP has not been "untouchable."


PP has asserted that if FCPS faced the kinds of overcrowding APS is, it would disband choice programs and turn them into expanded neighborhood schools to accommodate more students. AAP is a choice program, and yet when FCPS has faced terrible overcrowding, it hasn't disbanded those programs in order to better manage neighborhood school capacity.

When FCPS considers disbanding TJ to deal with overcrowding, then you can talk about HB Woodlawn.

TJ is a Governor's magnet school that is located in FFX county. It is open to FFX, Loudoun, and Arlington counties (and others who pay into it). They cannot just "disband" it to make room for more in FFX. To compare it to HB Woodlawn is ridiculous and ill-informed. If you live in Arlington, you surely know that some Arlington kids go to TJ.

And I don't know why you continue to cling to this idea that FFX needed to disband AAP to manage overcrowding. All they needed to do, and did do, is open more AAP centers and create more Level IV programs. They've done that, and will continue to do that.

AAP growth is out of control. FCPS has allowed people to push their way into the program and this has degraded the quality of the program. If everyone is special, then no one is special. AAP has really been a way for parents to get their kids out of schools they don't like and this in turn negatively impacts base schools(while the students being pushed into AAP programs aren't super intelligent, they are probably likely to pass the SOLs). So more and more students who can pass the SOLs are removed from the base schools. FCPS has made a monster.

Sounds exactly like what Arlington parents do by choosing choice schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids. It’s open to both. Duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids. It’s open to both. Duh.

Is it really open, though? The small numbers of Latino and African American students suggest that something is woefully unfair about the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids. It’s open to both. Duh.

Is it really open, though? The small numbers of Latino and African American students suggest that something is woefully unfair about the process.

No it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids. It’s open to both. Duh.

Is it really open, though? The small numbers of Latino and African American students suggest that something is woefully unfair about the process.

There’s a lot of research out there about latent discrimination in identification of advanced and gifted students, and FCPS isn’t immune to that. But they also don’t care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

DP, but the problem is that the presence of TJ makes it hard to truly compare the school systems because you're not comparing truly similarly-situated populations. Families with kids who may qualify for TJ and who want that kind of environment (which isn't all families) will be more likely to move to FCPS to improve their odds of getting in over, say, Arlington. The result of this is not just a concentration of high-achieving students at TJ, but also a greater concentration of high-achieving students at some other FCPS high schools who didn't get into TJ, which makes the student score/profile of these schools better.

FCPS boosters assume that this high-achieving profile at the high school level means FCPS schools are superior, but really it's a classic correlation/causation situation because those high-achieving students would probably be high-achieving in any school system rather than it being the result of some FCPS magic. If FCPS didn't have TJ, FCPS wouldn't have the same draw for those families and they'd probably settle throughout the region in a more balanced fashion, narrowing, if not closing completely, the gaps between the schools (which aren't huge to begin with).

It’s unfortunate if TJ’s presence in FCPS makes some regression analysis on “school quality” that you apparently want to perform more difficult, but the bottom line is that FCPS has a large number of pyramids (Langley, McLean, Madison, Woodson, Oakton, Marshall, Chantilly, West Springfield, Lake Braddock, Robinson and South Lakes) that are more impressive than anything in APS, especially as APS floats a grab bag of unappealing alternatives to address capacity problems that, in large part, are of its own making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

DP, but the problem is that the presence of TJ makes it hard to truly compare the school systems because you're not comparing truly similarly-situated populations. Families with kids who may qualify for TJ and who want that kind of environment (which isn't all families) will be more likely to move to FCPS to improve their odds of getting in over, say, Arlington. The result of this is not just a concentration of high-achieving students at TJ, but also a greater concentration of high-achieving students at some other FCPS high schools who didn't get into TJ, which makes the student score/profile of these schools better.

FCPS boosters assume that this high-achieving profile at the high school level means FCPS schools are superior, but really it's a classic correlation/causation situation because those high-achieving students would probably be high-achieving in any school system rather than it being the result of some FCPS magic. If FCPS didn't have TJ, FCPS wouldn't have the same draw for those families and they'd probably settle throughout the region in a more balanced fashion, narrowing, if not closing completely, the gaps between the schools (which aren't huge to begin with).

It’s unfortunate if TJ’s presence in FCPS makes some regression analysis on “school quality” that you apparently want to perform more difficult, but the bottom line is that FCPS has a large number of pyramids (Langley, McLean, Madison, Woodson, Oakton, Marshall, Chantilly, West Springfield, Lake Braddock, Robinson and South Lakes) that are more impressive than anything in APS, especially as APS floats a grab bag of unappealing alternatives to address capacity problems that, in large part, are of its own making.

It’s always impressive when someone goes out of their way to prove the pp’s point they’re attempting to dispute.

[Anonymous]

^ FCPS has schools with higher FRL percentages than Yorktown, but they have better scores.
Why is that?
- APS parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids. It’s open to both. Duh.

Is it really open, though? The small numbers of Latino and African American students suggest that something is woefully unfair about the process.

TJ is certainly an opportunity for parents to keep their kids away from black and Latino children while simultaneously and sanctimoniously criticizing diverse schools in places like Arlington that they have deftly avoided.

[Anonymous]

North Arlington is not diverse!

TJ and FCPS do lots of outreach and programs to try to increase the numbers of URM at the school. They just don’t modify the admissions process to take race or ethnicity into account. I don’t think that’s flawed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:North Arlington is not diverse!

TJ and FCPS do lots of outreach and programs to try to increase the numbers of URM at the school. They just don’t modify the admissions process to take race or ethnicity into account. I don’t think that’s flawed.

Yorktown and W&L are far more diverse than TJ. If you are looking to avoid URMs, you are far better off at TJ than North Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what is really amusing is that you won't have a better chance getting into TJ if you move to Fairfax from Arlington. It is hilarious watching these intellectual "TJ or nothing" parents having to put up with ridiculous commutes just for the non-existent benefit of going to Carson Middle School.

Carson is actually a very good middle school, so I wouldn't call it a nonexistent benefit. It's better academically than most, if not all, APS middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids. It’s open to both. Duh.

Is it really open, though? The small numbers of Latino and African American students suggest that something is woefully unfair about the process.

There is nothing woefully unfair in the process. There are families that invest a significant amount financially into getting tutors, having their kids attend Johns Hopkins CYT math camps, and participating in robotics and science camps. All of this costs money. Many minority families can't afford this, so their kids have a harder time competing for TJ slots. That's not something wrong with the TJ admissions process, it's just a result of wealth disparity. TJ applicants are also a self selecting group. All the Asian families I know start preparing from a very young age. TJ is probably at least 60 percent Asian. I also don't worry about whether there is anything woefully wrong with TJ admissions because I'm not sure that in its current state it's somewhere I think kids should aspire to be. I would worry more about making sure that minority kids across the board are getting a good education and forget about the hand wringing regarding whether minorities make it into TJ.