School is not giving what was expected

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

But here’s what I’m trying to figure out. If elementary schools are bad, how are middle and high schools better? Wouldn’t you need to build a strong foundation for the later years?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no special needs here. In proportion to the very elevated taxes we pay in this neighborhood, the quality of education is mediocre plus. 2 out of 4 teachers do the bare minimum.

OP, you just described public education in general. This is news to you?

This is why people homeschool or send their kids to private schools. Welcome to reality.

[Anonymous]

When I went through school, parent volunteers in the classroom edited our writing and gave us that feedback. That is no longer allowed (and for good reason!) So yeah, I got more feedback as a kid, but was it better? Doubtful.


Parent volunteers or subs have no business on daily classroom work. None. Why would a parent be allowed in her/ his kid’s grade?

I was a teacher in a system that had volunteers--but you could not volunteer in your own child's class. Not a bad rule, but definitely cuts down on number of volunteers.

Later, i volunteered in my kids' classes. DS had one teacher (third grade) who had us editing writing and grading papers. I was very uncomfortable with this. I felt it was unprofessional of her to have us doing that--parents talk.
I was also shocked at how much teachers would share about other kids with us. As a teacher, I would never share personal information about another child. Parents would pry and try to get me to say something negative about other kids, but teachers should not do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I moved my kid out of highly rated FCPS elementary school to a private school in 7th grade. He was WAY behind his private school peers. Behind in math, behind in writing, he had learned no grammar beyond what verbs and nouns were so completely bombed their weekly grammar review quizzes and started from square one with foreign language as kids at the private had been taking foreign language for years.

I knew I was dissatisfied with the education he was getting in FCPS but could not believe how little he actually learned.

Was he in AAP before? I always wonder if it’s general Ed, AAP or both that are so far behind. I’m less concerned about grammar. They do a good job teaching that in middle school and my child took some tutoring and is now acing grammar tests. It seems like an easy area to catch up and tutors love to teach grammar because it’s so straight forward. It’s more of the writing that I feel is missing in fcps. I get the feeling students just read, write, and discuss so much more in private than public.

Gen Ed, in a school without an in-house AAP program so all the kids got the same curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet FCPS has enough funding to push FCPSon down to middle schools this year, and elementary schools after that, even though they don't have funding to supply teachers and students with textbooks and workbooks. I'm so sick of seeing the worksheets that come home that are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and the deemphasis on correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar usage in elementary school. Like a previous poster, I have many of my FCPS papers from (ahem) 30+ years ago, when I went to a school that was then, and is now, rated far lower than the ones my kids attend. Yet from grades K-3, the 1980s schoolwork was ALL on handwriting paper with lines, everything was corrected by the teachers for spelling and punctuation, and by the end of 2nd grade, the work (from the entire class, many of whom were 1st generation or immigrants) was far better than the stuff the current, highly rated school, posts as its "show-off" work for parents.

I know. This is what I don't get. How did teachers in the past grade papers daily and yet I can't get a single FCPS teacher to grade more than 2 writing assignments a year with more than 1 comment for each and for the most part I don't see a single comment because "we don't want to discourage elementary writers". Somehow generations went through school and got comments on their writing and survived. It's so silly and just an obvious push to have the teacher do less work.

When I went through school, parent volunteers in the classroom edited our writing and gave us that feedback. That is no longer allowed (and for good reason!) So yeah, I got more feedback as a kid, but was it better? Doubtful.

Parent volunteers or subs have no business on daily classroom work. None. Why would a parent be allowed in her/ his kid’s grade?

Why not?

My kids aren't learning anything anyways, hence why they have to take classes outside of school otherwise they fall behind when they had back to our home country during the summers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

I concur! I attended FFx Co schools and my HS was the strongest.

My kids are in APS and had a very strong elementary. MS not so much. My kids are going to a DC private for HS. It’s the consensus in my neighborhood that things start dropping year by year after 5th. Like FFx there is a strong “kool-aid” crowd that is wowed by the push kids far ahead and the teach to the test results without realizing what their kids don’t know (and if they do, they have a staff of tutors). I say public HSs in the area are “decent”, by no means “excellent” no matter their niche or US News rating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

But here’s what I’m trying to figure out. If elementary schools are bad, how are middle and high schools better? Wouldn’t you need to build a strong foundation for the later years?

Anywhere in the US, the biggest indicator of how well a child does in school is the parents’ income, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

But here’s what I’m trying to figure out. If elementary schools are bad, how are middle and high schools better? Wouldn’t you need to build a strong foundation for the later years?

Anywhere in the US, the biggest indicator of how well a child does in school is the parents’ income, [/b]no?[b]

Where do you get this ending from? It’s quite annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet FCPS has enough funding to push FCPSon down to middle schools this year, and elementary schools after that, even though they don't have funding to supply teachers and students with textbooks and workbooks. I'm so sick of seeing the worksheets that come home that are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and the deemphasis on correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar usage in elementary school. Like a previous poster, I have many of my FCPS papers from (ahem) 30+ years ago, when I went to a school that was then, and is now, rated far lower than the ones my kids attend. Yet from grades K-3, the 1980s schoolwork was ALL on handwriting paper with lines, everything was corrected by the teachers for spelling and punctuation, and by the end of 2nd grade, the work (from the entire class, many of whom were 1st generation or immigrants) was far better than the stuff the current, highly rated school, posts as its "show-off" work for parents.

I know. This is what I don't get. How did teachers in the past grade papers daily and yet I can't get a single FCPS teacher to grade more than 2 writing assignments a year with more than 1 comment for each and for the most part I don't see a single comment because "we don't want to discourage elementary writers". Somehow generations went through school and got comments on their writing and survived. It's so silly and just an obvious push to have the teacher do less work.

When I went through school, parent volunteers in the classroom edited our writing and gave us that feedback. That is no longer allowed (and for good reason!) So yeah, I got more feedback as a kid, but was it better? Doubtful.

Parent volunteers or subs have no business on daily classroom work. None. Why would a parent be allowed in her/ his kid’s grade?

Why not?

My kids aren't learning anything anyways, hence why they have to take classes outside of school otherwise they fall behind when they had back to our home country during the summers.

You didn’t understand the point. A parent should not be sub teacher in her/his child’s classroom, not even in other classroom of the same grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

But here’s what I’m trying to figure out. If elementary schools are bad, how are middle and high schools better? Wouldn’t you need to build a strong foundation for the later years?

Anywhere in the US, the biggest indicator of how well a child does in school is the parents’ income, no?

No. Of course not. Do more research.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

But here’s what I’m trying to figure out. If elementary schools are bad, how are middle and high schools better? Wouldn’t you need to build a strong foundation for the later years?

Anywhere in the US, the biggest indicator of how well a child does in school is the parents’ income, no?

mother’s education is the biggest indicator, but that tends to track with income too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a background in education and agree with most of the negative posts here.

We used to live in the Boston suburbs so I am also very familiar with the schools Massachusetts. I agree with the MA teacher that the standards are outrageously higher there. That said, the "tutor culture" is also rampant in Massachusetts. As much as it is here. In that sense, it is not so different.

What bothers me the most is how FCPS, the schools, the neighborhood parents constantly boast about how strong these schools are, using test scores and math competitions to prove it. I find that most parents are actually quite satisfied with the neighborhood schools. My kids went through FCPS AAP, too, in one of the cream-of-the-crop schools and, sure it's great that they had every opportunity under the sun, but if parents have to prepare them outside of school, then the results are no reflection on the quality of the school! As many others have said, the success of many of these schools is entirely based on the driven, academically focused, well-off parents.

You still might want to move to the neighborhood for the opportunities themselves or for the peers--but don't do it for the education.

The one thing I will say is that the education my kids received at Longfellow and McLean was dramatically better. Pretty much everyone I know agrees. My friends a couple blocks away in Arlington seem to have a different experience.

Your post is confusing. Longfellow and McLean were dramatically better than Boston schools? Is that what you are saying? You are happy with the FCPS schools your children attended, yet agree with most of the negative posts.

You find that most parents are actually quite satisfied with their neighborhood schools. That seems like a good thing. They’re the ones we aren’t hearing from on this board.

Sorry of I was confusing. I meant FCPS Elementary school has been disappointing. Middle and High School were much better.

[Anonymous]

We live in FCPS in a $1M+ home, both of our children attended private school early on then both tested into the level 4 centers in our pyramid. They each attend the center and then both got into 2 of the 3 elite DC private schools. We are full tuition paying parents for both schools, so their admissions were solely based on merit. If your child got into the level 4 AAP then you should absolutely stay in there, develop a strong partnership with their teachers (each of our children’s FCPS teachers wrote letters of recommendations for them) then switch your child over to a private school. By then chances are that some of the kids in your neighborhood will be attend local or DC privates as well so you will be in good company.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parent of two elementary school students. Very disappointed so far. I’ve noticed that all these DCUM threads are venting about elementary school education. What happens in middle and high schools? Are elementary gen ed kids doomed in middle and high school?

They say, and it has been my experience as well as that of my friends in Fairfax and Arlington, that Arlington has better elementary schools and Fairfax has better high schools.

But here’s what I’m trying to figure out. If elementary schools are bad, how are middle and high schools better? Wouldn’t you need to build a strong foundation for the later years?

Anywhere in the US, the biggest indicator of how well a child does in school is the parents’ income, no?

No. Of course not. Do more research.

Ok. Enlighten us.

[Anonymous]

For those of us who cannot afford privates/cannot move to McLean, what are our options? Supplement at home?