Anyone else educated by FCPS and sees the decline?

[Anonymous]

The quality of the education I received 25 years ago was far superior to what is being offered now. Anyone else notice this?

[Anonymous]

It's not FCPS. Teaching has changed, the changes are nationwide.

[Anonymous]

Everything has changed (you do expect change, but it hasn'tbeen for the best)- no textbook, no spelling lists, the curriculum and teaching philosophy completely overhauled, etc.

[Anonymous]

Yes. Because of changing demographics fcps is educating to the lowest level for equity

[Anonymous]

I'm shocked by how little my kids are learning. Also by all the distruptions caused by kids who probably aren't being well served by a general ed classroom. One kid wears headphones all day because he gets stressed by the noise and starts throwing a fit when he is stressed. Why would you put him in a classroom of 30+ kids? He can't hear what the teacher is saying at all.

[Anonymous]

There was a significant change when the SOLs were introduced.

[Anonymous]

It’s all about One Fairfax, which is a race to the bottom engineered by politicians like Jeff McKay and Karen Keys Gamarra.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Because of changing demographics fcps is educating to the lowest level for equity

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Because of changing demographics fcps is educating to the lowest level for equity

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm shocked by how little my kids are learning. Also by all the distruptions caused by kids who probably aren't being well served by a general ed classroom. One kid wears headphones all day because he gets stressed by the noise and starts throwing a fit when he is stressed. Why would you put him in a classroom of 30+ kids? He can't hear what the teacher is saying at all.

Are you me? On point response.

[Anonymous]

And also music used to be much better.

[Anonymous]

No meaningful homework. Or graded homework. No novels. Test retakes. Minimum grading for breathing. No discipline allowed. LRE allowing truly troubled kids to become the other children’s responsibility vs the parents. The list goes on and on. Add in the spike of post Covid child behavioral issues. Sad.

[Anonymous]

I think the education of my oldest who has graduated in high school and was in AAP since 3rd grade has been much better what I received in the 1990s. We did no tutoring and ended up at a T25 university in a demanding major and doing well.

The education of my younger child who is 8 years behind her sibling and not in AAP has been a joke. No writing instruction in our McLean ES and her math class is only 20 mins a day and in a class of 30 kids. No homework is given. The disrupted weeks of school w/o 5 days do not help. She scored borderline for reading/math intervention on the Fall VGAs, so missed out on getting extra help at school. After hearing from her principal that she was doing much better than her peers and that I should not worry, I was done. We started supplementing with a private writing tutor and daily math practice at home using a textbook. I also stopped volunteering at school entirely since that the school does not welcome the presence of parents. It is clear that academics especially for general education students is not a priority at our ES.

I’m hoping that the honors classes in MS will be step up, but not holding my breath.

My advice to parents who have students in FCPS is to build into your budget a tutoring line item of $300-$600 per month during the school year. Just do it. Think about it as an assessment on your property taxes or something, but don’t fail your child by thinking FCPS will take care of their education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a significant change when the SOLs were introduced.

SOLs were around when I was in FCPS. They are not new.

[Anonymous]

Remember when 93.4 had me sweating. I would have had straight As a few times in the 90s.