Arlington magazine - Public school exodus cover

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08/29/2023 19:59

Subject: Arlington magazine - Public school exodus cover

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Anonymous

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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.

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”

Different poster here. You’re talking out your a$$. That poster was responding to the ridiculous post suggesting without any data that Wakefield students who “look like they are going to do fine” in college get there “and don’t.”

Obviously the ones who “look like they are going to do fine” are the ones who take AP courses. And according to US News, just under half of Wakefield students take AP courses, which is about the same as a dozen Fairfax County high schools (and is higher than Alexandria). That’s a pretty high participation rate for a school with so much diversity.