APS middle school boundary process
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Anonymous
Complete BS. Most people I know do value diversity, but they value proximity more. That was the overwhelming priority for most parents in the poll. I haven't heard a single person say they want a richy-rich, all-white school. They just don't want to bus kids all over the county. |
Anonymous
Well, cool then. Not a one of you will object when they begin making our neighborhoods more diverse by creating special housing zones in areas where there isn't affordable housing, or where it is in danger of being lost, right? Right? In fact, you'll be at the board meetings advocating for this, right? Right? |
Anonymous
Look, I don't want to burst your bubble, but people have said some truly awful things here, and in real life at these meetings. People say things to me all the time, not knowing how I feel or where I live or where my kids go to school. And yes, quite literally more than one person has said "I don't value diversity." Or "diversity should be a choice, not forced onto my family." Or said that there are MS-13 members at Kenmore, or prostitutes at Wakefield. That's not about busing or valuing proximity. That's just racist. |
Anonymous
I already live in an area with affordable housing and, gasp, a homeless shelter. And I think AH should be better distributed throughout the county. It's not my top issue so I won't spend significant time advocating for it, but I do support it. Sounds like you're just looking for reasons to be outraged. |
Anonymous
I think this gets to the core of it. No matter how perfectly we try to balance the system, there will always be some schools with a bit of an edge (test scores a little better, a little less crowded, the awesome principal, etc.), and some schools that are slightly weaker. There will be some neighborhoods where the alignment is better, and some with better proximity to their schools. For some who don't end up in the "ideal" situation, it seems to be hard to swallow that sometimes shit just happens and you're not always going to be on the "winning" side of decisions, so they lash out and demonize those they feel have it "better" than them, that them getting the "better" situation must be a sign of their corruption and moral bankruptcy, because it certainly couldn't just be chance or some other judgment-neutral factor. |
Anonymous
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You guys my family values proximity.
Proximity to our very white, exclusively wealthy schools. We paid a premium for it. Yes, some areas have a slight edge. So one side has popped collars and Latin classes, and the other side has middle school gang members and high school whores. It’s too bad not everyone can afford a home on this side of town, but that is just how it is. None of the testing data was a secret when you bought your home. If they have gotten worse, you can’t really be surprised. You bought on the bad side of town, with all of the problems poverty brings with it. Besides, even the poors have said they don’t want to be bused to the good schools. So really who is upset about this? The people who have worked hard and made their choices about what they want for their children are happy. The poors are happy, because really they know they are just lucky to be here. So I guess if you aren’t happy, you need to move. You need to make a different choice. |
Anonymous
There is affordable housing near me, and I'm fine with it. If the county continues to place a huge priority on it, then I agree that it should be dispersed throughout the county rather than concentrated in small pockets. I won't advocate for it, though, because I believe more generally that the county should stop supporting more and more affordable housing when the infrastructure is not in place to support continuing to add population density. Our schools are an overcrowded mess for the most part. Putting in more multi-family dwellings (AH or luxury townhomes), letting developers tear down two small houses and build one big one, and allowing accessory dwellings to add additional living spaces onto single-family properties are all things that are putting a strain on our children's education and yet the County Board seems to not notice or care. |
Anonymous
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This is seriously 83 pages of crazy. The Arlington that you see on dcum really doesn't match anything I encounter in daily life.
There is nothing wrong with saying one school has better test scores than another. There is nothing wrong with expressing disappointment that your house will be zoned for a different school, especially if you based your decision to buy or not on your perception of the school pyramid associated with a neighborhood. Stop assuming it's based off of race. |
Anonymous
... and people would be disappointed to be rezoned to Wakefield... because it’s the nicest new facility? Because they have a fanatastic basketball team? Because they have had several recipients of Teacher of the year on faculty? No Because there are too many poor Brown kids. Yikes. How awful. |
Anonymous
Because the test scores for Wakefield are lower. You're inferring it's because of race. On paper based off of only great schools ratings and test scores, it's not as good a school. Fix the achievement gap and I think a lot of this goes away. |
Anonymous
Ok so APS is the problem, not the kids. That’s what you’re saying? Wakefield has worse teachers and poor curriculum? Is that the problem? All the middle class families are desperately squeezing themselves north of 50 because Wakefield has crappy teachers and not the same courses. That’s it? Right? |
Anonymous
My kids are in early elementary and younger. I was even more naive when I bought my house and my eldest was an abstract idea not yet born. I did not look at demographics at ALL, I looked solely at test scores and sat scores and rating on various websites. By those three data points, Wakefield was low performing and w-l was a little better, andyorktownwas the best. Yorktown is decidedly not walkable, so we moved to w-l zoned neighborhood. I'm brown, so that was not a consideration. And I'm much poorer as a single mom than a lot of people here though my kids don't get free lunch. So no racism in that decision, and no trying to avoid poor people. I doubt I'm the only one who approached it this way. If you make all three schools comparable as far as test scores go so objectively there isn't much difference (as opposed to the 300 point difference on sat scores referenced on the other thread), this gets considerably less contentious. |
Anonymous
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But there's a lot of data to support the idea that if your kid is smart enough to do well on the standardized tests, they'd likely do so at any of the schools in Arlington. If they've grown up in a stable household and started reading at any early age, the school itself wouldn't dramatically shift the arc of their scores.
Some folks say "Yorktown & Wakefield" as if Yorktown is the equivalent of TJ or Walt Whitman, and Wakefield is some violent inner-city school where half the senior class is flunking out. A lot of extremes on both sides, and I agree with a previous poster: this discussion doesn't really reflect the Arlington I live every day. |
Anonymous
But there is research that says once the FARMS rate hits a certain point (something like 65 -70%), all children in the school are effected. For anecdotal evidence, you could look at TC Williams in Alexandria. The SAT scores for white students are lower then for students at Wakefield, a school with a similar demographic. The kids from TC have likely gone through years of public school in Alexandria in schools with high FARMS rates. |
Anonymous
It’s worse than that. The data says above 45% So any time we are having a school in this county that is over that thresh hold, especially when the overall county rate is in the 30’s, is a failure of the school board, the county board, and we as Arlingtonians. We have all failed. This boundary process was a failure. This process made very clear to me what the real priorities of the county are. They are not inclusive, and they are not liberal. |