Falls Church City v. APS v. FCPS Advanced Academics

[Anonymous]

How do falls church city compare to north Arlington and good Fairfax schools aap for early elementary and beyond?

[Anonymous]

For elementary school language arts, we would pick APS. We strongly prefer the Core Knowledge Language Arts used in APS over Benchmark used by FCPS. We also observed that MCPS dumped Benchmark and also moved to CKLA - at roughly the same time FCPS adopted Benchmark.

For math, most will disagree with us, but we don't really like any of the curricula / programs. Frankly, PiSA results show the US is poor nationally at teaching math. We have resigned ourselves to supplement our very average DC with math at home after school. The existence of all these after school math centers throughout NoVA and Montgomery County speaks to how weak all the schools are (public or private).

[Anonymous]

If advanced academics are important to you APS is not the best choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If advanced academics are important to you APS is not the best choice.

Correct. If you're looking for teaching to the lowest common denominator type curriculum? APS is perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If advanced academics are important to you APS is not the best choice.

Correct. If you're looking for teaching to the lowest common denominator type curriculum? APS is perfect.

There’s no meaningful difference in college outcomes between these choices. UVA admits about 10% of the class; their instas reflect one off HYP type admissions and a handful of T5-T10 depending on specific year. Bottom line: you serve gaining an advantage by choosing one over the other in the ultimate next round admission and colleges don’t see meaningful differences in the caliber of student coming from Rhee places. That being said, there are slight differences in pedagogy and school makeup and specific strengths (eg a really strong theater program or a really good lacrosse team). If your child has specific strengths then maybe these would be important to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If advanced academics are important to you APS is not the best choice.

Correct. If you're looking for teaching to the lowest common denominator type curriculum? APS is perfect.

There’s no meaningful difference in college outcomes between these choices. UVA admits about 10% of the class; their instas reflect one off HYP type admissions and a handful of T5-T10 depending on specific year. Bottom line: you serve gaining an advantage by choosing one over the other in the ultimate next round admission and colleges don’t see meaningful differences in the caliber of student coming from Rhee places. That being said, there are slight differences in pedagogy and school makeup and specific strengths (eg a really strong theater program or a really good lacrosse team). If your child has specific strengths then maybe these would be important to you.

I fully agree with this poster. The outcomes for advanced kids in these school systems are pretty similar. Look at the neighborhood you want to live in and go from there. The major difference with Falls Church City is that the schools are much smaller. Once they get to high school in FCPS or APS, you're looking at huge schools -- Yorktown is one of the smaller ones with 2,200 kids. In contrast, Meridian in FCCPS has fewer than 1,000.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I fully agree with this poster. The outcomes for advanced kids in these school systems are pretty similar. Look at the neighborhood you want to live in and go from there.

The major difference with Falls Church City is that the schools are much smaller. Once they get to high school in FCPS or APS, you're looking at huge schools -- Yorktown is one of the smaller ones with 2,200 kids. In contrast, Meridian in FCCPS has fewer than 1,000.

+10

Outcomes for unhooked HS students from APS, FCPS, and FCCPS are equivalent. Some HSs (example: Langley HS) will have higher numbers of hooked students. UVA or VT or OOS colleges will be focusing on the top 10%-20% (opinions vary where the cutoff is) of the graduating class at each HS. Even in an arbitrary Title 1 HS with high FARMS percentage, the top 10% of graduating students often have very good college matriculations.

[Anonymous]

The mantra on DCUM that APS teaches to the "lowest common denominator" is bullshit. The fact is, the APS elementary schools to which DCUM posters send their children are full of advantaged kids with high achieving and striving parents who don't need differentiation. Just look at the average test scores for these schools.

Every parent on DCUM thinks their child is the Christ Child and that the public schools--working with many, many kids and with limited budgets--owe it to them to take their kids away from the riff raff and provide them personally with a singularly gilded education. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mantra on DCUM that APS teaches to the "lowest common denominator" is bullshit. The fact is, the APS elementary schools to which DCUM posters send their children are full of advantaged kids with high achieving and striving parents who don't need differentiation. Just look at the average test scores for these schools.

Every parent on DCUM thinks their child is the Christ Child and that the public schools--working with many, many kids and with limited budgets--owe it to them to take their kids away from the riff raff and provide them personally with a singularly gilded education. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

I know many, many privileged APS kids who get outside tutoring, particularly in math. It's rampant. Perhaps if there was differentiation available by APS all students, regardless of their ability to pay for outside tutoring, could have access to more challenging math.

I don't consider teachers offering content above the level of what is needed to pass the SOL to be inequitable. I also don't think that your child is especially special if they need more than grade-level SOL content to be challenged. That should be offered broadly as every grade at every school has kids who are capable of doing more challenging math.

By the way, some APS schools already do this. But some have taken the notion that challenging advanced students is inequitable and go out of their way to not offer anything to these students. That's not okay.

And for the record, APS math scores have been falling year after year. Test scores are lower than they were before Covid. APS really needs to do some self-reflection on what and how it's teaching. Math by iPad has not been a good addition. And the decrease in differentiation and more advanced content has not helped scores either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mantra on DCUM that APS teaches to the "lowest common denominator" is bullshit. The fact is, the APS elementary schools to which DCUM posters send their children are full of advantaged kids with high achieving and striving parents who don't need differentiation. Just look at the average test scores for these schools.

Every parent on DCUM thinks their child is the Christ Child and that the public schools--working with many, many kids and with limited budgets--owe it to them to take their kids away from the riff raff and provide them personally with a singularly gilded education. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

I agree with this. I have no idea why people say APS teaches to the lowest common denominator. It's just not true. I had two high achieving kids go through APS. Both were on the highest math track, both took multiple advanced classes (AP/DE) and were appropriately challenged. They had lots of peers with them at their level, so it's not like they were a one off. There are a lot of really smart kids in APS with involved invested parents. Also college outcomes for my kids and their friends and peers in APS were excellent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mantra on DCUM that APS teaches to the "lowest common denominator" is bullshit. The fact is, the APS elementary schools to which DCUM posters send their children are full of advantaged kids with high achieving and striving parents who don't need differentiation. Just look at the average test scores for these schools.

Every parent on DCUM thinks their child is the Christ Child and that the public schools--working with many, many kids and with limited budgets--owe it to them to take their kids away from the riff raff and provide them personally with a singularly gilded education. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

I know many, many privileged APS kids who get outside tutoring, particularly in math. It's rampant. Perhaps if there was differentiation available by APS all students, regardless of their ability to pay for outside tutoring, could have access to more challenging math.

I don't consider teachers offering content above the level of what is needed to pass the SOL to be inequitable. I also don't think that your child is especially special if they need more than grade-level SOL content to be challenged. That should be offered broadly as every grade at every school has kids who are capable of doing more challenging math.

By the way, some APS schools already do this. But some have taken the notion that challenging advanced students is inequitable and go out of their way to not offer anything to these students. That's not okay.

And for the record, APS math scores have been falling year after year. Test scores are lower than they were before Covid. APS really needs to do some self-reflection on what and how it's teaching. Math by iPad has not been a good addition. And the decrease in differentiation and more advanced content has not helped scores either.

Do you have very young kids? The challenge part takes care of itself starting in 6th with the different math tracks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mantra on DCUM that APS teaches to the "lowest common denominator" is bullshit. The fact is, the APS elementary schools to which DCUM posters send their children are full of advantaged kids with high achieving and striving parents who don't need differentiation. Just look at the average test scores for these schools.

Every parent on DCUM thinks their child is the Christ Child and that the public schools--working with many, many kids and with limited budgets--owe it to them to take their kids away from the riff raff and provide them personally with a singularly gilded education. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

I know many, many privileged APS kids who get outside tutoring, particularly in math. It's rampant. Perhaps if there was differentiation available by APS all students, regardless of their ability to pay for outside tutoring, could have access to more challenging math.

I don't consider teachers offering content above the level of what is needed to pass the SOL to be inequitable. I also don't think that your child is especially special if they need more than grade-level SOL content to be challenged. That should be offered broadly as every grade at every school has kids who are capable of doing more challenging math.

By the way, some APS schools already do this. But some have taken the notion that challenging advanced students is inequitable and go out of their way to not offer anything to these students. That's not okay.

And for the record, APS math scores have been falling year after year. Test scores are lower than they were before Covid. APS really needs to do some self-reflection on what and how it's teaching. Math by iPad has not been a good addition. And the decrease in differentiation and more advanced content has not helped scores either.

Do you have very young kids? The challenge part takes care of itself starting in 6th with the different math tracks.

I have older and younger kids. The real gap is in in grades 3-5, when there's no differentiation.

For math, kids who are prepared for pre-algebra in 6th are those whose parents have paid for outside enrichment or offered it at home. APS does nothing to help kids get ready.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mantra on DCUM that APS teaches to the "lowest common denominator" is bullshit. The fact is, the APS elementary schools to which DCUM posters send their children are full of advantaged kids with high achieving and striving parents who don't need differentiation. Just look at the average test scores for these schools.

Every parent on DCUM thinks their child is the Christ Child and that the public schools--working with many, many kids and with limited budgets--owe it to them to take their kids away from the riff raff and provide them personally with a singularly gilded education. Nope, it doesn't work that way.

I agree with this. I have no idea why people say APS teaches to the lowest common denominator. It's just not true. I had two high achieving kids go through APS. Both were on the highest math track, both took multiple advanced classes (AP/DE) and were appropriately challenged. They had lots of peers with them at their level, so it's not like they were a one off. There are a lot of really smart kids in APS with involved invested parents. Also college outcomes for my kids and their friends and peers in APS were excellent.

If your kids are already out of high school or at the end of high school then they were in APS when the system was entirely different. Differentiation is now frowned upon in elementary in a way that it wasn't even a few years ago.

I agree that there are lots of options in high school and even pretty good options in middle school. This is an elementary school issue.

[Anonymous]

OP here. We are currently in early elementary at APS and deciding if we should stay or move to another county. Our DC is highly gifted, and although already identified for gifted services, differentiation is pretty much not existent. DC mentioned they haven't learned anything in math at school all year, which isn't a surprise since they are able to perform multiple grade levels ahead. Not sure if we ride it out until middle school. Is the grass really greener elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

The difference is FCPS has a process to get into their gifted program, what they call AAP. Many parents work very hard to get kids into this program. It’s a whole scene. Google it or look in this website and find posts about it. That’s what you are choosing so just understand what it is before you get into it.

Falls Church main difference is it’s just smaller and all that comes with it, pros and cons.