If ATS is so popular, why not create two of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Different children are different. So different children might benefit most from different styles of teaching. ATS is an option school. People who think it is suitable may choose to apply to the lottery. People who prefer a different option school may choose to apply to that other option. People who prefer their neighborhood may choose to go there instead.

We should all be thankful that APS provides us with these choices WITHIN the public school system. Many other localities have no choices whatever, meaning that the only choice is to pay money to go private. FCPS, LCPS, and ACPS do not offer anything like ATS as an option, for example.

FCPS has AAP, a merit-based program. APS has lotteries and ATS is only an option for the lucky few who get a spot. I don’t really see it as a choice. You have to quite literally win the lottery. Most people who want to go don’t get that opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t want to drain neighborhood schools and leave them only with kids whose parents couldn’t/didn’t navigate the lottery.

so APS basically has school choice in the form of charter schools then? We just call it something else as to not be republicany? Expensive busing, brain drain of neighborhood schools, have to be able to navigate the lottery…what am I missing here and why is this accepted?

The post above is the best Parody Post I have seen on DCUM in a while.

ATS is majority minority, 37% FARMS (slightly below the 40% needed for Title-1 status) - both show that disadvantaged parents ARE successfully navigating the lottery. ATS uses the same APS teachers, and uses an APS approved curriculum. It is nothing like a charter school….

[Anonymous]

ATS, like many Arlington schools has a Twitter account and so does the principal, Vice-Principal and many of the teachers. It’s a great way to get a glimpse of what the school is about.

The last principal Holly Hawthorne, told Dr Duran to treat ATS at the control school when she refused to implement standard based grading. If other schools want to implement new methods they can go ahead. But ATS will stick to traditional methods of instruction. And guess what? Time and time again ATS was proven to be right. In the 70s when classrooms without walls was the new thing, ATS stuck to classrooms with walls. Well turns out classrooms without walls were so disruptive that APS went back to walls. Then balanced literacy and whole language became a thing. So all schools switched to balanced literacy and whole language while ATS stuck to phonics. Well years later the science of reading advocates proved that structured literacy is key and that balanced literacy and whole language is actually harmful. Now APS finally got rid of balanced literacy and is moving to a structured phonics based curriculum. At the same time there was a push away from teacher led direct instruction that was content rich and towards inquiry based learning. Again the science proved that inquiry based learning is ineffective and that students need a content rich curriculum in order to develop their vocabulary and to understand what they are reading. ATS stuck to a content rich curriculum (teachers developed units for each year and those units were content rich and cumulative). Now of course APS has recognized that a content curriculum is key to closing the opportunity gap (kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not have access to the knowledge base that richer kids do) so they start kindergarten with with much lower vocabulary. So this year APS finally adopted CKLA which is content rich. ATS has proven to be correct time and time again. What’s the next fad? Standards Based Grading. ATS stood their ground and refused to implement it for the upper grades. I’m pretty sure that eventually ATS will be proven right.

[Anonymous]

PP above. Us immigrants realize that learning fads are exactly that, fads. So the majority of us try to get our kids into ATS. Now not everyone gets in but we still try. The ones that don’t get in still work hard to make sure their kids are actually learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ATS, like many Arlington schools has a Twitter account and so does the principal, Vice-Principal and many of the teachers. It’s a great way to get a glimpse of what the school is about.

The last principal Holly Hawthorne, told Dr Duran to treat ATS at the control school when she refused to implement standard based grading. If other schools want to implement new methods they can go ahead. But ATS will stick to traditional methods of instruction. And guess what? Time and time again ATS was proven to be right. In the 70s when classrooms without walls was the new thing, ATS stuck to classrooms with walls. Well turns out classrooms without walls were so disruptive that APS went back to walls. Then balanced literacy and whole language became a thing. So all schools switched to balanced literacy and whole language while ATS stuck to phonics. Well years later the science of reading advocates proved that structured literacy is key and that balanced literacy and whole language is actually harmful. Now APS finally got rid of balanced literacy and is moving to a structured phonics based curriculum. At the same time there was a push away from teacher led direct instruction that was content rich and towards inquiry based learning. Again the science proved that inquiry based learning is ineffective and that students need a content rich curriculum in order to develop their vocabulary and to understand what they are reading. ATS stuck to a content rich curriculum (teachers developed units for each year and those units were content rich and cumulative). Now of course APS has recognized that a content curriculum is key to closing the opportunity gap (kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not have access to the knowledge base that richer kids do) so they start kindergarten with with much lower vocabulary. So this year APS finally adopted CKLA which is content rich. ATS has proven to be correct time and time again. What’s the next fad? Standards Based Grading. ATS stood their ground and refused to implement it for the upper grades. I’m pretty sure that eventually ATS will be proven right.

ExActly this. APS could do more of what ATS is doing in all of the elementary schools but keeps getting distracted by the next shiny object.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old APS parent here. Knowing what I know now, I absolutely would have applied to send my kids to ATS (we did not even lottery, though I did learn about it at kindergarten info night).

How I think of it is, ATS runs like schools ran when I was a kid. Traditional. Other APS schools are trying new models that generally are not proven and not as effective.

We switched to Catholic during Covid which also runs a more traditional model, but which you pay for out of pocket.

I do think we should add another ATS. The question is where to put it, because you have to take offline an existing ES, and that's a nightmare like all boundary stuff is.

But as an Arlington taxpayer, I would love to see all our schools swinging back toward a more traditional learning model.

I also completely agree on the importance of having one teacher who really gets to know your kid and be invested in them. I hated when our APS elem started rotating kids in 4th grade and all those connections got broken.

Just want to chime in as an ATS parent. What distinguishes ATS is the following:

- high expectations when it comes to academics
- high expectations when it comes to behavior
- direct interaction as opposed to inquiry based learning (this is the most important difference in my opinion)
- focus on phonics in the earlier grades
- curriculum has always been knowledge based even before the adoption of CKLA
- extremely diverse student body
- no standards based grading in the higher grades
-homework
- arts focus

This all sounds pretty generic, though I'm not familiar with "direct interaction" vs. "inquiry based learning." Again, the main issue I see with ATS, and why we didn't bother trying the lottery, is that they can't really identify what they're doing that is so special. Anyone at ATS who hasn't also been at another school (most of ATS) has only experienced ATS and been told it is extra special.

That’s because you don’t know the difference between inquiry based learning and direct instruction. They are completely different methods of teaching. The delivery is different. The teacher’s role is different. The students roles’ are different. The way students interact with each other are different. It’s a completely different way to run a classroom. The differences are vast. Just because the difference is too abstract for you to understand doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I suggest you learn about the different methods of instruction. You can start with Natalie Wexler.

Your entire response just repeats the assertion that "direct interaction" and "inquiry based learning" are different without explaining HOW they are different. I'll google Natalie Wexler and try to educate myself, but repeating a claim without backing it up doesn't make it more convincing. Also, even if this one thing is the true difference, why burry that with all the other generic stuff? No wonder so many of us are confused.

DP Direct instruction (not interaction) is a more traditional approach whereby the teacher provides instruction to the class as a whole, does worked examples, and lays out problems in a scaffolded manner so that students can build a base of knowledge before tackling the next level difficulty problem. Essentially, teachers take a direct role in teaching kids material. With inquiry or discovery learning, the teacher is more a facilitator and students often work together in small groups on material and attempt to figure problems out on their own. Students ask questions of the teacher when they hit an impasse. The teacher does not give them the answer directly but will ask students follow-up questions to guide their thinking toward the answer. Inquiry learning is meant to encourage productive struggle. Since inquiry learning is generally more time consuming than direct instruction, often less content is covered with an inquiry approach. Inquiry learning tends to put more emphasis on thinking process skills and less emphasis on the particular content itself.
Each approach has its advocates. However, inquiry learning is generally more successful when students have a base of knowledge to work with; as such, it may be better suited to experts rather than novices and may be better incorporated in small amounts rather than used exclusively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old APS parent here. Knowing what I know now, I absolutely would have applied to send my kids to ATS (we did not even lottery, though I did learn about it at kindergarten info night).

How I think of it is, ATS runs like schools ran when I was a kid. Traditional. Other APS schools are trying new models that generally are not proven and not as effective.

We switched to Catholic during Covid which also runs a more traditional model, but which you pay for out of pocket.

I do think we should add another ATS. The question is where to put it, because you have to take offline an existing ES, and that's a nightmare like all boundary stuff is.

But as an Arlington taxpayer, I would love to see all our schools swinging back toward a more traditional learning model.

I also completely agree on the importance of having one teacher who really gets to know your kid and be invested in them. I hated when our APS elem started rotating kids in 4th grade and all those connections got broken.

Just want to chime in as an ATS parent. What distinguishes ATS is the following:

- high expectations when it comes to academics
- high expectations when it comes to behavior
- direct interaction as opposed to inquiry based learning (this is the most important difference in my opinion)
- focus on phonics in the earlier grades
- curriculum has always been knowledge based even before the adoption of CKLA
- extremely diverse student body
- no standards based grading in the higher grades
-homework
- arts focus

This all sounds pretty generic, though I'm not familiar with "direct interaction" vs. "inquiry based learning." Again, the main issue I see with ATS, and why we didn't bother trying the lottery, is that they can't really identify what they're doing that is so special. Anyone at ATS who hasn't also been at another school (most of ATS) has only experienced ATS and been told it is extra special.

That’s because you don’t know the difference between inquiry based learning and direct instruction. They are completely different methods of teaching. The delivery is different. The teacher’s role is different. The students roles’ are different. The way students interact with each other are different. It’s a completely different way to run a classroom. The differences are vast. Just because the difference is too abstract for you to understand doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I suggest you learn about the different methods of instruction. You can start with Natalie Wexler.

Your entire response just repeats the assertion that "direct interaction" and "inquiry based learning" are different without explaining HOW they are different. I'll google Natalie Wexler and try to educate myself, but repeating a claim without backing it up doesn't make it more convincing. Also, even if this one thing is the true difference, why burry that with all the other generic stuff? No wonder so many of us are confused.

DP Direct instruction (not interaction) is a more traditional approach whereby the teacher provides instruction to the class as a whole, does worked examples, and lays out problems in a scaffolded manner so that students can build a base of knowledge before tackling the next level difficulty problem. Essentially, teachers take a direct role in teaching kids material. With inquiry or discovery learning, the teacher is more a facilitator and students often work together in small groups on material and attempt to figure problems out on their own. Students ask questions of the teacher when they hit an impasse. The teacher does not give them the answer directly but will ask students follow-up questions to guide their thinking toward the answer. Inquiry learning is meant to encourage productive struggle. Since inquiry learning is generally more time consuming than direct instruction, often less content is covered with an inquiry approach. Inquiry learning tends to put more emphasis on thinking process skills and less emphasis on the particular content itself.
Each approach has its advocates. However, inquiry learning is generally more successful when students have a base of knowledge to work with; as such, it may be better suited to experts rather than novices and may be better incorporated in small amounts rather than used exclusively.

This is a good summary of the differences between the two and when each method should be used. As I understand it, ATS does use inquiry based learning sometimes. It’s just not the primary method of instruction. I personally think that exclusive inquiry based learning works best in private schools with small classrooms, highly experienced teachers, and a student population with affluent, highly educated parents. Also think it works better with older students as opposed to younger students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS, like many Arlington schools has a Twitter account and so does the principal, Vice-Principal and many of the teachers. It’s a great way to get a glimpse of what the school is about.

The last principal Holly Hawthorne, told Dr Duran to treat ATS at the control school when she refused to implement standard based grading. If other schools want to implement new methods they can go ahead. But ATS will stick to traditional methods of instruction. And guess what? Time and time again ATS was proven to be right. In the 70s when classrooms without walls was the new thing, ATS stuck to classrooms with walls. Well turns out classrooms without walls were so disruptive that APS went back to walls. Then balanced literacy and whole language became a thing. So all schools switched to balanced literacy and whole language while ATS stuck to phonics. Well years later the science of reading advocates proved that structured literacy is key and that balanced literacy and whole language is actually harmful. Now APS finally got rid of balanced literacy and is moving to a structured phonics based curriculum. At the same time there was a push away from teacher led direct instruction that was content rich and towards inquiry based learning. Again the science proved that inquiry based learning is ineffective and that students need a content rich curriculum in order to develop their vocabulary and to understand what they are reading. ATS stuck to a content rich curriculum (teachers developed units for each year and those units were content rich and cumulative). Now of course APS has recognized that a content curriculum is key to closing the opportunity gap (kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not have access to the knowledge base that richer kids do) so they start kindergarten with with much lower vocabulary. So this year APS finally adopted CKLA which is content rich. ATS has proven to be correct time and time again. What’s the next fad? Standards Based Grading. ATS stood their ground and refused to implement it for the upper grades. I’m pretty sure that eventually ATS will be proven right.

ExActly this. APS could do more of what ATS is doing in all of the elementary schools but keeps getting distracted by the next shiny object.

We are also in the homework is inequitable phase. While ATS is sticking to its guns when it comes to homework. A math teacher that teaches in middle school at APS once told me that there is really no way in getting around having no math homework. Math requires lots and lots of practice. The students who come prepared for middle school are the ones who’s parents forced them to do math homework every day or put them in some math enrichment class.

[Anonymous]

As much as this forum talks about ATS, you know they are doing something right. Ha!

Knowing what we know now, I wish instead of the Spanish immersion program, we would have at least tried for the lottery at ATS. C'est la vie!

[Anonymous]

An issue is that many districts (across the US) are trying to get teachers to scale back use of direct instruction and use inquiry learning more because the latter approach is currently popular. For instance, when teachers are evaluated, they risk getting marked down if they rely too much on direct instruction even if they think it is the best approach for that lesson. ATS is seen as being more open to and supportive of direct instruction than other schools.

[Anonymous]

APS 100% has school choice!!! That is what option schools are! You can lottery into them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As much as this forum talks about ATS, you know they are doing something right. Ha!

Knowing what we know now, I wish instead of the Spanish immersion program, we would have at least tried for the lottery at ATS. C'est la vie!

The good this is that APS’ ELA department has pretty much bought into the way ATS does things. You won’t get homework _ that’s a ATS thing. But what you do have is a curriculum that includes structured literacy/phonics and is content rich due to CKLA. Obviously some schools have growing pains and some teachers are less enthusiastic about the changes but I believe that will change once they see the results. Plus science of reading evidence is so strong that there is no turning back. Also CKLA requires some direct instruction so APS schools are starting to do that more. So hopefully your kid will get really good instruction and learn another language

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:APS 100% has school choice!!! That is what option schools are! You can lottery into them!

Critics of school choice point to the fact that charter schools are run by private corporations that, in many cases, have very little accountability. Also since teachers that teach in charter schools are not public employees, they have very little protections when it comes to hiring/firing and often have less benefits than private school teachers. There are no charter schools in APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Old APS parent here. Knowing what I know now, I absolutely would have applied to send my kids to ATS (we did not even lottery, though I did learn about it at kindergarten info night).

How I think of it is, ATS runs like schools ran when I was a kid. Traditional. Other APS schools are trying new models that generally are not proven and not as effective.

We switched to Catholic during Covid which also runs a more traditional model, but which you pay for out of pocket.

I do think we should add another ATS. The question is where to put it, because you have to take offline an existing ES, and that's a nightmare like all boundary stuff is.

But as an Arlington taxpayer, I would love to see all our schools swinging back toward a more traditional learning model.

I also completely agree on the importance of having one teacher who really gets to know your kid and be invested in them. I hated when our APS elem started rotating kids in 4th grade and all those connections got broken.

Just want to chime in as an ATS parent. What distinguishes ATS is the following:

- high expectations when it comes to academics
- high expectations when it comes to behavior
- direct interaction as opposed to inquiry based learning (this is the most important difference in my opinion)
- focus on phonics in the earlier grades
- curriculum has always been knowledge based even before the adoption of CKLA
- extremely diverse student body
- no standards based grading in the higher grades
-homework
- arts focus

This all sounds pretty generic, though I'm not familiar with "direct interaction" vs. "inquiry based learning." Again, the main issue I see with ATS, and why we didn't bother trying the lottery, is that they can't really identify what they're doing that is so special. Anyone at ATS who hasn't also been at another school (most of ATS) has only experienced ATS and been told it is extra special.

That’s because you don’t know the difference between inquiry based learning and direct instruction. They are completely different methods of teaching. The delivery is different. The teacher’s role is different. The students roles’ are different. The way students interact with each other are different. It’s a completely different way to run a classroom. The differences are vast. Just because the difference is too abstract for you to understand doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I suggest you learn about the different methods of instruction. You can start with Natalie Wexler.

Your entire response just repeats the assertion that "direct interaction" and "inquiry based learning" are different without explaining HOW they are different. I'll google Natalie Wexler and try to educate myself, but repeating a claim without backing it up doesn't make it more convincing. Also, even if this one thing is the true difference, why burry that with all the other generic stuff? No wonder so many of us are confused.

DP Direct instruction (not interaction) is a more traditional approach whereby the teacher provides instruction to the class as a whole, does worked examples, and lays out problems in a scaffolded manner so that students can build a base of knowledge before tackling the next level difficulty problem. Essentially, teachers take a direct role in teaching kids material. With inquiry or discovery learning, the teacher is more a facilitator and students often work together in small groups on material and attempt to figure problems out on their own. Students ask questions of the teacher when they hit an impasse. The teacher does not give them the answer directly but will ask students follow-up questions to guide their thinking toward the answer. Inquiry learning is meant to encourage productive struggle. Since inquiry learning is generally more time consuming than direct instruction, often less content is covered with an inquiry approach. Inquiry learning tends to put more emphasis on thinking process skills and less emphasis on the particular content itself.
Each approach has its advocates. However, inquiry learning is generally more successful when students have a base of knowledge to work with; as such, it may be better suited to experts rather than novices and may be better incorporated in small amounts rather than used exclusively.

This is a good summary of the differences between the two and when each method should be used. As I understand it, ATS does use inquiry based learning sometimes. It’s just not the primary method of instruction. I personally think that exclusive inquiry based learning works best in private schools with small classrooms, highly experienced teachers, and a student population with affluent, highly educated parents. Also think it works better with older students as opposed to younger students.

Agree, those factors would up the odds of inquiry learning being successful. But even there, some private schools that have tried to use inquiry learning exclusively for certain courses have received pushback from families whose students felt lost with that approach, leading those schools to move more toward a hybrid mix of inquiry learning and direct instruction/textbooks. Exclusive inquiry learning is challenging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As much as this forum talks about ATS, you know they are doing something right. Ha!

Knowing what we know now, I wish instead of the Spanish immersion program, we would have at least tried for the lottery at ATS. C'est la vie!

The good this is that APS’ ELA department has pretty much bought into the way ATS does things. You won’t get homework _ that’s a ATS thing. But what you do have is a curriculum that includes structured literacy/phonics and is content rich due to CKLA. Obviously some schools have growing pains and some teachers are less enthusiastic about the changes but I believe that will change once they see the results. Plus science of reading evidence is so strong that there is no turning back. Also CKLA requires some direct instruction so APS schools are starting to do that more. So hopefully your kid will get really good instruction and learn another language

I think schools are moving in ATS’ direction when it comes to English. I’d like to see APS focus more of the behavioral issues that teachers are dealing with. Setting high behavioral expectations is better for kids and for teachers. Kids focus more, there is less bullying, and the environment becomes all together more welcoming. A lot of teacher burnout is due to behavioral issues. My cousin’s husband is a middle school teacher in Montgomery County. He has been teaching for 20 years. Student behavior is out of control according to him. Teachers are not allowed to do anything about it. He feels sorry for the students who have go to school in such a disruptive environment. But there is very little he can do. He loves his students but is completely burnt out so this will be his last year. He got a certificate in some security related field and will be switching careers. He’ll be making double what he’s making now and will be working from home. He says it’s not about the money and that most teachers aren’t in it for the money (though more money would be nice & is definitely becoming more of an issue due to inflation). It’s student behavior and admin. Also says drug use is out of control. Hard drugs as well as pot. Says pot definitely is having an effect on student performance (they are too high to focus or know what they are doing). No one cares. Only solution seems to be to have everyone Narcan trained. Obviously that’s important for saving lives but it’s almost impossible to teach students that are hooked on drugs and the drug use makes it difficult for students who do not use drugs to learn. Overall it’s a shit show. Before leaving teaching altogether he contemplated getting a job in an international school overseas. His friend is a teacher in Dubai and says that although the kids there are spoilt rotten, they are well behaved and want to learn. He decided that the move would be too much for his family though. Plus his daughter has some medical condition and he’d rather be close to a major children’s hospital.