Marshall High School - Lowest Graduation Rate vs. TJ, Langley, McLean, Woodson, Madison, Oakton
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Anonymous
LOL, 99.9% chance this poster has no connection to Langley. |
Anonymous
Why do you say that? |
Anonymous
So Marshall isn't as good as the other schools, it's solid when you adjust for the 20% FARMS rate. |
Anonymous
Right. Marshall has a smaller percentage of students in the IB program than the other schools listed have in IB/AP. That's really all that these rankings focus on. It doesn't measure the quality of the instruction in the IB/AP classrooms. So 61% of Marshall students participate in IB (which is an astoundingly high rate by national standards). About 90% pass an IB exam, and about a third of those receive an IB diploma, which I believe requires a high pass on the full panel of IB exams (although I might be mistaken). So the question is whether the quality of instruction in the IB program is held down by the fact that 40% of the students don't participate. Does anyone have any insight on this? |
Anonymous
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When you say 61% of Marshall students participate in IB, you mean that 61% take at least one IP course before they graduate? That does not surprise me, given the demographics of the neighborhoods that feed into Marshall and the fact that few, if any, AP courses are offered there.
From what I've read, the percentage of Marshall students actually pursuing or receiving IB diplomas is much lower, and that is true at other IB schools in FCPS as well. I find that interesting, since IB appears to be one of the programs potentially on the chopping block as FCPS considers budget cuts. |
Anonymous
Yes, I'm using US News definition. That's actually an extremely high percentage by national standards. Only in FCPS does it seem low. Typically, around 20% of Marshall graduates earn IB diplomas. Again, extraordinarily high by national standards. I'm sure rates would be higher at McLean, etc, if there were an AP analogue. The whole point here is that quibbling over where Marshall ranks among FCPS high schools really loses perspective on how deep the quality of schools in the county are. It's not dumping on McLean, etc. to the contrary, it's acknowledging that they're great schools and saying that the fact that's Marshall's stats are lower doesn't mean Marshall is a Bad school. To the contrary, it's performance is outstanding. They won't cut IB. There's no reason to. Transitioning to IB from AP involves costs, but after the transition is done an IB program is no more expensive. Most of the proposed cuts are dramatics by the administration to coerce more money from the county. |
Anonymous
Interestingly, if you sort the US News rankings by "college readiness," which US News measures as the percentage of students both taking and passing one or more AP or IB exams, Marshall falls from 11th in the county to 15th, which places it in the bottom half of high schools in FCPS, whereas Langley, Woodson, McLean, Oakton and Madison remain the top schools behind TJ. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/virginia/districts/fairfax-county-public-schools-109481?sort=college_readiness_index&sortdir=desc |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Nobody has said anything to the contrary. The point is that all the schools in FCPS are great. Nobody has shat on those schools. Why do you keep coming back and shitting on Marshall. Do you disagree that FCPS schools are among the top in the nation? Someone makeS that point, and you reply with "Marshall's not as good as McLean, et al." Nobody has said otherwise, so it's kind of tacky. |
Anonymous
As an aside, query why the McLean/Great Falls/Vienna crowd seems obsessed with dumping on Marshall, as opposed to other schools. For example, no high school in the county has as high a graduation rate as the six others mentioned in this thread title. So why focus on Marshall? It isn't clear to me what they have out for that school. |
Anonymous
Either you pay only sporadic attention to threads on this forum, or you mischaracterize what Marshall posters tend to say here. If you have a hard time with the fact that others point out how Marshall compares to other schools, perhaps you should just let the thread die. |
Anonymous
What did they say that offends you? |
Anonymous
| My friends in langley and mclean used to call marshall the ghetto school back in the early 90s. These types of stereotypes dont die until that generation does regardless of reality. |
Anonymous
+1. I keep reading these allusions to Marshall promoters making nasty comments that hurts the feelings of the McLeaners, but I have yet to see one snide comment from a Marshall promoter. Can someone provide some specific examples? The McLean advocates on this forum are obnoxious, though. I'm on here looking at schools, planning where to move. I had thought McClean, but the people on here are the worst stereotypes of snooty McLeaners. If there are some McLeaners with class on this forum, please do speak up. |
Anonymous
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I've been both a Langley parent and a Marshall parent (quite recently). Both schools have excellent academics and both my kids were appropriately challenged. IB and AP play to different strengths in a student, and we are lucky to be in FCPS where we have an opportunity to find the best fit for our children (be it IB, AP or athletics). Where the schools differ is the student/parent community. Marshall is a diverse school with a low-key parent community. My child never felt pressured to wear Prada or Pulitzer -- I think most of the time she wore pajamas. The community seems to be good at accepting kids for who they are and embracing "unique" Not a ton of parent involvement, but i always saw the principal, assistant principals and teachers at all of the sporting events. Parents seemed nice, but mostly kept to themselves. Kids from lots of different backgrounds and experiences.
At Langley, there is a very strong parent community, they are vocal and have a strong hand in running the school. We had lots of dinners, get-togethers, meetings, etc. Most meetings were during the day, so perhaps not a lot of Langley parents work in traditional professional environments. At Langley, we experienced a bit more of "keeping up with the Joneses" (but TBH there are kids who come from enormous wealth that attend the school). Homecomings were totally different experiences -- at Marshall, the kids got together for dinner and then went to the dance. Sometimes there was an after-party. At Langley we had pictures at a local country club, pre-party at a parent's house, dinner, dance, after party and sleep-overs. There was a bus taking the kids from place to place. It cost me a fortune -- every year. Having been at two different schools, to me it is like finding the right job. There are lots of accounting, legal ... jobs, but the key is finding the right fit where you feel comfortable and want to work. I think its the same with high schools. At most schools, students learn the same material, but finding an environment in which they thrive is what makes their high-school experience successful. And, for what its worth -- both of my kids graduated and so did all of their friends and they all went on to college. |