South Arlington schools
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Anonymous
This is simply not true. "Many" of the neighborhoods in 22204 are not "full" of affordable rentals. Too broad a brush. Some neighborhoods have more rentals than others, and if they aren't rehabbed they tend to be more affordable. But many neighborhoods have few rentals, and those that are rentals are not "affordable." The families who can afford to rent in my neighborhood are state department or military officers who are going to be in the area temporarily and are not looking to buy for that reason alone. Not someone who's getting a subsidy. Even the not-so-nice rentals are too pricey to be considered "affordable," and have groups of single professionals (who are priced out of Clarendon and the R-B corridor) living together instead of poor families. But back to the schools, families with choices are not choosing to send their kids to the neighborhood schools where more than 50% of the kids are FARMS. That seems to be the point at which parents who have choices make different choices. I think most parents just want to feel that their kids will have a peer group and have access to the same activities they would have if they lived 2 miles to the north, and I think we should be doing more to ensure that parents who have choices WANT the neighborhood school because they are reassured that this will be the case. And if we can achieve this, chances are it won't really make a huge difference in the outcomes of the kids who come from families of means, because most likely these kids will be fine regardless of whether their ES is a 9 or a 4. But integrated schools just might make a world of difference for the child who isn't privileged. More programming classes and chess clubs and math dice and robotics and odyssey of the mind and whatever else and scholarships for those classes/clubs for EVERYONE certainly can't hurt. Sure, some families may still decamp for other locations, always chasing something "better," like the ES with a slide or the HS with the highest avg. SAT scores. But many more middle and UMC families would stay and enroll in their geographically close school if they knew their children would have similar academic experiences regardless of their zip code. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP to whom you are responding. I guess my question to you is how do we know that these kids will do (on average) on better than fine in South Arlington schools? We all usually point to test scores - like SOLs - to quantify the difference in performance between non disadvantaged kids in higher performing schools versus lower performing schools. But, as I already pointed out, that category is much too broad to draw any real conclusions about the performance of affluent kids at lower performing schools. So, how do we measure their performance - and the gap, if one exists, between their peers at higher performing schools, if not through broad categories of standardized test results? I don't think we can just say the answer is obvious. Do we just do so through anecdotal evidence (we see a lot of that on threads like this)? If a real achievement gap exists, surely there must be more proof? And I'm not being snarky. I'm actually interested in figuring out the answer to this question. Is it that kids learn better when they have bigger peer groups of similar learners? Is it the availability of after school activities? Is it, as you suggest, teaching to the middle? But don't all the Arlington elementaries teach to the same curriculum? Is it retention of kids from year to year? I'm genuinely curious about this. |
Anonymous
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Sfh Ownership in 22204 is 50% compared to 22207.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! Show me where you are getting this number. My guess is out of your ass. Did you people just get the vapors at the thought of south Arlington when you were house hunting? Did you do any research at all? It doesn't matter, but your ideas are very silly. |
Anonymous
| 15:09-- I don't know how you measure it. I think we're talking about things that may be unquantifiable. When I said above is anecdotal, and based entirely on my personal experience in a S Arl elementary school as compared to a N Arl elementary school. I was told by so many S. Arlington parents & APS teachers and administrators that my S Arlington elementary school was just as good as any North Arlington elementary school. I suspected they were wrong. When I moved, I saw they were even more wrong than I thought. It will not make or break a middle class child from an educated family. But know that other taxpayers in Arlington are getting far better schools for their money.And as the previous poster point out, it probably makes a huge difference to disadvantaged children to be children to be stuck in those mediocre South Arlington schools. |
Anonymous
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It will take a critical mass of middle class families in those schools. It's a simple solution. If the families in Barcroft don't move, choice out, or go private en masse, the farms percentage would start to be balanced out somewhat. 65% could become 58%. More families move in and stay. 58% becomes 55%.
Ten years down the road it becomes 50%. Now the school is performing like Henry and everyone is happy. The frustrating thing is that APS doesn't seem to have any interest in building a bridge to help those middle class families feel comfortable. They've seemed happy enough to ignore those schools. I hope the search for a new principal at Randolph is signal to those families, they are paying attention and working to build trust. |
Anonymous
I live in Nauck, used to live in Penrose. Got the data from the US Census. |
Anonymous
Please post the link |
Anonymous
Percent of housing units that are owner occupied (2010 census) 22204: 41.5% 22207: 79.5% Percent of owner occupied housing units that are SFH (2014 American Community Survey) 22204: 49.5% 22207: 88.1% I was right that twice as many people own in 22207 as in 22204. But if you're looking just at SFHs, it is more than three times as many (70% in 22207, versus 20.5% in 22204.) http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml?src=bkmk My ass accepts your apology. |
Anonymous
That is assuming new FARM students don't get added (such as what happened with families from AH in Arlington Mills getting zoned to Barcroft). |
Anonymous
Hmmm... ACS... Yeah... It's mandatory, but not entirely accurate. |
Anonymous
Would you please post the school you moved from? Was it one of the poorer performing schools or better performing schools in South Arlington? |
Anonymous
OK, well you just let me know how far you want to move the goalpost to make whatever weird point you're trying to make, and I'll decide if I want to keep playing. MY point is, south Arlington still has a ton of "affordable" housing, which does not necessarily mean subsidized housing, it means the housing that working people can afford to rent. But they move around a lot, which causes its own problems in the schools when you have different kids every year. When you combine that with the OTHER issues you see in south Arlington--people who truly are very low income, people who don't speak English at home, etc. it is a lot of hurdles to ask a school to overcome when compared to the typical population that attends a north Arlington school. |
Anonymous
| 19:36 It was a poor performer. One of the bottom 3. |
Anonymous
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^^^ yeah. It's what everyone has been saying.
But upthread someone, maybe you, kinda made it sound like those sfh neighborhood's are full of working class people, just holding on. That's just not the case. Maybe the old people who are literally dying off, but who is moving in? Doctors, lawyers, contractors who have babies and are staying. I don't doubt that there are more rental properties in 22204 than 22207, but half? No, I can't believe that. Although you live in Nauck? Yes? So maybe that is the case over there. Due to its history it is objectively some of the worst properties in all of Arlington, so you might correct. |
Anonymous
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If you really want to compare SOLs across these schools, it is easy. Compare the scores of Caucasian kids. Face it, more likely than not those are the kids who are not socio economically disadvantaged in any comparable way.
When you do that, the score differences across every south arlington school except Oakridge and Henry is HUGE. |