Replicating ATS success — what are exact differences

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

Guaranteeing admission for neighborhood kids sounds good in theory. But what happens when the neighborhood school becomes one of the best in the county and people with money start flocking to the neighborhood, pushing longtime residents out?

(Or the flip side, it becomes a second ATS but without the good outcomes…)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

Guaranteeing admission for neighborhood kids sounds good in theory. But what happens when the neighborhood school becomes one of the best in the county and people with money start flocking to the neighborhood, pushing longtime residents out?

(Or the flip side, it becomes a second ATS but without the good outcomes…)

Well both those are good points but I think the neighborhood is already heading that way (every house that goes on market is torn down and new houses for 1 million plus in their place).

And I'd it doesn't have good outcomes then I guess we answered the question in this post..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

PP said minorities. Go back and look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

Guaranteeing admission for neighborhood kids sounds good in theory. But what happens when the neighborhood school becomes one of the best in the county and people with money start flocking to the neighborhood, pushing longtime residents out?

(Or the flip side, it becomes a second ATS but without the good outcomes…)

Well both those are good points but I think the neighborhood is already heading that way (every house that goes on market is torn down and new houses for 1 million plus in their place).

And I'd it doesn't have good outcomes then I guess we answered the question in this post..

Neighborhood is slowly moving that direction. Make it guaranteed admission to a second ATS, that slow change becomes immediate change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

PP said minorities. Go back and look.

They’re talking about kids who come through the Pre-K, which is income based. Because our society is so segregated and intentionally left POC out of wealth creation, economic status and race are fairly correlated. It’s not illegal to consider economic status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

Guaranteeing admission for neighborhood kids sounds good in theory. But what happens when the neighborhood school becomes one of the best in the county and people with money start flocking to the neighborhood, pushing longtime residents out?

(Or the flip side, it becomes a second ATS but without the good outcomes…)

Well both those are good points but I think the neighborhood is already heading that way (every house that goes on market is torn down and new houses for 1 million plus in their place).

And I'd it doesn't have good outcomes then I guess we answered the question in this post..

Neighborhood is slowly moving that direction. Make it guaranteed admission to a second ATS, that slow change becomes immediate change.

Is it a neighborhood of renters that would get pushed out from rising rents, or longtime homeowners that would sell for a nice profit? I’m not familiar with the neighborhood around Drew.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

PP said minorities. Go back and look.

They’re talking about kids who come through the Pre-K, which is income based. Because our society is so segregated and intentionally left POC out of wealth creation, economic status and race are fairly correlated. It’s not illegal to consider economic status.

But they specifically said minorities. Again, go look.

If they meant something else, they need to choose better words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

Guaranteeing admission for neighborhood kids sounds good in theory. But what happens when the neighborhood school becomes one of the best in the county and people with money start flocking to the neighborhood, pushing longtime residents out?

(Or the flip side, it becomes a second ATS but without the good outcomes…)

Well both those are good points but I think the neighborhood is already heading that way (every house that goes on market is torn down and new houses for 1 million plus in their place).

And I'd it doesn't have good outcomes then I guess we answered the question in this post..

Neighborhood is slowly moving that direction. Make it guaranteed admission to a second ATS, that slow change becomes immediate change.

Is it a neighborhood of renters that would get pushed out from rising rents, or longtime homeowners that would sell for a nice profit? I’m not familiar with the neighborhood around Drew.

Maybe a bit of both. And people who wouldn’t necessarily want to sell, but would be forced to due to rising property values (and therefore taxes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

Yet ATS is doing better than all the North Arlington schools you mentioned with the same level of chronic absenteeism. It’s not just the parent population. My friend’s two kids came from a poor performing South Arlington school and were not at grade level for anything. The parents are super involved in their kids education but the kids were falling behind because the school sucks. The youngest started last year. ATS caught her up to grade level. She came middle of first grade and could barely read. Now the eldest is at ATS. Being caught up well. The parents were super involved but as immigrants they didn’t know how to teach their kids the mechanics of reading. Also the classroom environment wasn’t safe (literally - kids were throwing stuff all the time) and both their kids were subject to bullying. Once they switched to ATS everything changed. Kids were doing better academically, socially and emotionally.

Came here to say something similar. The families and type of kids that attend ATS may contribute to the success, but there is also something different about their programing. They certainly haven't discovered a special magic solution or solved education, but, they have figured out a method that is clearly seeing results.

We received slots to ATS in 2nd and 3rd grade for our two DCs. Our kids as well as us were able to see very stark differences in the day-to-day classroom learning. Their understanding and desire to continue learning drastically changed too.

BINGO!!
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me its FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. Its FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and its student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

This is an interesting comment, but I think that APS just needs to offer more schools that use the ATS model. This is a public school district. It’s unfair to offer a product like ATS- the literal best public elementary school in Virginia- when it benefits so few of the taxpaying population. I would be fine with them setting aside percentage for students receiving FRL, but there’s no getting around the fact that we need more ATS slots for everyone.

They already guarantee admission for all of their VIP classes. That's how they have the FRL% that they have.
It perplexes me that people propose this for option programs but balk at it for creating boundaries/implementing admissions policy for all neighborhood schools. Well, it doesn't really perplex me; but it sure saddens me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

Drew needs something. All the fighting to get a neighborhood school and it still has the same abysmal achievement outcomes. I live next door and would have zero issue with making it ATS 2 with guaranteed admission for neighborhood kids. Then the 25 kids at the ATS hub stop at Drew can come back to their neighborhood school..

absolutely NOT!
Took years to eliminate geographical guarantee to immersion. APS should never, ever go back.
1. not equitable or fair
2. people move into the neighborhood for the guaranteed admission and the school becomes too crowded with few outside the geographical boundary able to access
Never again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

ATS parent. I support setting aside more K-5 slots for FRL families.

Btw Montessori pre-k uses that model but the elementary school has a lower FRM rate than ATS.

Colleges can’t even set aside spots based on race. But public elementary schools can?

Who said race? This is FRL.

PP said minorities. Go back and look.

They’re talking about kids who come through the Pre-K, which is income based. Because our society is so segregated and intentionally left POC out of wealth creation, economic status and race are fairly correlated. It’s not illegal to consider economic status.

Not yet. But we're getting very close to it becoming so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone asked why ATS is different from other option schools and someone else mentioned absenteeism. For reference. ATS has 1.7% of kids with chronic absenteeism. Claremont is 18.83% and Campbell is 19.94%.

Everyone can discuss this to death. But it is the makeup of the school. THAT is the difference. ATS doesn't have some magic solution. They haven't solved education. They have a very specific self selecting group of families who highly value education. And that is super wonderful.

It is just hard to fight against nearly 20% of the school being chronically absent. The population of the school is just different.

Also, this got me looking at absentee rates at schools.

Drew 23.66%
Randolph 21.76%
Barcroft 15.5%

Lets Compare to N. Arlington schools

Nottingham .51%
Taylor 4.02%
Cardinal 2.14%

Chronic Absenteeism is probably the real problem we need to solve to help close the achievement gap.

Yet ATS is doing better than all the North Arlington schools you mentioned with the same level of chronic absenteeism. It’s not just the parent population. My friend’s two kids came from a poor performing South Arlington school and were not at grade level for anything. The parents are super involved in their kids education but the kids were falling behind because the school sucks. The youngest started last year. ATS caught her up to grade level. She came middle of first grade and could barely read. Now the eldest is at ATS. Being caught up well. The parents were super involved but as immigrants they didn’t know how to teach their kids the mechanics of reading. Also the classroom environment wasn’t safe (literally - kids were throwing stuff all the time) and both their kids were subject to bullying. Once they switched to ATS everything changed. Kids were doing better academically, socially and emotionally.

Came here to say something similar. The families and type of kids that attend ATS may contribute to the success, but there is also something different about their programing. They certainly haven't discovered a special magic solution or solved education, but, they have figured out a method that is clearly seeing results.

We received slots to ATS in 2nd and 3rd grade for our two DCs. Our kids as well as us were able to see very stark differences in the day-to-day classroom learning. Their understanding and desire to continue learning drastically changed too.

BINGO!!
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.

**unless the family culture is one that doesn’t prioritize school. Then kids don’t turn in their homework/misbehave/don’t show up to school.

I repeat:
When kids are appropriately challenged, they become more engaged.
When kids are insufficiently challenged, they know the adults have lower expectations of them.
If kids are misbehaving, they're either not appropriately challenged and engaged; or they have behavioral issues that need medical attention.
If kids are not turning in their homework or showing up to school, they have more significant problems that require medical/social attention.

OR (and this is probably many of them), they have sh!tty parents. No amount of teacher engagement can change a family culture of IDGAF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ATS should mandate 2/3rds of slots for lower socioeconomic and minority students, similar to how Montessori does their prek. I have no problem with ATS existing or being a home for attentive parents. But it should favor disadvantaged every step of the way. And, please don't tell me it's FRL rate is similar or better than other schools, that is truly irrelevant. It's FRL needs to be twice the worst neighborhood school, and it's student demographics needs to flip the stats of U.S. public. Then you know it's really serving those who need it in our society.

Yeah, no. No one’s gonna go for that. You’d be better off advocating for ATS-style teaching at Drew or something.

I'm PP, then shut down ATS. Sure, go ahead and try to roll out whatever magic you think can be applied on a pedagolocal basis across the board. let's hope you're successful in doing that, but then there is no reason for ATS to exist, not unless you make it a disadvantaged model.

There are a lot of people who disagree with you, but you’re entitled to your opinion I suppose.

Good luck shutting it down.

Oh my goodness, you think you're some kind of majority, or even a significant sliver? Get over yourself. Count up the populations at HB, Campbell, Montessor, and Arl Tech and you are vastly outnumbered. All of those people don't want your rigid system. Then count their waiting lists. Then count people who are just fine at their neighborhoods regardless. Why should the whole APS system invest in a 2nd ATS over a 2nd HB or 2nd Montessori, who also have long enough annual waitlists that you could open another school. People, know there are limits to your bubble and be happy you got what it is. Not everyone is dying to get in.