Coalition of the Silence/NAACP Fairfax County Branch cannot endorse AAP Expansion Proposal

[Anonymous]

December 10, 2012


Dear School Board Members:

Today, you will receive recommendations regarding a proposed redesign of the Fairfax County Public School’s Advanced Academic/Gifted and Talented Program (AAP/GTP). According to statements by your staff, at least part of the motivation for the recommendation to open new level IV AAP/GTP centers in every middle school and in at least one elementary school per cluster is the desire to increase access to AAP/GTP for underrepresented minority students. Your staff has asserted – without providing any data – that many poor, Black and/or Latino students choose not to receive level IV AAP/GTP services because they do not wish to leave their base school.

As you know, based on the Complaint we filed with the US Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, both the Coalition of The Silence (COTS) and the Fairfax County Branch of the NAACP (Fairfax NAACP) are deeply committed to equitable access to advanced academic programming for Black and Latino students across this county. However, we do not believe a plan that essentially amounts to “if we build them, they will come” is a meaningful plan for such equitable access. On the contrary, we believe it is nothing more than proverbial “window dressing.”

Bona fide access to AAP/GTP in FCPS is about far more than geography. There are undeniable disparities and distortions in the identification of Black and Latino students for eligibility to these programs. FCPS can build all the AAP/GTP centers in the world. But until the disparities in the identification of Black and Latino students as eligible for AAP/GTP is remedied, these centers will likely be nothing more than yet another example of a segregated sub-school within a school or worse, an under-populated, substandard center with a level 4 label but without genuine level 4 curriculum offered in it.

COTS and the Fairfax NAACP cannot accept “window dressing” and thus cannot endorse this plan. Before any changes to AAP/GTP are made, we expect FCPS to confront the many hard questions that must be addressed in order to overcome the institutional barriers and biases that are undeniably contributing to the under-identification Black and Latino students as eligible for AAP/GTP – wherever they might be offered.

Respectfully,

Martina A. Hone
Founder & Chair
Coalition of The Silence

Owen Shortt
President
NAACP, Fairfax County Branch

cc: US Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights

[Anonymous]

"...or worse, an under-populated, substandard center with a level 4 label but without genuine level 4 curriculum offered in it."

As the proposal stands, this quoted statement is an excellent prediction.

[Anonymous]

It's not just a prediction. It's currently a reality in several of the existing smaller "AAP Centers" with relatively high percentages of minority students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not just a prediction. It's currently a reality in several of the existing smaller "AAP Centers" with relatively high percentages of minority students.

+1

[Anonymous]

What this means is that FAR MORE RADICAL changes will be made if the current ones aren't implemented. You people fighting the current changes being made are in for MUCH greater change if some some little progress with the current plan isn't tried

[Anonymous]

What changes does COTS suggest to give bona fide access for Black and Latino students?

If there are specific recommendations, why are they not explicitly called out?

[Anonymous]

The current proposal will decimate the already weak centers. More radical change at least has a chance of improving things. This proposal has a 100% chance of making them worse for the smaller centers. Carol Horn's "minimum standards" proposal should have been applied years ago, and the centers not meeting those standards should have been consolidated to provide a critical mass of AAP kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What this means is that FAR MORE RADICAL changes will be made if the current ones aren't implemented. You people fighting the current changes being made are in for MUCH greater change if some some little progress with the current plan isn't tried

Fine with me. A new superintendent will soon be in town.

[Anonymous]

Can't wait til my kids' school system is found to be discriminatory DOE/DOJ.

That consent decree will be painful.

[Anonymous]

Looks to me, FCPS has the following options for AAP:
1) quote the AAP admissions by race percentage. That will water down the centers at under-identification areas, or some kids will struggle in the centers.
2) lower the admission standard cross the board. It will make the overcrowding worse, but won't change the percentage much.
3) open centers specifically for the under-identification kids. That's still segregated.
4) do away the centers all together, and every kid is AAP.

So far, #4 looks the only solution.

Any other options you suggest?

[Anonymous]

"we expect FCPS to confront the many hard questions that must be addressed in order to overcome the institutional barriers and biases that are undeniably contributing to the under-identification Black and Latino students as eligible for AAP/GTP"

Specifics, please?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks to me, FCPS has the following options for AAP:
1) quote the AAP admissions by race percentage. That will water down the centers at under-identification areas, or some kids will struggle in the centers.
2) lower the admission standard cross the board. It will make the overcrowding worse, but won't change the percentage much.
3) open centers specifically for the under-identification kids. That's still segregated.
4) do away the centers all together, and every kid is AAP.

So far, #4 looks the only solution.

Any other options you suggest?

Setup a quota system so that every pyramid would have a certain number of historically underrepresented populations added to the AAP Centers in that pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What changes does COTS suggest to give bona fide access for Black and Latino students?

If there are specific recommendations, why are they not explicitly called out?

They want a "holistic" approach that increases black and Hispanic enrollment in AAP programs. Whether this means quotas or just gutting the current AAP program is anyone's guess. But they want DOE to stop most TJ admitted students coming from a handful of big AAP centers like Carson, Rocky Run and Longfellow that are mostly Asian and white.

Tina Hone hates the FCAG crowd. But she doesn't want the blame if FCPS sticks an AAP center in every middle school, it annoys a lot of people, and it still does nothing to increase black/Hispanic enrollment at TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks to me, FCPS has the following options for AAP:
1) quote the AAP admissions by race percentage. That will water down the centers at under-identification areas, or some kids will struggle in the centers.
2) lower the admission standard cross the board. It will make the overcrowding worse, but won't change the percentage much.
3) open centers specifically for the under-identification kids. That's still segregated.
4) do away the centers all together, and every kid is AAP.

So far, #4 looks the only solution.

Any other options you suggest?

Setup a quota system so that every pyramid would have a certain number of historically underrepresented populations added to the AAP Centers in that pyramid.

How can you do that unless you actually have an AAP center in that pyramid?

[Anonymous]

I guess opening centers at every pyramid is step 1. Step 2 is to admit the AAP kids by racial percentage in each pyramid. Step 3 is to have TJ admission quota for each pyramid. That will solve the legal problem, by sacrifice the opportunities of the real advanced kids in poor neighborhood.