public schools in Courthouse, Clarendon and Ballston really good or just okay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best schools are in Fairfax County. Some schools in APS are just ok—or good enough. Mediocre-plus, if you will. It’s almost as if a population overrepresented by privileged nerds with attitude has had to rationalize their choice of living in Arlington.

There are over 300 high schools in Virginia and Yorktown and W-L are in the top 25. Arlington may not be your cup of tea, but it’s not “mediocre-plus.” Come on now.

Some people just like to complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And lolololololol that they call their report "think tank"

Crappy analytics and proofreading.

But is it wrong? There was a huge thread on AEM about how bad the the general ed courses are in HS and how kids feel pressured to take intensified because general is so bad. I've seen teachers talk about how APS standards are getting worse. APS is better compared to many other parts of the state because we have such a highly educated population, but I was surprised to see that by most measures, we fall short of our neighbors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The best schools are in Fairfax County. Some schools in APS are just ok—or good enough. Mediocre-plus, if you will. It’s almost as if a population overrepresented by privileged nerds with attitude has had to rationalize their choice of living in Arlington.

Depends on age and student profile. FCPS elementary schools are much larger and have larger maximum class size. If your kids isn’t going to qualify for AAP I also don’t really see the benefit to your child of having all of your kid’s smartest peers and most dedicated teachers educated separately from yours. But I guess everyone who moves there assumes their kids will qualify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the ratings for the schools in these three neighborhoods to be confusing. People talk about Arlington schools as being some of the best, but I'm not seeing that in the scores for the schools here. Am I missing something here? What have been your experiences with the local schools in these three neighborhoods?

No, they don't. People talk about Arlington schools as being good enough, or just right. Not the best. Parents who want the best schools choose other school districts.

I know people move out some Fairfax pyramids for better schools (McLean, Langley for example). Any other districts people look at? Falls church? Prince William? Interested in prince william in particular

If North Arlington is one of your choices, the other choices are usually McLean, Great Falls, or FCC. I haven’t heard anything about Prince William County as part of these discussions.

FCC, McLean, or Great Falls would all be better choices than Arlington.

I wouldn’t say across the board better. It’s more of a different strokes type of thing. FCC is way better if you have a child with special needs that could potentially be mainstreamed. But it’s a small system which some people like and others don’t. Great Falls and McLean are a part of fcps which is obviously a large system so opposite of FCC. I’ve also seen it suggested on the fcps forum that portions of GF could potentially end up rezoned from Langley down the line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best schools are in Fairfax County. Some schools in APS are just ok—or good enough. Mediocre-plus, if you will. It’s almost as if a population overrepresented by privileged nerds with attitude has had to rationalize their choice of living in Arlington.

Depends on age and student profile. FCPS elementary schools are much larger and have larger maximum class size. If your kids isn’t going to qualify for AAP I also don’t really see the benefit to your child of having all of your kid’s smartest peers and most dedicated teachers educated separately from yours. But I guess everyone who moves there assumes their kids will qualify.

What are max class sizes in Fairfax now? They're pretty big in APS now. 24 max for kindergarten and up to 27 by 5th grade. And 27 for core classes in middle and high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the ratings for the schools in these three neighborhoods to be confusing. People talk about Arlington schools as being some of the best, but I'm not seeing that in the scores for the schools here. Am I missing something here? What have been your experiences with the local schools in these three neighborhoods?

No, they don't. People talk about Arlington schools as being good enough, or just right. Not the best. Parents who want the best schools choose other school districts.

I know people move out some Fairfax pyramids for better schools (McLean, Langley for example). Any other districts people look at? Falls church? Prince William? Interested in prince william in particular

If North Arlington is one of your choices, the other choices are usually McLean, Great Falls, or FCC. I haven’t heard anything about Prince William County as part of these discussions.

FCC, McLean, or Great Falls would all be better choices than Arlington.

I wouldn’t say across the board better. It’s more of a different strokes type of thing. FCC is way better if you have a child with special needs that could potentially be mainstreamed. But it’s a small system which some people like and others don’t. Great Falls and McLean are a part of fcps which is obviously a large system so opposite of FCC. I’ve also seen it suggested on the fcps forum that portions of GF could potentially end up rezoned from Langley down the line.

I have heard that from GF families with very young kids. And they are NOT happy about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the ratings for the schools in these three neighborhoods to be confusing. People talk about Arlington schools as being some of the best, but I'm not seeing that in the scores for the schools here. Am I missing something here? What have been your experiences with the local schools in these three neighborhoods?

No, they don't. People talk about Arlington schools as being good enough, or just right. Not the best. Parents who want the best schools choose other school districts.

I know people move out some Fairfax pyramids for better schools (McLean, Langley for example). Any other districts people look at? Falls church? Prince William? Interested in prince william in particular

If North Arlington is one of your choices, the other choices are usually McLean, Great Falls, or FCC. I haven’t heard anything about Prince William County as part of these discussions.

FCC, McLean, or Great Falls would all be better choices than Arlington.

What specifically make North Arlington the least of these schools? How would you rank the others?

APE did a report that was really eye opening. Compared Arlington High schools to peer schools in Fairfax and showed how we come up short.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60e8ac2567e7c27959b6ff45/t/63c89533262d7002d67e131c/1674089779236/APS+School+Quality+Think+Tank+FINAL.pdf

New poster here. Yea, I’m sorry but this is amateur work that falls apart upon any kind of real scrutiny. I’m not gonna waste too much of my time rebutting it, but I will make this observation: for the large majority of the “peer” schools that this group used for comparison for Yorktown and W-L, the largest minority by far in the peer groups were Asian, while for Yorktown and W-L they are Hispanic. Arlington simply doesn’t attract nearly as many Asian families as Fairfax, and that alone accounts for the difference in test scores. If you actually compare test scores in each jurisdiction by ethnic group, the differences are much more negligible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And lolololololol that they call their report "think tank"

Crappy analytics and proofreading.

But is it wrong? There was a huge thread on AEM about how bad the the general ed courses are in HS and how kids feel pressured to take intensified because general is so bad. I've seen teachers talk about how APS standards are getting worse. APS is better compared to many other parts of the state because we have such a highly educated population, but I was surprised to see that by most measures, we fall short of our neighbors.

Is that any different than the FCPS parents clawing to get their kids in AAP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best schools are in Fairfax County. Some schools in APS are just ok—or good enough. Mediocre-plus, if you will. It’s almost as if a population overrepresented by privileged nerds with attitude has had to rationalize their choice of living in Arlington.

Depends on age and student profile. FCPS elementary schools are much larger and have larger maximum class size. If your kids isn’t going to qualify for AAP I also don’t really see the benefit to your child of having all of your kid’s smartest peers and most dedicated teachers educated separately from yours. But I guess everyone who moves there assumes their kids will qualify.

What are max class sizes in Fairfax now? They're pretty big in APS now. 24 max for kindergarten and up to 27 by 5th grade. And 27 for core classes in middle and high school.

Still less than FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the ratings for the schools in these three neighborhoods to be confusing. People talk about Arlington schools as being some of the best, but I'm not seeing that in the scores for the schools here. Am I missing something here? What have been your experiences with the local schools in these three neighborhoods?

No, they don't. People talk about Arlington schools as being good enough, or just right. Not the best. Parents who want the best schools choose other school districts.

I know people move out some Fairfax pyramids for better schools (McLean, Langley for example). Any other districts people look at? Falls church? Prince William? Interested in prince william in particular

If North Arlington is one of your choices, the other choices are usually McLean, Great Falls, or FCC. I haven’t heard anything about Prince William County as part of these discussions.

FCC, McLean, or Great Falls would all be better choices than Arlington.

What specifically make North Arlington the least of these schools? How would you rank the others?

APE did a report that was really eye opening. Compared Arlington High schools to peer schools in Fairfax and showed how we come up short.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60e8ac2567e7c27959b6ff45/t/63c89533262d7002d67e131c/1674089779236/APS+School+Quality+Think+Tank+FINAL.pdf

New poster here. Yea, I’m sorry but this is amateur work that falls apart upon any kind of real scrutiny. I’m not gonna waste too much of my time rebutting it, but I will make this observation: for the large majority of the “peer” schools that this group used for comparison for Yorktown and W-L, the largest minority by far in the peer groups were Asian, while for Yorktown and W-L they are Hispanic. Arlington simply doesn’t attract nearly as many Asian families as Fairfax, and that alone accounts for the difference in test scores. If you actually compare test scores in each jurisdiction by ethnic group, the differences are much more negligible.

Where does that data exist? That allows you to compare test scores of ethnic subgroups between FCPS and APS? Seems likely that more Asian parents live in or move to fairfax (and know Asian families who have moved to fairfax for specific pyramids) You hear all the time that the best fairfax schools are better than APS. Shouldn't APS want to be perceived as being as being as good as if not better? That's just not the perception. And I think it's based on something more than just complainers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find the ratings for the schools in these three neighborhoods to be confusing. People talk about Arlington schools as being some of the best, but I'm not seeing that in the scores for the schools here. Am I missing something here? What have been your experiences with the local schools in these three neighborhoods?

No, they don't. People talk about Arlington schools as being good enough, or just right. Not the best. Parents who want the best schools choose other school districts.

I know people move out some Fairfax pyramids for better schools (McLean, Langley for example). Any other districts people look at? Falls church? Prince William? Interested in prince william in particular

If North Arlington is one of your choices, the other choices are usually McLean, Great Falls, or FCC. I haven’t heard anything about Prince William County as part of these discussions.

FCC, McLean, or Great Falls would all be better choices than Arlington.

Meh, the people I know with kids who moved out to GF and McLean in the past few years wanted N Arlington but couldn’t afford it here. They kept getting outbid. I think you can’t go wrong with any of the above school districts.

[Anonymous]

In our experience, APS schools there were fine. Nothing more, nothing less.