Lee High School in Springfield
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Anonymous
His book has also been well refuted. It's is nothing like Tipping Point and Outliers. |
Anonymous
I agree. However, when my wife and I were home shopping last year, we did find that similar homes in the area would be $40-$50k more if the home was north of the Fairfax County Pkwy and thus zoned for WS instead of south of the Pkwy and zoned for Lee. I think Saratoga is a great little pocket of homes that is quite convenient for those relocating on account of BRAC or even for commuting generally in this area. Being in the Lee HS pyramid probably puts a little downward pressure on home prices for now, but that could very well change in coming years. |
Anonymous
Sort of just reinforces the idea that this a debateable matter, no? |
Anonymous
I do believe that the property values in Springfield will increase long-term and that time will tell about Lee high school. But do you mean you bought in a neighborhood zoned for Saratoga elementary? That's one of the worst ones in the area from what I've heard. They aren't Title I but have a high FARMS and high ESOL rate. We've seen some good values in the area and it's convenient for us but are very hesitant on the elementary situation. |
Anonymous
Last I checked the FARMS rate was around 40% and ESL might have been about 22%. Those numbers don't really worry me. It's diverse, but I don't see any reason why a school with those numbers can't properly educate the non-FARM, non-ESL students. What have you heard about it being a bad school? I haven't really heard anything negative from anyone who actually has children that attend the school. |
Anonymous
Those are about the current numbers for Saratoga. They also show that the idea that there's some 1-to-1 correlation between FARMS and ESOL in NoVa is incorrect. |
Anonymous
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Saratoga has very similar families to those you find at schools like Hunt Valley and Orange Hunt.
The house there are nice and affordable, but they take longer to sell than the other West Springfield homes due to Lee HS. Daventry house have the same issues. Wonderful elementary with West Springfield elementary, but feeds into Lee. WSHS has a diverse student body, very safe, is solidly middle class, some of the most affordable commutable homes in fairfax county, and has virtually identical achievement to the wealthiest schools in the district. That is why folks are clamouring to be zoned for WSHS over Lee. For the affordability of the homes you simply cannot beat the value of the schools. |
Anonymous
I don't mind higher FARMS that much (I went to an elementary back in the dark ages that was probably 1/3 free/reduced lunch and it was fine) but I am concerned with having so many ESOL students at the elementary level when reading is so important. Is there a lot of teaching that's geared at the least advanced readers in the class? There's such a wide range of reading ability during the 1st-4th grade years anyway and to add students who may not speak the language that well on top of it makes me hesitant. |
Anonymous
I'd say WS is similar to the other schools that are solidly "middle class" as defined around here - Robinson, Chantilly and Lake Braddock. The difference in SAT scores between WS and Langley is about the same as the difference between WS and Lee. |
Anonymous
WSHS, LB, etc SAT and SOL scores are right there with very little difference between all of the other schools in that top three though ten or eleven. It isbonly the two schools at the very top which have significantly higher scores. The next eight or so schools are basically identicalnin terms of achievement. Lee HS is not at all a high performing school and scores far lower than those other schools, including WSHS. |
Anonymous
Well, keep in mind that a lot or students designated ESL are not necessarily students that can't speak English or even students that can't speak it quite well. It can be people such as my neighbor who are Indian and speak Indian at home, but their son sounds as American as you can be when he speaks English. Some others on here can probably speak to this better, but I believe a child from that family would be designated ESL even though the child may speak English perfectly well. That fact that another language is spoken primarily at home can often lead to the designation of the child being an ESL student. I think by virtue of the child being designated ESL, it allows the school to receive additional resources to assist the student. And, to me, a 22% ESL rate is not really all that high. If it were above 50%, I might personally feel a little concerned that a lot of the attention in the school would be going to the ESL students at that the non-ESL students were suffering, but at 22%, I just don't think the school should have a hard time unless the teachers and staff are subpar. |
Anonymous
True, on average, Lee is not a high performing school. I would say its average test scores are closer to the state or national average of test scores, making it what I would call an average school. Not a bad school, but just an average school. And, at a school like that, there are probably going to be some very high performers, some very low performers, and many students somewhere in between. I think it is a school, like just about any high school in Fairfax County, where there are opportunities for a motivated student to excel and opportunities for a not so motivated student to not excel. The motivated student will not have as many peers as they might have at a school like West Springfield, but that can be both a good thing and a bad thing. |
Anonymous
Since you're the one who keeps focusing on test scores and labeling entire schools - rather than individual students - as "high performing" or "low performing" here, I'll push back. The top schools in Fairfax in terms of test scores have been (after TJ), Langley, McLean, Woodson, Madison and Oakton for years. Below that, you have a large number of "solid, middle-class schools" - West Springfield, Robinson, Chantilly, Lake Braddock, Westfield, South Lakes, Fairfax, Herndon, Centreville and South County. At the bottom in terms of test scores, although not always in the same order, are Edison, Stuart, Hayfield, Annandale, Falls Church, Lee and Mount Vernon. The two schools that don't fit so neatly into those three buckets are Marshall and West Potomac. I'd argue that Marshall will join the first group in another year or two. West Potomac seems to bounce between the second and third groups. If there's any Fairfax school that can be said to have "Langley scores for an affordable price," it's Woodson, not West Springfield. |
Anonymous
I never said Langley. In fact, I said that the top two (TJ and Langley) are in a league by themselves. I said the "wealthiest schools" which would be the cluster of schools you mentioned (McLean, Woodson, Madison, etc). If OP was asking about Lake Braddock or Robinson vs Lee, I would have said the exact same thing. They are middle class schools (although LB has some very wealthy areas that feed into it) where you receive an education at a middle class price (most houses are right around $500K for a sfh) that is right on par with what the kids in the affluent areas are receiving. That is why WS (and LB and Robinson, etc) are so popular and why their houses go much quicker than the houses that feed into Lee. Folks know the value they are getting from the schools vs what they are paying for housing. It is an outstanding value. |
Anonymous
Yes, and I disagree. If you look at test scores, TJ clearly is in a class by itself, but McLean, Woodson, Madison and Oakton are much closer to Langley than they are to West Springfield. |