Arlington magazine - Public school exodus cover

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I left not because of Covid. Liberals can go f themselves before my dc are anywhere near one of your wack a doodle nut jobs in a classroom. You wanted only those like you. You got it. Enjoy.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass. We absolutely don’t need your kind and your anti-American values.

You're the ones closing down schools because of a cold. THAT's anti-American.

Did you just wake up from a nap that started in 2020?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I’m a DP and I read it. Thank you for posting this. I am grateful to hear these perspectives. It is beyond unacceptable that students are reporting [b]they were never assigned a research paper during their entire time at APS. To this day I can remember some of the research papers I was assigned in my (excellent) public high school. My first research paper was assigned in 5th grade. We had a unit on using the library for research and we all had to write a 2 page paper. I’m not sure if we should expect research papers from 5th graders, but by high school it should be standard for all English and History classes.

How in the world is this not happening? Is the student wrong?

That is BS. Kids do have research papers starting in ES.

APS kids do research *powerpoint presentations* in ES. They don't write research papers. If you want your kid to learn actual writing, you need to supplement during the summer. This doesn't change in middle school. Our oldest just finished Swanson, and he never wrote a research paper while he was there. His projects were mostly powerpoint presentations and posterboards. APS does not teach writing the way that most of us learned it. They deserve all the criticism they are getting right now about the writing instruction.

It doesn’t matter if they write them. The teachers have WAY too many students to review and grade actual research papers.

BS. That's what they say; but my teachers had these classes and managed to teach, review, and grade term papers twice a year for multiple classes.
Did it require time at home? Yes. But that's just part of the job of a teacher. Teachers expect to not have any homework, though they may give it to their students. Sorry, but the nature of some jobs is that the work extends beyond 8-5. I know teachers spend a lot of time outside of the school day; but that's sometimes what it takes to be a good teacher. Lots of people bring work home and/or work more than 40 hours a week (both rich and poor folks. The poor folks just have to work multiple jobs)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I was just going to comment that this is an issue far beyond Arlington, far beyond Virginia, and likely has to do with the abysmal misguided national spell-it-like-you-guess-it philosophy (aka Lucy Calkins) that's now (thankfully) being abandoned. My youngest is learning to spell and write correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to voice anything that goes against the “equity warriors”. When advocating for APS to have high standards and high expectations of students that don’t include retakes, zero homework, etc. you get called a racist and someone who isn’t for equal education. We are now just going with it and hoping for the best because our hands are tied. (We can’t afford private and we certainly can’t afford to move right now.)

Yes, the groupthink is really ridiculous.

It's super ironic that for an area that wants to scream and shout about diversity and inclusivity from the rooftops--they only mean all diversity except for political ideology. Then there's only one perspective that is allowed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

It's interesting to hear you say some of those common talking points aren't true. We've always been in catholic, so I just hear people talking and they definitely say there's no homework in elementary or middle school and you can retake tests (so hard to fail and easier to get As). Is that not true? Genuinely curious.

Yes it is true but it's all very recent and a lot of people are not paying attention to the very new equity initiatives. Schools also have some variability on how they roll out but it will be district wide next year. There are no deadlines for assignments and tests (including final exams!) now can be retaken many times even by kids that did pretty well the first try. Teachers are very upset about these changes but the equity warriors were hand selected to lead the teacher committees involved in developing the new policies. The grade inflation is unreal and colleges no longer view APS as having the same rigor as other demographically similar schools in the Northeast.

I agree except to say that APS is not the outlier. This is a national trend that is happening in other DC-area school systems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

It's interesting to hear you say some of those common talking points aren't true. We've always been in catholic, so I just hear people talking and they definitely say there's no homework in elementary or middle school and you can retake tests (so hard to fail and easier to get As). Is that not true? Genuinely curious.

Homework in elementary is not evidence-based. Most schools had begun phasing it out way before all these current policies. A few elementary schools still give homework. They do get homework in middle school. They get time to finish it during school and some are more efficient than others about needing to bring it home. By 8th grade if a kid is on a more rigorous path, they have homework on a regular basis. Is it hours per night every night school is in session? No.

Yes they can retake tests sometimes. Depends on teacher. Sometimes they can't and sometimes it's you can't score above a 90 on a retake (frequently been the case for my students). I have never understood objecting to retakes. If your child takes the option to retake, they have actually learned the material. Isn't that the point of what we're doing here? They're supposed to learn the material? Most kids who are not good students do not utilize the option to retake (they'd actually have to learn the material) and so no, they do not get As. It is not hard to fail. The kids who don't learn anything or do anything still fail. But if a kid is motivated and wants to dig out of the hole of a bad grade or a bad start, they have an option. That's it.

If they are given the time to do it in class, it's not homework. It's just unfortunate for the ones who don't finish it before class ends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I was just going to comment that this is an issue far beyond Arlington, far beyond Virginia, and likely has to do with the abysmal misguided national spell-it-like-you-guess-it philosophy (aka Lucy Calkins) that's now (thankfully) being abandoned. My youngest is learning to spell and write correctly.

Joe Feldman is new Lucy Calkins. Well intentioned but misguided and lacks any rigorous evidence basis but it sure sounds great in theory. Look him up. APS hired his company as a consultant on all the new equity initiatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I’m a DP and I read it. Thank you for posting this. I am grateful to hear these perspectives. It is beyond unacceptable that students are reporting [b]they were never assigned a research paper during their entire time at APS. To this day I can remember some of the research papers I was assigned in my (excellent) public high school. My first research paper was assigned in 5th grade. We had a unit on using the library for research and we all had to write a 2 page paper. I’m not sure if we should expect research papers from 5th graders, but by high school it should be standard for all English and History classes.

How in the world is this not happening? Is the student wrong?

That is BS. Kids do have research papers starting in ES.

APS kids do research *powerpoint presentations* in ES. They don't write research papers. If you want your kid to learn actual writing, you need to supplement during the summer. This doesn't change in middle school. Our oldest just finished Swanson, and he never wrote a research paper while he was there. His projects were mostly powerpoint presentations and posterboards. APS does not teach writing the way that most of us learned it. They deserve all the criticism they are getting right now about the writing instruction.

My kids did 5 paragraph research and informational essays in ES. And also made a research “book” when they were younger (for TOC, index, etc). Google slides for some research topic (science class), but not for a paper.

Is there room for improvement? Sure. Are they doing research papers and other writing? Yes.

I really don't think the degree of research papers in elementary school is the scale we should be using to determine the strength of APS' writing instruction. I don't care how much you have an elementary student write, if they never have to do it again, they aren't going to be prepared to write real full-length literature or scientific research papers.

[Anonymous]

My high school student hasn't done much in terms of research papers. I do worry about what that means in college.

I definitely remember writing research papers before college, but I was also taught how to make an actual outline. Somewhere along the way, having study skills be an actual independent class that every student had to take went away. Our kids are struggling because of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I was just going to comment that this is an issue far beyond Arlington, far beyond Virginia, and likely has to do with the abysmal misguided national spell-it-like-you-guess-it philosophy (aka Lucy Calkins) that's now (thankfully) being abandoned. My youngest is learning to spell and write correctly.

+1

Fortunately, many districts, including APS, are moving towards science of reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I was just going to comment that this is an issue far beyond Arlington, far beyond Virginia, and likely has to do with the abysmal misguided national spell-it-like-you-guess-it philosophy (aka Lucy Calkins) that's now (thankfully) being abandoned. My youngest is learning to spell and write correctly.

Joe Feldman is new Lucy Calkins. Well intentioned but misguided and lacks any rigorous evidence basis but it sure sounds great in theory. Look him up. APS hired his company as a consultant on all the new equity initiatives.

Oh no! Will do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My high school student hasn't done much in terms of research papers. I do worry about what that means in college.

I definitely remember writing research papers before college, but I was also taught how to make an actual outline. Somewhere along the way, having study skills be an actual independent class that every student had to take went away. Our kids are struggling because of this.

My personal belief is that they will still be able to succeed just fine in college; but they will have a learning curve at the beginning much steeper than they otherwise would. Colleges are well aware that students are coming out of high school less/ill-prepared for college writing. There will be introductory ENG classes where, hopefully, they get caught up; and there are often writing support efforts for those who need extra help learning to write at the college level.

NOVA has an intro ENG course required for all students, as well as a class about basic study skills, etc. I don't think that's entirely unique to NOVA. The fact that even a community college needs to require a student skills class for its students speaks volumes about what our high schools are producing and allowing to graduate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I was just going to comment that this is an issue far beyond Arlington, far beyond Virginia, and likely has to do with the abysmal misguided national spell-it-like-you-guess-it philosophy (aka Lucy Calkins) that's now (thankfully) being abandoned. My youngest is learning to spell and write correctly.

My dyslexic kid had the misfortune of going through elementary school at APS while Lucy Calkins was the norm. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hard to voice anything that goes against the “equity warriors”. When advocating for APS to have high standards and high expectations of students that don’t include retakes, zero homework, etc. you get called a racist and someone who isn’t for equal education. We are now just going with it and hoping for the best because our hands are tied. (We can’t afford private and we certainly can’t afford to move right now.)

This right here. You are not alone. Been feeling this way since the first kid started K. Wish I had answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can't get super worked up about this. A bunch of things going on. A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier. More people CAN afford private school than ever before. Covid, some left and won't ever come back. And yes, the equity dog whistle. [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah. High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track. Intensified content is back in middle school. And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave. More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.

I was just going to comment that this is an issue far beyond Arlington, far beyond Virginia, and likely has to do with the abysmal misguided national spell-it-like-you-guess-it philosophy (aka Lucy Calkins) that's now (thankfully) being abandoned. My youngest is learning to spell and write correctly.

+1

Fortunately, many districts, including APS, are moving towards science of reading.

They are learning how to spell and how to read but not necessarily how to write. Writing instruction has improved with the introduction of CKLA in elementary schools but there are still improvements that need to made. The ELA team in the central office recognizes this but it takes a while to implement change and to train teachers. Also because teachers are dealing with so many behavioral issues post Covid (either because of Covid era after effects or because admin doesn’t back teachers up when it comes to discipline) many teachers don’t have the bandwidth for teacher training and the adoption of new resources. So changes will take a while.