Who said there isn't a North-South divide?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

Until you give those kids two English-speaking college educated parents, they will never have the opportunities of kids in NA. The cost of filling that gap far exceeds anything PTA $$$ could provide....that's why it's in the noise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

Until you give those kids two English-speaking college educated parents, they will never have the opportunities of kids in NA. The cost of filling that gap far exceeds anything PTA $$$ could provide....that's why it's in the noise.

Do you mean like "Sponsor A Classmate"? UMC families take on helping out another kid in SA schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

DP. Let's say we give each of the Title I elementary schools an extra $80k in their budgets to make up the difference between what their PTAs can fundraise and what the typical NA PTA can fundraise. For those schools, that represents 1% or less of their annual budget. If that could meaningfully close the achievement gap, I think most people would support throwing an extra $640k per year that way. But let's get serious, $80k isn't going to move the needle at schools like Randolph ($7.4 million budget for FY 2019) or Carlin Springs ($9.2 million for FY 2019). What those extra PTA dollars are really a proxy for is parental involvement/resources. More money tends to correlate with more time and flexibility to give to children both in school and out, and with the money/time to devote to getting their children any additional help they need that the school can't/won't provide. An extra $80k of PTA money can't substitute for that.

One of our kids is a case in point. He was having some issues at school that seemed like big red flags to us, but because he tested above grade level the school declined to evaluate him for special education. Between evaluations and therapies (which we decided to do privately rather than battle the school), over the course of a year we spent over $10k out of pocket to get him the help we needed, and I personally put well over 500 hours into going to therapies, working with him at home, etc., over that same year. The need for therapies has decreased since that first year so it's not so much on an ongoing basis, but it's still a few thousand a year and probably a dozen hours a month of my time. If we didn't have the time and money to put into that, our kid would be struggling more and more until he was failing and the school finally had to acknowledge there was a problem. No amount of PTA money could help our situation, but our ability to give our PTA about $1,000 a year between all of the various fundraisers and me giving time to chair fundraisers that collectively raise another five figures reflects the same underlying privilege that did help our son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

Until you give those kids two English-speaking college educated parents, they will never have the opportunities of kids in NA. The cost of filling that gap far exceeds anything PTA $$$ could provide....that's why it's in the noise.

Do you mean like "Sponsor A Classmate"? UMC families take on helping out another kid in SA schools?

Getting closer. Is it 24/7?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

DP. Let's say we give each of the Title I elementary schools an extra $80k in their budgets to make up the difference between what their PTAs can fundraise and what the typical NA PTA can fundraise. For those schools, that represents 1% or less of their annual budget. If that could meaningfully close the achievement gap, I think most people would support throwing an extra $640k per year that way. But let's get serious, $80k isn't going to move the needle at schools like Randolph ($7.4 million budget for FY 2019) or Carlin Springs ($9.2 million for FY 2019). What those extra PTA dollars are really a proxy for is parental involvement/resources. More money tends to correlate with more time and flexibility to give to children both in school and out, and with the money/time to devote to getting their children any additional help they need that the school can't/won't provide. An extra $80k of PTA money can't substitute for that.

One of our kids is a case in point. He was having some issues at school that seemed like big red flags to us, but because he tested above grade level the school declined to evaluate him for special education. Between evaluations and therapies (which we decided to do privately rather than battle the school), over the course of a year we spent over $10k out of pocket to get him the help we needed, and I personally put well over 500 hours into going to therapies, working with him at home, etc., over that same year. The need for therapies has decreased since that first year so it's not so much on an ongoing basis, but it's still a few thousand a year and probably a dozen hours a month of my time. If we didn't have the time and money to put into that, our kid would be struggling more and more until he was failing and the school finally had to acknowledge there was a problem. No amount of PTA money could help our situation, but our ability to give our PTA about $1,000 a year between all of the various fundraisers and me giving time to chair fundraisers that collectively raise another five figures reflects the same underlying privilege that did help our son.

+1.

[Anonymous]

It is untrue that Title I makes up the per pupil difference between North Arlington elementaries and Title I elementaries. If you look at all of the Title I schools, budgeted per pupil spending for 2019 is about $15,012 vs. $11,582 for the non-Title I North Arlington neighborhood elementaries, for a difference of about $3,501 per pupil. APS did the budgeting based on a projected 4,495 students in Title I schools this coming year, which means the per-pupil spending difference equates to about $15.7 million going to Title I schools as compared to North Arlington elementaries. For that same year, total Title I funds for APS are projected to be $2.3 million. Even if you add to that APS's projected Title II and Title III funds, as well as state and local funds for things like VPI and early reading programs, it only come to a total of about $5.1 million in extra funding for low-income students (ignoring that a small amount of that money does go to those North Arlington elementaries and to secondary schools). That means APS is sending over $10 million of its own general funding for next year to Title I elementary schools in extra funding beyond what North Arlington elementaries get per pupil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been following these threads for a bit and probably shouldn't engage, but I feel compelled. Reading these threads fills me with an odd mixture of bewilderment, amusement, and dread. Maybe it's basic human instinct, but I just don't understand the need to demonize parents simply based on which side of Rt. 50 they live. I don't understand how something as seemingly simple as quality education for all our children brings out the very worst in people. Maybe it's the anonymity, but I cringe reading some of the terrible things stated here.

It's simple. Rich people north of 50 think they have grounds for clamoring for good schools, but somehow their culturally equivalent slightly less wealthy peers in SA are supposed to F off. Move or shut up, don't threaten the political compact that says NA is for the rich, SA for the poor.

This is a good example of part of the problem. When people are branded wholesale as assholes regardless of what they say or do, they tend to check out and not want to make personal sacrifices to help the people spitting on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been following these threads for a bit and probably shouldn't engage, but I feel compelled. Reading these threads fills me with an odd mixture of bewilderment, amusement, and dread. Maybe it's basic human instinct, but I just don't understand the need to demonize parents simply based on which side of Rt. 50 they live. I don't understand how something as seemingly simple as quality education for all our children brings out the very worst in people. Maybe it's the anonymity, but I cringe reading some of the terrible things stated here.

It's simple. Rich people north of 50 think they have grounds for clamoring for good schools, but somehow their culturally equivalent slightly less wealthy peers in SA are supposed to F off. Move or shut up, don't threaten the political compact that says NA is for the rich, SA for the poor.

This is a good example of part of the problem. When people are branded wholesale as assholes regardless of what they say or do, they tend to check out and not want to make personal sacrifices to help the people spitting on them.

And to honest, I'd rather be helping the ESL kids in Title I schools than the white pseudo-SJW trying to piggy-back off their pain.

[Anonymous]

Money helps, but scholars who have studied achievement gaps for decades have all concluded that -

(1) Schools must throw tons of extra money at the Title I schools to keep those kids afloat

(2) But money will not likely ever solve the problem of an achievement gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been following these threads for a bit and probably shouldn't engage, but I feel compelled. Reading these threads fills me with an odd mixture of bewilderment, amusement, and dread. Maybe it's basic human instinct, but I just don't understand the need to demonize parents simply based on which side of Rt. 50 they live. I don't understand how something as seemingly simple as quality education for all our children brings out the very worst in people. Maybe it's the anonymity, but I cringe reading some of the terrible things stated here.

It's simple. Rich people north of 50 think they have grounds for clamoring for good schools, but somehow their culturally equivalent slightly less wealthy peers in SA are supposed to F off. Move or shut up, don't threaten the political compact that says NA is for the rich, SA for the poor.

This is a good example of part of the problem. When people are branded wholesale as assholes regardless of what they say or do, they tend to check out and not want to make personal sacrifices to help the people spitting on them.

And to honest, I'd rather be helping the ESL kids in Title I schools than the white pseudo-SJW trying to piggy-back off their pain.

Meh... to be honest you guys don’t reeeeally care either way. And I don’t really blame you. Everyone’s busy and your family has to be the focus. APS is going to have to fix this, if they care. And let’s be honest. They don’t. Those ED students of south arlignton are getting a fine education. So much better than wherever they came from ( the majority are immigrant families). Nothing is gonna change, because it doesn’t need to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been following these threads for a bit and probably shouldn't engage, but I feel compelled. Reading these threads fills me with an odd mixture of bewilderment, amusement, and dread. Maybe it's basic human instinct, but I just don't understand the need to demonize parents simply based on which side of Rt. 50 they live. I don't understand how something as seemingly simple as quality education for all our children brings out the very worst in people. Maybe it's the anonymity, but I cringe reading some of the terrible things stated here.

It's simple. Rich people north of 50 think they have grounds for clamoring for good schools, but somehow their culturally equivalent slightly less wealthy peers in SA are supposed to F off. Move or shut up, don't threaten the political compact that says NA is for the rich, SA for the poor.

This is a good example of part of the problem. When people are branded wholesale as assholes regardless of what they say or do, they tend to check out and not want to make personal sacrifices to help the people spitting on them.

And to honest, I'd rather be helping the ESL kids in Title I schools than the white pseudo-SJW trying to piggy-back off their pain.

Wanna help? Move there. Oh, you'd rather stay in a high performing school zone and just throw money at the problem? THAT is the problem, not SA parents agitating for integrated schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been following these threads for a bit and probably shouldn't engage, but I feel compelled. Reading these threads fills me with an odd mixture of bewilderment, amusement, and dread. Maybe it's basic human instinct, but I just don't understand the need to demonize parents simply based on which side of Rt. 50 they live. I don't understand how something as seemingly simple as quality education for all our children brings out the very worst in people. Maybe it's the anonymity, but I cringe reading some of the terrible things stated here.

It's simple. Rich people north of 50 think they have grounds for clamoring for good schools, but somehow their culturally equivalent slightly less wealthy peers in SA are supposed to F off. Move or shut up, don't threaten the political compact that says NA is for the rich, SA for the poor.

This is a good example of part of the problem. When people are branded wholesale as assholes regardless of what they say or do, they tend to check out and not want to make personal sacrifices to help the people spitting on them.

And to honest, I'd rather be helping the ESL kids in Title I schools than the white pseudo-SJW trying to piggy-back off their pain.

Wanna help? Move there. Oh, you'd rather stay in a high performing school zone and just throw money at the problem? THAT is the problem, not SA parents agitating for integrated schools.

Nope, moving there wouldn't help the ESL kids at all. It would help the SA homeowners with buyer's remorse who bought in Title 1 school zones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

DP. Let's say we give each of the Title I elementary schools an extra $80k in their budgets to make up the difference between what their PTAs can fundraise and what the typical NA PTA can fundraise. For those schools, that represents 1% or less of their annual budget. If that could meaningfully close the achievement gap, I think most people would support throwing an extra $640k per year that way. But let's get serious, $80k isn't going to move the needle at schools like Randolph ($7.4 million budget for FY 2019) or Carlin Springs ($9.2 million for FY 2019). What those extra PTA dollars are really a proxy for is parental involvement/resources. More money tends to correlate with more time and flexibility to give to children both in school and out, and with the money/time to devote to getting their children any additional help they need that the school can't/won't provide. An extra $80k of PTA money can't substitute for that.

One of our kids is a case in point. He was having some issues at school that seemed like big red flags to us, but because he tested above grade level the school declined to evaluate him for special education. Between evaluations and therapies (which we decided to do privately rather than battle the school), over the course of a year we spent over $10k out of pocket to get him the help we needed, and I personally put well over 500 hours into going to therapies, working with him at home, etc., over that same year. The need for therapies has decreased since that first year so it's not so much on an ongoing basis, but it's still a few thousand a year and probably a dozen hours a month of my time. If we didn't have the time and money to put into that, our kid would be struggling more and more until he was failing and the school finally had to acknowledge there was a problem. No amount of PTA money could help our situation, but our ability to give our PTA about $1,000 a year between all of the various fundraisers and me giving time to chair fundraisers that collectively raise another five figures reflects the same underlying privilege that did help our son.

+1.

Bits of the truth lie in each poster's responses. Additional resources absolutely provide more opportunities which all help "move the needle" and provide learning experiences beyond teaching to the tests which is a much stronger focus in our highest FRL schools. But interactions and influences with socioeconomically diverse peers move the needle even more. But the needle can only move so far until the child becomes English-proficient. Regular interaction with English-proficient classmates would help facilitate the acquisition of English skills. Remaining surrounded by family, neighbors, and classmates who all speak the same non-English language doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

DP. Let's say we give each of the Title I elementary schools an extra $80k in their budgets to make up the difference between what their PTAs can fundraise and what the typical NA PTA can fundraise. For those schools, that represents 1% or less of their annual budget. If that could meaningfully close the achievement gap, I think most people would support throwing an extra $640k per year that way. But let's get serious, $80k isn't going to move the needle at schools like Randolph ($7.4 million budget for FY 2019) or Carlin Springs ($9.2 million for FY 2019). What those extra PTA dollars are really a proxy for is parental involvement/resources. More money tends to correlate with more time and flexibility to give to children both in school and out, and with the money/time to devote to getting their children any additional help they need that the school can't/won't provide. An extra $80k of PTA money can't substitute for that.

One of our kids is a case in point. He was having some issues at school that seemed like big red flags to us, but because he tested above grade level the school declined to evaluate him for special education. Between evaluations and therapies (which we decided to do privately rather than battle the school), over the course of a year we spent over $10k out of pocket to get him the help we needed, and I personally put well over 500 hours into going to therapies, working with him at home, etc., over that same year. The need for therapies has decreased since that first year so it's not so much on an ongoing basis, but it's still a few thousand a year and probably a dozen hours a month of my time. If we didn't have the time and money to put into that, our kid would be struggling more and more until he was failing and the school finally had to acknowledge there was a problem. No amount of PTA money could help our situation, but our ability to give our PTA about $1,000 a year between all of the various fundraisers and me giving time to chair fundraisers that collectively raise another five figures reflects the same underlying privilege that did help our son.

+1.

Bits of the truth lie in each poster's responses. Additional resources absolutely provide more opportunities which all help "move the needle" and provide learning experiences beyond teaching to the tests which is a much stronger focus in our highest FRL schools. But interactions and influences with socioeconomically diverse peers move the needle even more. But the needle can only move so far until the child becomes English-proficient. Regular interaction with English-proficient classmates would help facilitate the acquisition of English skills. Remaining surrounded by family, neighbors, and classmates who all speak the same non-English language doesn't.

But Arlington has made a social pact with those communities predicated on them not integrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of course it would move the needle. Giving the lower income kids access to more classroom materials and technology, more educational clubs, more enrichment, more this and more that exposes them to new things. Why do you think NA schools enjoy them - they are enriching! They raise expectations and help kids understand the possibilities in the world. If a kid with parents lacking even a high school education is exposed to the enrichment and resources money brings - they are more likely to work hard and study to get that dream for themselves. It isn't handed to them on a silver platter in SA, it is in most of NA. The immigrant children in lower income housing want the American dream, they want it bad. Expose them to it to help them get there. They will work to the bone to get there - that is what makes America GREAT!

Says the grandchild of immigrants who got exposure to that American dream and then worked to the bone to get it. There is not a single person on that side of my family who is now anything but educated with advanced degrees.

DP. Let's say we give each of the Title I elementary schools an extra $80k in their budgets to make up the difference between what their PTAs can fundraise and what the typical NA PTA can fundraise. For those schools, that represents 1% or less of their annual budget. If that could meaningfully close the achievement gap, I think most people would support throwing an extra $640k per year that way. But let's get serious, $80k isn't going to move the needle at schools like Randolph ($7.4 million budget for FY 2019) or Carlin Springs ($9.2 million for FY 2019). What those extra PTA dollars are really a proxy for is parental involvement/resources. More money tends to correlate with more time and flexibility to give to children both in school and out, and with the money/time to devote to getting their children any additional help they need that the school can't/won't provide. An extra $80k of PTA money can't substitute for that.

One of our kids is a case in point. He was having some issues at school that seemed like big red flags to us, but because he tested above grade level the school declined to evaluate him for special education. Between evaluations and therapies (which we decided to do privately rather than battle the school), over the course of a year we spent over $10k out of pocket to get him the help we needed, and I personally put well over 500 hours into going to therapies, working with him at home, etc., over that same year. The need for therapies has decreased since that first year so it's not so much on an ongoing basis, but it's still a few thousand a year and probably a dozen hours a month of my time. If we didn't have the time and money to put into that, our kid would be struggling more and more until he was failing and the school finally had to acknowledge there was a problem. No amount of PTA money could help our situation, but our ability to give our PTA about $1,000 a year between all of the various fundraisers and me giving time to chair fundraisers that collectively raise another five figures reflects the same underlying privilege that did help our son.

+1.

Bits of the truth lie in each poster's responses. Additional resources absolutely provide more opportunities which all help "move the needle" and provide learning experiences beyond teaching to the tests which is a much stronger focus in our highest FRL schools. But interactions and influences with socioeconomically diverse peers move the needle even more. But the needle can only move so far until the child becomes English-proficient. Regular interaction with English-proficient classmates would help facilitate the acquisition of English skills. Remaining surrounded by family, neighbors, and classmates who all speak the same non-English language doesn't.

But Arlington has made a social pact with those communities predicated on them not integrating.