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Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
FCPS comprehensive boundary review
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Anonymous
^ oops - just reread your post. You are right. |
Anonymous
No worries. I think it’d be great for the highlander to do a poll of the students to get a sense of how many want to split up the school. Not even sure they’d get into double digits. |
Anonymous
No school has students that want to split from that school. DP |
Anonymous
Except for the kids who want to leave for IB. Or AP. Or TJ. etc. |
Anonymous
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All this turmoil because 14 people, SB and Reid, can’t effectively use $4B to have 170,000 kids reach their full potential.
Yet somehow a smattering of those 170,000 kids will spread out over the county and make every school a success. Am I missing something here? |
Anonymous
Only that the lip service they give to "equity" is based on optics, not reality. If they wanted to really help the students and schools, they would work on improving instruction to meet the needs of the kids--instead of importing kids to "fix" the school. |
Anonymous
Those students won't make the schools successful. They will pull the a average scores of those schools up enough so that they remain accredited. |
Anonymous
+1 That’s the rub. The state has new rules about accreditation and school quality. There are 4 categories for school quality and FCPS doesn’t currently have any schools in the lowest category IIRC - the list was posted somewhere in this huge thread. But that doesn’t mean FCPS isn’t freaking out about it because the trends are not good in some areas. |
Anonymous
FCPS has tried this. It doesn't work, or at least it doesn't work well enough to make the lowest performing schools in FCPS at all comparable to the highest performing schools. At the end of the day it's about parental involvement and expectations. The "solution" is to spread around the higher performing kids so the schools don't lose accreditation or get on a warning list. |
Anonymous
That is what they are after. SLHS is now a middle of the pack high school in FCPS after they redistricted around it to move in more MC/UMS families. The FARMs rate fell, test scores went up, and some kids started completing the IB Diploma. Look at that, success. I have yet to see a study that shows that the test scores for the kids requiring FARMs have actually improved. I would be happy to see that there was a positive impact on the lower SES kids, that would be great. But the test scores haven’t jumped that much and the kids I know who took a non-honors class have moved into honors classes, even though their grades are worse, because they were learning nothing in the regular class. It is a Potemkin Village, creating an illusion of improvement where there really was none, just moving enough kids who will bump the test scores to a respectable level. I am not blaming FCPS for not being able to get the test scores and educational improvements for high risk kids. This has been an issue for ages. The education gap is a long term problem that is getting worse. It has more to do with home environments and families not prioritizing education which leads to kids starting behind and then falling further behind. Some parents are not reading to their kids when they are younger. They don’t teach basic math, colors, shapes and the like. They don’t have access to quality day care programs that teach those things. Their kids show up not know things that MC/UMC kids tend to already know. They struggle to learn the material because there is little to no reinforcement at home and fall further behind. When they are older they start skipping school because it is not valued by their parents. Schools with a high concentration of poverty have crap results. And no one knows how to get parents to care. FCPS tries to reach out. They call, email, and send people to homes. They send home books for parents to read to their kids, set up classes to show parents how to help with homework, and try to engage in other ways. |
Anonymous
They were talking about the “nuclear option” years ago. It’s all about placating a bunch of Democratic insiders who resent the top schools. Just listen to people like Marcia St. John Cunning. The FCDC is full of people like her who think they should be rewarded for sending their kids to lower performing schools and want to redistrict in order to redistribute housing equity among households. |
Anonymous
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I wonder why they don’t offer FARMs kids at the lower performing schools the choice, 100% choice, to be bussed to a better school with room. Those schools get first priority for open seats before principal placement out of other schools. If the goal is finding a way to improve opportunities for poor kids who want a better education, then target those kids and give them the chance to move.
Don’t require it. Provide late busses so kids can participate in after school activities. Provide some tutoring programs at the HS so the kids have a chance to get help with catching up. And yes, limit it to FARMs kids. MC/UMC parents who bought in the area for a bigger house that cost less knew the schools they were moving into. They can try to principal place if there is space available and can take the bus if they are able to principal place. The goal is to target the poor kids who have fewer housing options but want a better school experience and to have better options. |
Anonymous
This would be inequitable. It's one of the arguments used against vouchers. You can't take the bright, motivated kids out of a poorly performing school and send them elsewhere. It's not fair to the kids left behind and makes the school's average performance even worse. It reflects badly on the school and hurts feelings. |
Anonymous
Yet that’s exactly what they do every damn day with AAP Centers and IB/AP transfers. It’s a brain drain from the poor performing schools. |
Anonymous
Not to mention the language immersion programs without transportation. De facto segregation. |