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

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:You should be trying to get them to stay. That is S Arlington’s only hope!

How do they help the schools? If they're just going to opt out rather than help integrate, why in the world should we care about keeping them?

It's like you're responding to a completely different comment. They help the schools if they stay, so you should be trying to get them to stay.

Your attitude towards these people is irrelevant - they exist, and further they are acting rationally. This is the prisoner's dilemma: if everyone chose to send their kids to the neighborhood school, everyone would have the best outcome. But since you get screwed if you decide to send your kid to the school, and other people don't, then it's completely rational to opt out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

You can't just complain and judge people because they don't send their kids there. Instead, try to figure out how to get over the hump where a critical mass will decide to stay. This isn't an easy problem, but it's pointless to just say "we don't need them" because actually you do need them.

The problem with this argument is that a whole bunch of them on here are clamoring for more option schools to get them out as the only real solution. That doesn't keep families in neighborhood schools, by definition it is the exact opposite. We have enough option schools already, more isn't going to make these problems better. We have already covered strategically locating the option schools we have, and I agreed with that. So unless there is some third unspoken possibility out there that you're referring to I have no idea what we're arguing about.

Yes, it does help families in neighborhood schools. You insist on thinking about UMC kids in binary terms: that them going to an option school means they aren't going neighborhood and therefore "hurting" the local school. THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO GO THERE. At least with option schools, you keep the UMC kids, you give poor kids the opportunity to go to a school like claremont, which has a very active and well resourced student body, and by placing it in the poorest neighborhood you "crack" the poverty concentrated in one school across three. We do need more option schools, for this very reason. Option school enrollment as a share of total enrollment is going down, making their usefulness for addressing disparities less effective each year.

Claremont isn't going to cease to exist because we don't create a third immersion program. But how has the presence of Claremont helped the students left behind in Randolph? That is the logical step you keep skipping.

APS transfer reports don't publish demo info about the students a school sends, only about those it receives, so I can't speak to Randolph's particulars. But claremont received over 260 ED students last school year. That's almost 40% of the student body. It's clearly being used by poor kids who benefit the most from a well resources school like claremont. Those ED students came from many different SA schools. Probably a lot from abingdon, but also carlin springs and Randolph.

Now about the kids "left behind" at Randolph. Maybe if claremont was located AT Randolph, it and every adjacent school would have a lower farms rate. Do you understand now?

Claremont is about a mile west of Randolph and they're both in the middle of the same cluster of Title I schools. How does moving it to just the other side of Four Mile Run fundamentally change the dynamics?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why should SA accept the status quo?

u

Because they can’t convince a parent with a kid who walks to Discovery that a bus to Randolph is a better option.

Always the extreme examples.

DP. No one ever offers concrete suggestions in the middle. All rhetoric, no ideas.

DP. I think, unfortunately, that ideas in the middle will sound terrible on paper. We all want kids to succeed. It is very hard for English learners to succeed without help. It is hard for students that know English to succeed when they have to wait for the others to catch up. There's probably a way to catch up English learners and mainstream them. That's probably happening on some level. But the other kids still have to wait and have to go to a school where the resources are focused on that. In theory, you could test kids and send them to schools that "fit" their needs, but all that results in is segregation. There would be an UMC "academy" and a English learning "bootcamp" or something. (and it would not fly)

There has to be a better option, but like you said, it's always to the extremes.

Look at the CC.

This. This is the hard truth. It's a driving force behind school segregation. It's why Henry and Oakridge are the most overcrowded schools in the county while Randolph, Barcroft and carlin are still at or just below capacity. Immersion was introduced in 1986 at key to address the problem and I guess you could say it worked on a small scale. It's their closest thing we have to integrated schools. Choice schools are necessary because some kids will always be a mismatch for their zoned school, and not just in SA. They are necessary because we don't do in school tracking and because personalized learning is blather. The reality is that NA schools instruction is ahead of SA because teachers have to pace their instruction to just below the middle.

Choice schools don’t integrate neighborhood schools.

Yes, they do. Strategic placement can break up geographically concentrated poverty. Given the CB decision to "preserve" Barcroft Apts, the least APS can do is offer a convenient option school that would allow them to not attend a school that is 80% ED. Everyone deserves that.

Strategic placement of the option programs we have may help to break it up, but simply creating new ones, on its own, does not. Further, unless we go to an all-lottery system county-wide, there will never be enough option seats to accommodate everyone who might want to leave those schools. If you're one of the families that doesn't get in, would you rather have your neighborhood school be 70% FARMS, or 87% FARMS because even more of the non-FARMS families were siphoned off by option schools?

It's going to be 87% farms whether there are choice schools or not. People who aren't willing to attend a high poverty neighborhood school and attempt to option out are not going to simply say aw shucks and attend that neighborhood school if they don't get into the option school. They are going to move. Why do you think far flung suburbs exist?

Frankly, I'm not terribly concerned about the families who are going to opt out no matter what. They are part of the problem, not the solution, and I'm not interested in pouring resources into accommodating them.

Dp- but there aren’t enough social juctice warriors to stay. You need to be concerned.

So what? Their presence doesn't help the problem so why would I care if they stay or go?

Because their presence would help the problem. You may not like their attitudes; but those attitudes are expressed when they flee - not so much when they stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be trying to get them to stay. That is S Arlington’s only hope!

How do they help the schools? If they're just going to opt out rather than help integrate, why in the world should we care about keeping them?

It's like you're responding to a completely different comment. They help the schools if they stay, so you should be trying to get them to stay.

Your attitude towards these people is irrelevant - they exist, and further they are acting rationally. This is the prisoner's dilemma: if everyone chose to send their kids to the neighborhood school, everyone would have the best outcome. But since you get screwed if you decide to send your kid to the school, and other people don't, then it's completely rational to opt out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

You can't just complain and judge people because they don't send their kids there. Instead, try to figure out how to get over the hump where a critical mass will decide to stay. This isn't an easy problem, but it's pointless to just say "we don't need them" because actually you do need them.

The problem with this argument is that a whole bunch of them on here are clamoring for more option schools to get them out as the only real solution. That doesn't keep families in neighborhood schools, by definition it is the exact opposite. We have enough option schools already, more isn't going to make these problems better. We have already covered strategically locating the option schools we have, and I agreed with that. So unless there is some third unspoken possibility out there that you're referring to I have no idea what we're arguing about.

Is it school within a school time?

Let's face it - most of us can't move. Sure, some people have tons of equity and can move. Or maybe they like 66. The rest of us though, are staying. Choice would be great, but if not, we're going to the neighborhood school. And cram school on the weekends.

Didn't we just abandon that at Drew?

Good point. Did Drew gentrify enough?

We abandoned that at Drew and for very good reason. Even if you are going to have a school within a school, the fundamental teaching pedagogy of each needs to be compatible. That is not the case with Montessori. Secondly, Drew wasn't really a school within a school. It was two entirely separate programs being run in the same building. You need to have some overlap - for example, students take core courses together and specials and other program emphasis can separate out (like high school). But you need to be able to have one administration and all the kids need to have something in common, otherwise, it's just segregation within a building. We already have that, particularly as you move up into high school and see homogeneous AP classes and sports teams.

Gentrification isn't the point - INTEGRation is the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Is it school within a school time?

Let's face it - most of us can't move. Sure, some people have tons of equity and can move. Or maybe they like 66. The rest of us though, are staying. Choice would be great, but if not, we're going to the neighborhood school. And cram school on the weekends.

Didn't we just abandon that at Drew?

Good point. Did Drew gentrify enough?

God no. But there are some community activists in Nauck who believe that was that only thing holding them back. I expect them to be putting up the biggest fight during the redraw.

Yes, I think there is some truth to that. Nauck activists did a good job of airing the dirty secret that the small traditional elementary program at Drew had test scores more dreadful than most can imagine. The arlnow story had the details. But aps was reporting school level stats, which meant the poor performance was being hidden by the better performing, much larger montesorri program. It's baffling why any parent in Nauck wouldn't choose the montesorri program, since back then, they were guaranteed admission. So the trad program was likely disengaged parents who might not have known a much better option existed in the same building.

The other layer is the legacy of bussing. Montessori was there because of bussing. The neighborhood activists wanted the school back. I think they're prob in for a rude awakening in the years to come. I don't actually expect them to be very critical of potential boundaries this fall, since they've already got what they want - montessori out.

See, and I am just spitballing here, but I am wondering if Barcroft became a choice school, wouldn't most of the surrounding PUs (SFHs north of the Pike) just opt in? Supposedly, by choosing to be there, the school gets better. All the parents who have no idea about that (like the ones at Drew) just get routed elsewhere.

Or is the real solution to make everyone opt-in somewhere?

Speaking as one, not all MC families want an option program. Thanks anyway.
The real solution is to create acceptable balances of SED in all schools so that every school is acceptable and people don't want to opt out except for a genuine affinity or need for something a particular option program offers their child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be trying to get them to stay. That is S Arlington’s only hope!

How do they help the schools? If they're just going to opt out rather than help integrate, why in the world should we care about keeping them?

It's like you're responding to a completely different comment. They help the schools if they stay, so you should be trying to get them to stay.

Your attitude towards these people is irrelevant - they exist, and further they are acting rationally. This is the prisoner's dilemma: if everyone chose to send their kids to the neighborhood school, everyone would have the best outcome. But since you get screwed if you decide to send your kid to the school, and other people don't, then it's completely rational to opt out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

You can't just complain and judge people because they don't send their kids there. Instead, try to figure out how to get over the hump where a critical mass will decide to stay. This isn't an easy problem, but it's pointless to just say "we don't need them" because actually you do need them.

The problem with this argument is that a whole bunch of them on here are clamoring for more option schools to get them out as the only real solution. That doesn't keep families in neighborhood schools, by definition it is the exact opposite. We have enough option schools already, more isn't going to make these problems better. We have already covered strategically locating the option schools we have, and I agreed with that. So unless there is some third unspoken possibility out there that you're referring to I have no idea what we're arguing about.

Yes, it does help families in neighborhood schools. You insist on thinking about UMC kids in binary terms: that them going to an option school means they aren't going neighborhood and therefore "hurting" the local school. THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO GO THERE. At least with option schools, you keep the UMC kids, you give poor kids the opportunity to go to a school like claremont, which has a very active and well resourced student body, and by placing it in the poorest neighborhood you "crack" the poverty concentrated in one school across three. We do need more option schools, for this very reason. Option school enrollment as a share of total enrollment is going down, making their usefulness for addressing disparities less effective each year.

Claremont isn't going to cease to exist because we don't create a third immersion program. But how has the presence of Claremont helped the students left behind in Randolph? That is the logical step you keep skipping.

It hasn't, partially BECAUSE Claremont admissions were guaranteed to other neighborhoods which ultimately left very few spaces for others outside the zone. Also without full-force effort to reach out to the community and recruit for option programs, the majority of the Randolph zone (Barcroft Apts) isn't likely to go seeking options elsewhere when they can get what they believe they need literally across the street.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be trying to get them to stay. That is S Arlington’s only hope!

How do they help the schools? If they're just going to opt out rather than help integrate, why in the world should we care about keeping them?

It's like you're responding to a completely different comment. They help the schools if they stay, so you should be trying to get them to stay.

Your attitude towards these people is irrelevant - they exist, and further they are acting rationally. This is the prisoner's dilemma: if everyone chose to send their kids to the neighborhood school, everyone would have the best outcome. But since you get screwed if you decide to send your kid to the school, and other people don't, then it's completely rational to opt out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

You can't just complain and judge people because they don't send their kids there. Instead, try to figure out how to get over the hump where a critical mass will decide to stay. This isn't an easy problem, but it's pointless to just say "we don't need them" because actually you do need them.

The problem with this argument is that a whole bunch of them on here are clamoring for more option schools to get them out as the only real solution. That doesn't keep families in neighborhood schools, by definition it is the exact opposite. We have enough option schools already, more isn't going to make these problems better. We have already covered strategically locating the option schools we have, and I agreed with that. So unless there is some third unspoken possibility out there that you're referring to I have no idea what we're arguing about.

Yes, it does help families in neighborhood schools. You insist on thinking about UMC kids in binary terms: that them going to an option school means they aren't going neighborhood and therefore "hurting" the local school. THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO GO THERE. At least with option schools, you keep the UMC kids, you give poor kids the opportunity to go to a school like claremont, which has a very active and well resourced student body, and by placing it in the poorest neighborhood you "crack" the poverty concentrated in one school across three. We do need more option schools, for this very reason. Option school enrollment as a share of total enrollment is going down, making their usefulness for addressing disparities less effective each year.

Claremont isn't going to cease to exist because we don't create a third immersion program. But how has the presence of Claremont helped the students left behind in Randolph? That is the logical step you keep skipping.

APS transfer reports don't publish demo info about the students a school sends, only about those it receives, so I can't speak to Randolph's particulars. But claremont received over 260 ED students last school year. That's almost 40% of the student body. It's clearly being used by poor kids who benefit the most from a well resources school like claremont. Those ED students came from many different SA schools. Probably a lot from abingdon, but also carlin springs and Randolph.

Now about the kids "left behind" at Randolph. Maybe if claremont was located AT Randolph, it and every adjacent school would have a lower farms rate. Do you understand now?

Actually, I believe APS does have that data - you can find the transfer out by school data which is broken out by student groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be trying to get them to stay. That is S Arlington’s only hope!

How do they help the schools? If they're just going to opt out rather than help integrate, why in the world should we care about keeping them?

It's like you're responding to a completely different comment. They help the schools if they stay, so you should be trying to get them to stay.

Your attitude towards these people is irrelevant - they exist, and further they are acting rationally. This is the prisoner's dilemma: if everyone chose to send their kids to the neighborhood school, everyone would have the best outcome. But since you get screwed if you decide to send your kid to the school, and other people don't, then it's completely rational to opt out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

You can't just complain and judge people because they don't send their kids there. Instead, try to figure out how to get over the hump where a critical mass will decide to stay. This isn't an easy problem, but it's pointless to just say "we don't need them" because actually you do need them.

The problem with this argument is that a whole bunch of them on here are clamoring for more option schools to get them out as the only real solution. That doesn't keep families in neighborhood schools, by definition it is the exact opposite. We have enough option schools already, more isn't going to make these problems better. We have already covered strategically locating the option schools we have, and I agreed with that. So unless there is some third unspoken possibility out there that you're referring to I have no idea what we're arguing about.

Yes, it does help families in neighborhood schools. You insist on thinking about UMC kids in binary terms: that them going to an option school means they aren't going neighborhood and therefore "hurting" the local school. THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO GO THERE. At least with option schools, you keep the UMC kids, you give poor kids the opportunity to go to a school like claremont, which has a very active and well resourced student body, and by placing it in the poorest neighborhood you "crack" the poverty concentrated in one school across three. We do need more option schools, for this very reason. Option school enrollment as a share of total enrollment is going down, making their usefulness for addressing disparities less effective each year.

Claremont isn't going to cease to exist because we don't create a third immersion program. But how has the presence of Claremont helped the students left behind in Randolph? That is the logical step you keep skipping.

APS transfer reports don't publish demo info about the students a school sends, only about those it receives, so I can't speak to Randolph's particulars. But claremont received over 260 ED students last school year. That's almost 40% of the student body. It's clearly being used by poor kids who benefit the most from a well resources school like claremont. Those ED students came from many different SA schools. Probably a lot from abingdon, but also carlin springs and Randolph.

Now about the kids "left behind" at Randolph. Maybe if claremont was located AT Randolph, it and every adjacent school would have a lower farms rate. Do you understand now?

Actually, I believe APS does have that data - you can find the transfer out by school data which is broken out by student groups.

If you could point it out in the 2016-17 report I'd appreciate it. I've looked and cannot find, for instance how many ED in the Randolph zone go to say, Claremont.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You should be trying to get them to stay. That is S Arlington’s only hope!

How do they help the schools? If they're just going to opt out rather than help integrate, why in the world should we care about keeping them?

It's like you're responding to a completely different comment. They help the schools if they stay, so you should be trying to get them to stay.

Your attitude towards these people is irrelevant - they exist, and further they are acting rationally. This is the prisoner's dilemma: if everyone chose to send their kids to the neighborhood school, everyone would have the best outcome. But since you get screwed if you decide to send your kid to the school, and other people don't, then it's completely rational to opt out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

You can't just complain and judge people because they don't send their kids there. Instead, try to figure out how to get over the hump where a critical mass will decide to stay. This isn't an easy problem, but it's pointless to just say "we don't need them" because actually you do need them.

The problem with this argument is that a whole bunch of them on here are clamoring for more option schools to get them out as the only real solution. That doesn't keep families in neighborhood schools, by definition it is the exact opposite. We have enough option schools already, more isn't going to make these problems better. We have already covered strategically locating the option schools we have, and I agreed with that. So unless there is some third unspoken possibility out there that you're referring to I have no idea what we're arguing about.

Yes, it does help families in neighborhood schools. You insist on thinking about UMC kids in binary terms: that them going to an option school means they aren't going neighborhood and therefore "hurting" the local school. THEY WERE NEVER GOING TO GO THERE. At least with option schools, you keep the UMC kids, you give poor kids the opportunity to go to a school like claremont, which has a very active and well resourced student body, and by placing it in the poorest neighborhood you "crack" the poverty concentrated in one school across three. We do need more option schools, for this very reason. Option school enrollment as a share of total enrollment is going down, making their usefulness for addressing disparities less effective each year.

Claremont isn't going to cease to exist because we don't create a third immersion program. But how has the presence of Claremont helped the students left behind in Randolph? That is the logical step you keep skipping.

APS transfer reports don't publish demo info about the students a school sends, only about those it receives, so I can't speak to Randolph's particulars. But claremont received over 260 ED students last school year. That's almost 40% of the student body. It's clearly being used by poor kids who benefit the most from a well resources school like claremont. Those ED students came from many different SA schools. Probably a lot from abingdon, but also carlin springs and Randolph.

Now about the kids "left behind" at Randolph. Maybe if claremont was located AT Randolph, it and every adjacent school would have a lower farms rate. Do you understand now?

Actually, I believe APS does have that data - you can find the transfer out by school data which is broken out by student groups.

If you could point it out in the 2016-17 report I'd appreciate it. I've looked and cannot find, for instance how many ED in the Randolph zone go to say, Claremont.

Page 5 of the pdf file shows # of students from each school to the various schools transferred to. I guess I remember the stats incorrectly - they do not delineate how many ED students from school A transfer to schools B, C, or D. But it does show #s of students in each group transferring into a school, just not where each one is transferring from. Something to suggest to Staff to start recording - ideally, who is transferring specifically from which school to which school; but minimally the deographics of the students transferring out of each school. You can infer some of that; but not follow individual students' paths from school to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Actually, I believe APS does have that data - you can find the transfer out by school data which is broken out by student groups.

If you could point it out in the 2016-17 report I'd appreciate it. I've looked and cannot find, for instance how many ED in the Randolph zone go to say, Claremont.

Page 5 of the pdf file shows # of students from each school to the various schools transferred to. I guess I remember the stats incorrectly - they do not delineate how many ED students from school A transfer to schools B, C, or D. But it does show #s of students in each group transferring into a school, just not where each one is transferring from. Something to suggest to Staff to start recording - ideally, who is transferring specifically from which school to which school; but minimally the deographics of the students transferring out of each school. You can infer some of that; but not follow individual students' paths from school to school.

It would be interesting to see which groups choose to go to schools other than the ones they are zoned for. Would take allow APS to balance admissions to the option schools? Or would that make things even worse?

Ultimately, we all just want the best for our kids.

[Anonymous]

Please stop breaking quotes, it makes your posts unreadable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please stop breaking quotes, it makes your posts unreadable.

I am sorry.

Those huge text blocks are unreadable to me and take up half the page. You know what was said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop breaking quotes, it makes your posts unreadable.

I am sorry.

Those huge text blocks are unreadable to me and take up half the page. You know what was said.

The problem isn't that you're taking out text (of course I remember what was said previously), it's that you're taking about too many of the "[ quote = Anonymous ]" blocks at the beginning along with it. By the time I get to your new commentary, it's in tiny font with one or more preceding posts in the same text block, making it annoying to figure out where someone else's comment ended and yours started. When I encounter this, I typically just skip reading the post entirely (as well as anything quoting it, because it has the same issue).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop breaking quotes, it makes your posts unreadable.

I am sorry.

Those huge text blocks are unreadable to me and take up half the page. You know what was said.

The problem isn't that you're taking out text (of course I remember what was said previously), it's that you're taking about too many of the "[ quote = Anonymous ]" blocks at the beginning along with it. By the time I get to your new commentary, it's in tiny font with one or more preceding posts in the same text block, making it annoying to figure out where someone else's comment ended and yours started. When I encounter this, I typically just skip reading the post entirely (as well as anything quoting it, because it has the same issue).

Agreed. It's rare anyone has such an original thought here that it's worth parsing through that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please stop breaking quotes, it makes your posts unreadable.

I am sorry.

Those huge text blocks are unreadable to me and take up half the page. You know what was said.

The problem isn't that you're taking out text (of course I remember what was said previously), it's that you're taking about too many of the "[ quote = Anonymous ]" blocks at the beginning along with it. By the time I get to your new commentary, it's in tiny font with one or more preceding posts in the same text block, making it annoying to figure out where someone else's comment ended and yours started. When I encounter this, I typically just skip reading the post entirely (as well as anything quoting it, because it has the same issue).

Agreed. It's rare anyone has such an original thought here that it's worth parsing through that.

We need a minimize quote function.

And yes, we're all just spinning here.

[Anonymous]

Agenda for next Thursday's board meeting is supposed to be posted today. That should tell us whether they're going to start moving on things publicly in August like they said or will punt it to the fall (next meeting isn't until August 30th and right now there are no work sessions scheduled).