Is APS middle school less rigorous?

[Anonymous]

Stanford also offers need-blind admissions to foreign students. We known a recent APS graduate without US citizenship who attends on massive fi aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh goody more technology. Okay so they can do some kind of math problems (though I don’t think they set up complex math problems you do by hand and then enter answer in canvas, but maybe I’m wrong?), and spelling, but writing, analysis, comprehension is not evaluated.

I use Canvas quizzes all the time and a second question can be a photograph upload of their work (which I can look at after school for students I know struggle and see why they answered what they answered).

But you have made your feelings clear.

Teachers are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

The problem here isn't teachers, it's coming from Syphax. Homework is inequitable, so let's pull all kids down. Apple and Google are pushing us towards online platforms, who cares if it means our kids aren't learning by doing things by hand. Curriculum doesn't call for real reading and literary analysis, or learning how to write in-depth via English or even Social Studies classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Oh goody more technology. Okay so they can do some kind of math problems (though I don’t think they set up complex math problems you do by hand and then enter answer in canvas, but maybe I’m wrong?), and spelling, but writing, analysis, comprehension is not evaluated.

I use Canvas quizzes all the time and a second question can be a photograph upload of their work (which I can look at after school for students I know struggle and see why they answered what they answered).

But you have made your feelings clear.

Teachers are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

The problem here isn't teachers, it's coming from Syphax. Homework is inequitable, so let's pull all kids down. Apple and Google are pushing us towards online platforms, who cares if it means our kids aren't learning by doing things by hand. Curriculum doesn't call for real reading and literary analysis, or learning how to write in-depth via English or even Social Studies classes.

It is 100% coming from Syphax. This is not on the teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very very few kids from APS as a whole and any district as a whole getting into Ivys as a percentage this year. Acceptance rates in the single digits. Even with perfect SATs and all As in the most rigorous classes, you are one of many many just like you. In the current climate it is not helpful to use admissions to these schools as a metric of how “good” a high school is. It’s not useful.

+1 Kids get into Ivy-type schools because they are extraordinarily driven + (mostly) some kind of hook. MS-HS you go to has very little to do with creating that profile. More kids do get in from elite privates but that's more because the elite private schools have already done the pre-screening for the hooks like legacy and $$$.

A kid who goes to any APS HS and does well in challenging classes (AP/IB) is going to be prepared for college. Same as any of the surrounding districts.

APS does not prepare you for college the way privates do. It just doesn't. There is almost no focus on writing, grammar, reading books and discussing them in class. It's a real shame. That said, a lot of the amazing admission stats you see from privates are because of legacy admissions/donations and other exceptional hooks. Don't go to private as a ticket to the ivys unless you have a hook. Do go to private for the superior education.

We're Ivy graduates who agree that writing instruction is a weak point of APS MS & HS, and public schools in general in this country. Hence, we've supplemented for English from the get go, with tutors and summer programs. As far as we're concerned, private school just doesn't prepare a kid to cope in the real world the way a good public school does. We love how our children have made a stunningly diverse group of pals in APS, including refugee kids from the Middle East and Afghanistan who perform better on math assessments than our children do. Go in with your eyes open, supplement, but don't baby your children with pampered private school environments as a knee jerk reaction. APS middle school is pretty darn good. We bailed from DCPS after elementary school with no regrets.

So funny. I was one of the diverse elements at my college, and once I got into college I really never interacted with “diverse people” again. College selects for academic/ability to pay/etc, and then you enter the professional world and buy an UMC house and are basically in a bubble forever. What exactly are you preparing your children for by hobnobbing with people like me in high school? After public school they will never see them again except when they hire them to work on their home or take care of their kids?

NP and a slightly different perspective. DH and I grew up relatively poor in different parts of the country and we both attended large, diverse schools. We worked hard and made it our priority to life in a certain neighborhood so our own kids don’t have to be to exposed to as much as we did. There are other challenges living where we do, no place is perfect, but day to day life isn’t as dangerous. Yes, we wanted them surrounded by motivated peers and possibly parents and families with more connections. It’s better than being surrounded by multiple peers with parents who died of overdoses or are in and out of jail, which we both experienced. Sometimes we get angry that are children seemed like spoiled entitled teens but they have an entirely different upbringing than we did.

[Anonymous]

We're Ivy graduates who agree that writing instruction is a weak point of APS MS & HS, and public schools in general in this country. Hence, we've supplemented for English from the get go, with tutors and summer programs. As far as we're concerned, private school just doesn't prepare a kid to cope in the real world the way a good public school does. We love how our children have made a stunningly diverse group of pals in APS, including refugee kids from the Middle East and Afghanistan who perform better on math assessments than our children do. Go in with your eyes open, supplement, but don't baby your children with pampered private school environments as a knee jerk reaction. APS middle school is pretty darn good. We bailed from DCPS after elementary school with no regrets.

And you have experienced every APS MS and HS, as well as every public school in this country, first hand? Or is it that because you are Ivy League graduates, we are supposed to believe that you are better at knowing from afar what all these different schools are doing iwith regard to writing instruction than the rest of us?

Please come down off your high horse and write only about those things you actually know.

[Anonymous]

There are obvious problems with writing instruction in America's public schools, and a large corpus of academic lit shining a light on the issues. For the lay person, I suggest Griffith and Duffett, Reading and Writing Instruction in Public Schools. Writing classes are generally too big to work well, and writing teachers, particularly younger ones, insufficiently paid, trained and supported. The focus is too much on creative writing vs. evidence based. Hardly the end of the world to stick with decent public schools like those in Arlington if families can supplement for writing.

https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/reading-and-writing-instruction-americas-schools

Where do you find the time and energy to slam random posters who make valid points?

[Anonymous]

+1. Supplement on writing instruction, make sure your children read a lot for fun, and you're....OK in APS.