Do you think think Youngkin will use accreditation standards to come after ACPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is hilarious in regards to ACPS. Jefferson Houston was literally the lowest performing school *in the entire state* .

What did the Ds do to 'improve it? They redistricted the boundaries to flood it with wealthy white kids to boost scores and give the appearance of high performing and they lowered the metrics for accreditation.

Who would willfully send their kid to a school like that?

The Jefferson-Houston school zone boundaries have not changed in over 20 years. I'm not sure where you're getting your information. They did lower the metrics for accreditation statewide.

They did slightly alter the boundary to much complaint AND they removed the ability for parents to opt out. So the PP is correct in the goal was to bring in more kids who could boost scores. It's not a secret.

The JH boundary did not change. The opt out policy is the same for all elementary schools in Alexandria, nothing specific to JH. They use to be required by federal law (No Child Left Behind) to allow families to opt out of JH because it was a failing school, but that lapsed years ago, so now they are supposed to apply the normal rules (although it is an opaque process, because many families still opt out successfully). You also fail to mention that for 20 years many other elementary schools (mostly Brooks/Maury) have transferred kids to JH "for a better learning environment" (kids with behavioral issues). Every new JH principal discovers this pattern after a year or two and tries to stop it, but then they change principals again and it starts anew.

No there was some boundary shifts. Very, very minor but yes they happened. They were supposed to be bigger. PPs explains what happened.

Also something I find really funny is that apparently people from PG country register their kids in ACPS by using a relatives address. Makes you realize just how bad the PG county schools must be.

I think the comments on boundaries are generally right. My sense is the major change was 20 years ago. At time, a chunk of public housing in Parker Gray was zoned for what is now Brooks and not J-H. In exchange, single family houses in Del Ray just north of Braddock that are closer to Brooks were zoned for J-H. This alone did not make J-H much more diverse because white families in the J-H district often move at school age or send their kids to private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and kids will always be the pawns in the political battles waged over public schools. The Democrats will bend over backwards to do the bidding of public school employees and the Republicans will wage holy war to demonize them. It’s all about which tactic will get the most votes; kids and families are just collateral damage.

Nope.

Democrats were managing risk with limited resources during a deadly pandemic, not trying to “get the most votes”.

The damage the Democrats did to kids’ educations due to a low-risk strategy intended to demonstrate their fidelity to the wishes of teachers’ organizations won’t soon be forgotten, no matter how much Randi Weingarten and her cronies invite us to engage in collective amnesia.

What needs to be done is to break the teachers' union -- make the jobs at will, fire all teachers and make them reapply. I would pay the ones that get hired way more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is hilarious in regards to ACPS. Jefferson Houston was literally the lowest performing school *in the entire state* .

What did the Ds do to 'improve it? They redistricted the boundaries to flood it with wealthy white kids to boost scores and give the appearance of high performing and they lowered the metrics for accreditation.

Who would willfully send their kid to a school like that?

The Jefferson-Houston school zone boundaries have not changed in over 20 years. I'm not sure where you're getting your information. They did lower the metrics for accreditation statewide.

They did slightly alter the boundary to much complaint AND they removed the ability for parents to opt out. So the PP is correct in the goal was to bring in more kids who could boost scores. It's not a secret.

The JH boundary did not change. The opt out policy is the same for all elementary schools in Alexandria, nothing specific to JH. They use to be required by federal law (No Child Left Behind) to allow families to opt out of JH because it was a failing school, but that lapsed years ago, so now they are supposed to apply the normal rules (although it is an opaque process, because many families still opt out successfully). You also fail to mention that for 20 years many other elementary schools (mostly Brooks/Maury) have transferred kids to JH "for a better learning environment" (kids with behavioral issues). Every new JH principal discovers this pattern after a year or two and tries to stop it, but then they change principals again and it starts anew.

No there was some boundary shifts. Very, very minor but yes they happened. They were supposed to be bigger. PPs explains what happened.

Also something I find really funny is that apparently people from PG country register their kids in ACPS by using a relatives address. Makes you realize just how bad the PG county schools must be.

Go to drop off at Brooks/Maury any given morning and just watch the Altimas and Maximas with blacked out windows and Maryland tags dump kids on the sidewalk in front of the school.

We had applied for an admin transfer for my daughter and were denied. On appeal, I submitted photographs and documentation of the rampant residency fraud occurring. Lo and behold, my appeal was granted. I guess ACPS didn't want a battle with a taxpayer when they knew they had their cousin's baby mama dropping a half dozen kids from Ft Washington at Maury every morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is hilarious in regards to ACPS. Jefferson Houston was literally the lowest performing school *in the entire state* .

What did the Ds do to 'improve it? They redistricted the boundaries to flood it with wealthy white kids to boost scores and give the appearance of high performing and they lowered the metrics for accreditation.

Who would willfully send their kid to a school like that?

The Jefferson-Houston school zone boundaries have not changed in over 20 years. I'm not sure where you're getting your information. They did lower the metrics for accreditation statewide.

They did slightly alter the boundary to much complaint AND they removed the ability for parents to opt out. So the PP is correct in the goal was to bring in more kids who could boost scores. It's not a secret.

The JH boundary did not change. The opt out policy is the same for all elementary schools in Alexandria, nothing specific to JH. They use to be required by federal law (No Child Left Behind) to allow families to opt out of JH because it was a failing school, but that lapsed years ago, so now they are supposed to apply the normal rules (although it is an opaque process, because many families still opt out successfully). You also fail to mention that for 20 years many other elementary schools (mostly Brooks/Maury) have transferred kids to JH "for a better learning environment" (kids with behavioral issues). Every new JH principal discovers this pattern after a year or two and tries to stop it, but then they change principals again and it starts anew.

No there was some boundary shifts. Very, very minor but yes they happened. They were supposed to be bigger. PPs explains what happened.

Also something I find really funny is that apparently people from PG country register their kids in ACPS by using a relatives address. Makes you realize just how bad the PG county schools must be.

Go to drop off at Brooks/Maury any given morning and just watch the Altimas and Maximas with blacked out windows and Maryland tags dump kids on the sidewalk in front of the school.

We had applied for an admin transfer for my daughter and were denied. On appeal, I submitted photographs and documentation of the rampant residency fraud occurring. Lo and behold, my appeal was granted. I guess ACPS didn't want a battle with a taxpayer when they knew they had their cousin's baby mama dropping a half dozen kids from Ft Washington at Maury every morning.

Damn. Full-on scorched earth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and kids will always be the pawns in the political battles waged over public schools. The Democrats will bend over backwards to do the bidding of public school employees and the Republicans will wage holy war to demonize them. It’s all about which tactic will get the most votes; kids and families are just collateral damage.

Nope.

Democrats were managing risk with limited resources during a deadly pandemic, not trying to “get the most votes”.

The damage the Democrats did to kids’ educations due to a low-risk strategy intended to demonstrate their fidelity to the wishes of teachers’ organizations won’t soon be forgotten, no matter how much Randi Weingarten and her cronies invite us to engage in collective amnesia.

What needs to be done is to break the teachers' union -- make the jobs at will, fire all teachers and make them reapply. I would pay the ones that get hired way more.

I don’t think teachers in Alexandria are even unionized. And who advocates for firing teachers during a teacher shortage? You have got to be kidding!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and kids will always be the pawns in the political battles waged over public schools. The Democrats will bend over backwards to do the bidding of public school employees and the Republicans will wage holy war to demonize them. It’s all about which tactic will get the most votes; kids and families are just collateral damage.

Nope.

Democrats were managing risk with limited resources during a deadly pandemic, not trying to “get the most votes”.

The damage the Democrats did to kids’ educations due to a low-risk strategy intended to demonstrate their fidelity to the wishes of teachers’ organizations won’t soon be forgotten, no matter how much Randi Weingarten and her cronies invite us to engage in collective amnesia.

What needs to be done is to break the teachers' union -- make the jobs at will, fire all teachers and make them reapply. I would pay the ones that get hired way more.

I don’t think teachers in Alexandria are even unionized. And who advocates for firing teachers during a teacher shortage? You have got to be kidding!

The PP is clearly not from VA.

Pro-voucher GOP astroturfer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and kids will always be the pawns in the political battles waged over public schools. The Democrats will bend over backwards to do the bidding of public school employees and the Republicans will wage holy war to demonize them. It’s all about which tactic will get the most votes; kids and families are just collateral damage.

Nope.

Democrats were managing risk with limited resources during a deadly pandemic, not trying to “get the most votes”.

The damage the Democrats did to kids’ educations due to a low-risk strategy intended to demonstrate their fidelity to the wishes of teachers’ organizations won’t soon be forgotten, no matter how much Randi Weingarten and her cronies invite us to engage in collective amnesia.

What needs to be done is to break the teachers' union -- make the jobs at will, fire all teachers and make them reapply. I would pay the ones that get hired way more.

I don’t think teachers in Alexandria are even unionized. And who advocates for firing teachers during a teacher shortage? You have got to be kidding!

The PP is clearly not from VA.

Pro-voucher GOP astroturfer.

You say that in a pejorative fashion when two posts up you have people giving local, first-hand accounts of rampant residency fraud. Maybe you ought to think about what's being done with your tax dollars and your kid's education before you condemn those that first want what is best for their child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Youngkin actually wanted to help ACPS, and probably most failing schools, he'd mandate a science backed reading and math curriculum. And immediately mandate remedial reading and writing services for all of those kids "taught" to read with the terrible balanced literacy/Lucy Cawkins curriculum ACPS only recently, partially and reluctantly got rid of. But I seriously doubt he actually cares about the outcomes, so agree that he's just using this to push charters.

OR ..

ACPS could decide to do it without a mandate and actually teach reading and math. But sure, make it all Youngkin's fault. The guy who showed up a few months ago and will be gone in 3 years vs. ACPS who has known for 20+ years that kids weren't learning reading or math.

I'm the poster you're responding to and I 100% agree. ACPS could have done a million things differently, but chose not to. They've had the data showing how badly they are failing kids for years. I'm not blaming Youngkin for ACPS sucking, they earn that every day of every year all on their own. I'm just saying that if he actually wanted to make a difference, make a real change in kids lives, that would be the way to do it. Because ACPS is just not going to do it without a mandate.

I do doubt Youngkin's sincerity in improving the educational situation in Virginia. Which is why I don't think he'll take concrete steps, and instead focus on divisive social issues, which will prove to be as effective as ACPSs singular focus on talking about "equity for all", while ignoring the inequities inherent in a school system that abandons their core mission of teaching children, and instead relies on parents to teach kids to read, write, spell, etc. Only parents with resources (time or money) can make that happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This post is hilarious in regards to ACPS. Jefferson Houston was literally the lowest performing school *in the entire state* .

What did the Ds do to 'improve it? They redistricted the boundaries to flood it with wealthy white kids to boost scores and give the appearance of high performing and they lowered the metrics for accreditation.

Who would willfully send their kid to a school like that?

The Jefferson-Houston school zone boundaries have not changed in over 20 years. I'm not sure where you're getting your information. They did lower the metrics for accreditation statewide.

They did slightly alter the boundary to much complaint AND they removed the ability for parents to opt out. So the PP is correct in the goal was to bring in more kids who could boost scores. It's not a secret.

The JH boundary did not change. The opt out policy is the same for all elementary schools in Alexandria, nothing specific to JH. They use to be required by federal law (No Child Left Behind) to allow families to opt out of JH because it was a failing school, but that lapsed years ago, so now they are supposed to apply the normal rules (although it is an opaque process, because many families still opt out successfully). You also fail to mention that for 20 years many other elementary schools (mostly Brooks/Maury) have transferred kids to JH "for a better learning environment" (kids with behavioral issues). Every new JH principal discovers this pattern after a year or two and tries to stop it, but then they change principals again and it starts anew.

No there was some boundary shifts. Very, very minor but yes they happened. They were supposed to be bigger. PPs explains what happened.

Also something I find really funny is that apparently people from PG country register their kids in ACPS by using a relatives address. Makes you realize just how bad the PG county schools must be.

Go to drop off at Brooks/Maury any given morning and just watch the Altimas and Maximas with blacked out windows and Maryland tags dump kids on the sidewalk in front of the school.

We had applied for an admin transfer for my daughter and were denied. On appeal, I submitted photographs and documentation of the rampant residency fraud occurring. Lo and behold, my appeal was granted. I guess ACPS didn't want a battle with a taxpayer when they knew they had their cousin's baby mama dropping a half dozen kids from Ft Washington at Maury every morning.

Damn. Full-on scorched earth.

Do you not know what “scorched earth” means?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Youngkin actually wanted to help ACPS, and probably most failing schools, he'd mandate a science backed reading and math curriculum. And immediately mandate remedial reading and writing services for all of those kids "taught" to read with the terrible balanced literacy/Lucy Cawkins curriculum ACPS only recently, partially and reluctantly got rid of. But I seriously doubt he actually cares about the outcomes, so agree that he's just using this to push charters.

OR ..

ACPS could decide to do it without a mandate and actually teach reading and math. But sure, make it all Youngkin's fault. The guy who showed up a few months ago and will be gone in 3 years vs. ACPS who has known for 20+ years that kids weren't learning reading or math.

I'm the poster you're responding to and I 100% agree. ACPS could have done a million things differently, but chose not to. They've had the data showing how badly they are failing kids for years. I'm not blaming Youngkin for ACPS sucking, they earn that every day of every year all on their own. I'm just saying that if he actually wanted to make a difference, make a real change in kids lives, that would be the way to do it. Because ACPS is just not going to do it without a mandate.

I do doubt Youngkin's sincerity in improving the educational situation in Virginia. Which is why I don't think he'll take concrete steps, and instead focus on divisive social issues, which will prove to be as effective as ACPSs singular focus on talking about "equity for all", while ignoring the inequities inherent in a school system that abandons their core mission of teaching children, and instead relies on parents to teach kids to read, write, spell, etc. Only parents with resources (time or money) can make that happen.

+1,000 - I agree totally. ACPS is at fault for its problems but I doubt Youngkin’s interest in addressing them rather than winning politics points using divisive social/racial issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Youngkin is attacking the accreditation standards as too lenient and not reflective of current school academic performance (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/youngkin-school-ratings/). With ACPS’s poor academic performance on the most recent SOLs, could some ACPS schools be at risk of losing accreditation if the standards are tightened and then Youngkin could use non-accreditation to exercise more control…..

Hopefully he does something to help improve the education of these poor children. Very sad how the biggest source of systemic racism remains the achievement gap in education due to poor quality of education in less affluent areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents and kids will always be the pawns in the political battles waged over public schools. The Democrats will bend over backwards to do the bidding of public school employees and the Republicans will wage holy war to demonize them. It’s all about which tactic will get the most votes; kids and families are just collateral damage.

Nope.

Democrats were managing risk with limited resources during a deadly pandemic, not trying to “get the most votes”.

The damage the Democrats did to kids’ educations due to a low-risk strategy intended to demonstrate their fidelity to the wishes of teachers’ organizations won’t soon be forgotten, no matter how much Randi Weingarten and her cronies invite us to engage in collective amnesia.

What needs to be done is to break the teachers' union -- make the jobs at will, fire all teachers and make them reapply. I would pay the ones that get hired way more.

I don't think Virginia teachers are unionized, but I agree that the teachers union are the biggest cause of systemic racism in the U.S.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Youngkin is attacking the accreditation standards as too lenient and not reflective of current school academic performance (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/09/23/youngkin-school-ratings/). With ACPS’s poor academic performance on the most recent SOLs, could some ACPS schools be at risk of losing accreditation if the standards are tightened and then Youngkin could use non-accreditation to exercise more control…..

Hopefully he does something to help improve the education of these poor children. Very sad how the biggest source of systemic racism remains the achievement gap in education due to poor quality of education in less affluent areas.

Systemic racism? Puhlease. The majority of these kids don't even know their fathers. But, sure, the kids aren't learning because of white people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Youngkin actually wanted to help ACPS, and probably most failing schools, he'd mandate a science backed reading and math curriculum. And immediately mandate remedial reading and writing services for all of those kids "taught" to read with the terrible balanced literacy/Lucy Cawkins curriculum ACPS only recently, partially and reluctantly got rid of. But I seriously doubt he actually cares about the outcomes, so agree that he's just using this to push charters.

OR ..

ACPS could decide to do it without a mandate and actually teach reading and math. But sure, make it all Youngkin's fault. The guy who showed up a few months ago and will be gone in 3 years vs. ACPS who has known for 20+ years that kids weren't learning reading or math.

I'm the poster you're responding to and I 100% agree. ACPS could have done a million things differently, but chose not to. They've had the data showing how badly they are failing kids for years. I'm not blaming Youngkin for ACPS sucking, they earn that every day of every year all on their own. I'm just saying that if he actually wanted to make a difference, make a real change in kids lives, that would be the way to do it. Because ACPS is just not going to do it without a mandate.

I do doubt Youngkin's sincerity in improving the educational situation in Virginia. Which is why I don't think he'll take concrete steps, and instead focus on divisive social issues, which will prove to be as effective as ACPSs singular focus on talking about "equity for all", while ignoring the inequities inherent in a school system that abandons their core mission of teaching children, and instead relies on parents to teach kids to read, write, spell, etc. Only parents with resources (time or money) can make that happen.

So he will do no different than the previous Governor who similarly wasted his years and the Governor before him did as well on implementing social issues insisting that doing so would magically fix education issues. So I guess neither Democrats nor Republicans in VA care all that much about education.

[Anonymous]

https://vimeo.com/751756956/b9a34ac7b4

When this is the strategy, vice educating and learning, I think we’ve entered the realm of hopeless and unfixable. When that strategy is presented by the SB Chair who sends her kids to private school, it is clear is parents and our children are being played. It is no wonder ACPS schools will lose accreditation.