Which public school system is best? (Arlington, fairfax, DC, MD)

[Anonymous]

Yes, PPs, Arlington is a terrible place with terrible schools and no one should move here.

Stay away! You'd hate it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally, I'm happy with the considerable diversity at Yorktown, the fact that minority students do better at our school than at other schools in Arlington, and the fact that we don't argue, like the W-L parents, that test scores should be "controlled" to exclude the non-white students. White parents at W-L are the last people on earth who should be accusing others of racism. Your entire pitch seems to be aimed at recruiting more wealthy whites to the W-L neighborhoods by suggesting only their kids will matter there and the kids who struggle are just background noise.

I'm not the PP, but I never argued to exclude non-white students scores. The non-white students scores for W-L are actually close to if not equal to Yorktown's minority scores when broken down by race. No one's denying the standardized scores for Yorktown are better overall, but there is no night and day difference as some people on here have stated. And I think most people know that Yorktown is an incredibly diverse school compared with other DC suburban schools. I'm a huge fan of Yorktown. And I've only heard great things about both Yorktown and W-L until the past few days on this forum. The college placement at both schools is excellent, and the SAT and AP scores are great too.... On to your comment about accusations of racism, I think only the "Centrevile mom" accused an Arlington poster of racism, not a W-L parent.

And while "you never know" as the saying goes, I highly doubt white parents in the W-L district are trying to "recruit" wealthy whites to the W-L neighborhoods, as you claim. No one needs to recruit anyone to move to N Arlington, because its so popular. Every week in the Arlington SunGazette there are ads for homes that include both the Yorktown and W-L pyramids in the descriptions. W-L's been 41-42% white and 30% poor for the past 15 years. It's been fairly balanced in terms of demographics and has always been a popular school. Anyways, tons of wealthy white people are moving into all the North Arlington neighborhoods regardless of the high schools reputations. The elementary schools are overflowing and the diversity at all the Arlington schools is decreasing.

To all the Arlington posters: stop basing eachother and eachothers' schools, which are actually all quite good. At least until we see those new high schools boundaries that will bring down everyone's property values.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: Compare TC to W-L and its remarkable thy are so high overall given the pool.

All the hyperbole in these posts is crazy. While I'm sure TC Williams and Alexandria schools are doing a pretty good job overall, TC and W-L do not make a good comparison. TC has a higher low-income and ESL population. TC is similar to Wakefield in terms of demographics, standardized test scores and the college readiness index. Comparing TC to W-L and saying they both beat the odds (to paraphrase) with great test scores is very misleading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Compare TC to W-L and its remarkable thy are so high overall given the pool.

All the hyperbole in these posts is crazy. While I'm sure TC Williams and Alexandria schools are doing a pretty good job overall, TC and W-L do not make a good comparison. TC has a higher low-income and ESL population. TC is similar to Wakefield in terms of demographics, standardized test scores and the college readiness index. Comparing TC to W-L and saying they both beat the odds (to paraphrase) with great test scores is very misleading.

Yep. Just like Yorktown and W-L.

[Anonymous]

I don't live in Arlington, but I am a former civil rights attorney. I can give you some context on the confederate names in the county and why they aren't changed even though the county has a lot of people that are from the north and it is very liberal.

When residents or the black community objects to confederate names or symbols today, it is a proxy protest. They aren't so concerned with the names, but to current conditions that they feel aren't fair. Attacking names and symbols brings these issues more upfront into the white communities and focuses the issues of racism and inequality to the front page. They really want better services and opportunities.

In places like Arlington, the black population isn't really oppressed like other counties and the government does more to address their needs than less progressive areas in the state.

So there isn't a need to attack symbols as a sympton of government attitudes and actions towards the black community. The black community in places like this would rather spend money on people that need it vs. re-naming a bunch of buildings and streets.

If the black community really had a legitimate grievance, the Arlington government would do something about it. If the black community wanted the names changed, they would do it. But the costs of new maps, signs, stationary, and the disruption caused to residents and alumni just isn't worth it too them.

[Anonymous]

White-washing Robert E. Lee name of a building or streets just doesn't have the middle finger effect to local racists, so black residents just don't care.

Arlington is the most progressive county in the state. Those southern racists moved out a long time ago, replaced by professionals, military, and immigrants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't live in Arlington, but I am a former civil rights attorney. I can give you some context on the confederate names in the county and why they aren't changed even though the county has a lot of people that are from the north and it is very liberal.

When residents or the black community objects to confederate names or symbols today, it is a proxy protest. They aren't so concerned with the names, but to current conditions that they feel aren't fair. Attacking names and symbols brings these issues more upfront into the white communities and focuses the issues of racism and inequality to the front page. They really want better services and opportunities.

In places like Arlington, the black population isn't really oppressed like other counties and the government does more to address their needs than less progressive areas in the state.

So there isn't a need to attack symbols as a sympton of government attitudes and actions towards the black community. The black community in places like this would rather spend money on people that need it vs. re-naming a bunch of buildings and streets.

If the black community really had a legitimate grievance, the Arlington government would do something about it. If the black community wanted the names changed, they would do it. But the costs of new maps, signs, stationary, and the disruption caused to residents and alumni just isn't worth it too them.

I'm amazed at how people in Arlington can be so persuaded of their own liberal tendencies when schools in North Arlington are the whitest in the entire DC region, and Wakefield and some of its feeder schools have some of the highest concentrations of low-income, black and Hispanic residents in the area. Maybe that's just a reflection of housing costs and transportation routes, but you might think that either the schools would be more integrated or people wouldn't use terms like "progressive" so freely to describe themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't live in Arlington, but I am a former civil rights attorney. I can give you some context on the confederate names in the county and why they aren't changed even though the county has a lot of people that are from the north and it is very liberal.

When residents or the black community objects to confederate names or symbols today, it is a proxy protest. They aren't so concerned with the names, but to current conditions that they feel aren't fair. Attacking names and symbols brings these issues more upfront into the white communities and focuses the issues of racism and inequality to the front page. They really want better services and opportunities.

In places like Arlington, the black population isn't really oppressed like other counties and the government does more to address their needs than less progressive areas in the state.

So there isn't a need to attack symbols as a sympton of government attitudes and actions towards the black community. The black community in places like this would rather spend money on people that need it vs. re-naming a bunch of buildings and streets.

If the black community really had a legitimate grievance, the Arlington government would do something about it. If the black community wanted the names changed, they would do it. But the costs of new maps, signs, stationary, and the disruption caused to residents and alumni just isn't worth it too them.

I'm amazed at how people in Arlington can be so persuaded of their own liberal tendencies when schools in North Arlington are the whitest in the entire DC region, and Wakefield and some of its feeder schools have some of the highest concentrations of low-income, black and Hispanic residents in the area. Maybe that's just a reflection of housing costs and transportation routes, but you might think that either the schools would be more integrated or people wouldn't use terms like "progressive" so freely to describe themselves.

WTF? W-L has a 59% minority majority. how is that white? Our kids highly regarded elem school is only 55% white and it is one of the top schools nationally.

[Anonymous]

North Arlington, Fairfax, and Montgomery County all have very good school systems. Fairfax and Montgomery are too big to put an overall "best", though. They have comparable school systems and schools, but it depends where you move in the counties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't live in Arlington, but I am a former civil rights attorney. I can give you some context on the confederate names in the county and why they aren't changed even though the county has a lot of people that are from the north and it is very liberal.

When residents or the black community objects to confederate names or symbols today, it is a proxy protest. They aren't so concerned with the names, but to current conditions that they feel aren't fair. Attacking names and symbols brings these issues more upfront into the white communities and focuses the issues of racism and inequality to the front page. They really want better services and opportunities.

In places like Arlington, the black population isn't really oppressed like other counties and the government does more to address their needs than less progressive areas in the state.

So there isn't a need to attack symbols as a sympton of government attitudes and actions towards the black community. The black community in places like this would rather spend money on people that need it vs. re-naming a bunch of buildings and streets.

If the black community really had a legitimate grievance, the Arlington government would do something about it. If the black community wanted the names changed, they would do it. But the costs of new maps, signs, stationary, and the disruption caused to residents and alumni just isn't worth it too them.

I'm amazed at how people in Arlington can be so persuaded of their own liberal tendencies when schools in North Arlington are the whitest in the entire DC region, and Wakefield and some of its feeder schools have some of the highest concentrations of low-income, black and Hispanic residents in the area. Maybe that's just a reflection of housing costs and transportation routes, but you might think that either the schools would be more integrated or people wouldn't use terms like "progressive" so freely to describe themselves.

WTF? W-L has a 59% minority majority. how is that white? Our kids highly regarded elem school is only 55% white and it is one of the top schools nationally.

I'm not talking about W-L or ASF. Look at Jamestown, McKinley, Nottingham, Taylor, Tuckahoe and Williamsburg compared to schools like Carlin Springs, Hoffman-Boston, Randolph, Kenmore and Wakefield. The differences are quite stark. I understand that people don't want their kids bussed long distances, but Arlington is also a fairly small county. If a civil-rights plaintiff were going to challenge de facto segregation in area schools, APS would be as good a local target as any. I'm not advocating that anyone sue APS - I just think it's kind of jarring that terms like "progressive" get used to describe Arlington, when the county seems quite conservative when it comes to things like school boundaries. Maybe the term is more of of a reflection of things like support for gay marriage and environmental issues than how the local schools are operated.