Great Schools -- no longer useful
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Anonymous
I assume what the prior poster meant was that, if there were any schools close to 70% white, they wouldn't be 30% Asian. In FCPS, there are 19 elementaries, three middle schools and two high schools (Centreville and TJ) that are over 30% Asian, but none is close to 70% white. One of the 24 has slightly more than 60% white students (Colvin Run). So this notion that GS top-ranked schools are close to 70% white/30% Asian is not grounded in reality. |
Anonymous
That's unfortunate. Although I expect you could find it on the VA website if you looked around. Not everyone can afford to be a district where the schools "achieve" 9 or 10 just because they happen to have very few low-income kids there so it is helpful to be able to see how the scores break down. But, ideally, a school should be effectively teaching kids at all levels. It is possible -- we're at a 33% FARM school but it's still rated a 9 overall (it was a 10 for white and non-FARM kids when that data was available). |
Anonymous
This racial assumption is not reality, but the strong correlation with family income/test scores/GS rating is accurate. For example, in Arlington there are 7 ES rated "10". Of those the highest FARM rate is 21%. Five of the 7 have FARM rates <10%, most of those <5%. If you look at all the 9 and 10 schools, only one has a FARM rate similar to the average for the county (Long Branch). The lowest rated schools in Arlington (GS=3 or 4) have FARM rates of 59%-86%. Those rates of poverty of course are concerning and could suggest a lot of challenges but for a school in the 6-8 range, if I were house-hunting, I wouldn't rule out a great house with a great commute if the breakdown of scores for non-FARM kids showed that affluent kids do fine there (although that would not be the ONLY data point I'd consider in evaluating a school). |
Anonymous
I'm not the one crowing on the Internet about how I'm able to afford a house far away from any poors so my kids won't be exposed to undesirable elements at school. Whatever, you've got yours, screw everybody else. Enjoy your nice life. |
Anonymous
That seems to be a different point than PP was trying to make. There are always trade-offs. |
Anonymous
Pp said 12 percent black, not 2 percent. |
Anonymous
Yeah, that was a typo. Are you impressed with 12%? Plus 7% Hispanic? That's not "diverse." That's majority white with some tokens. |
Anonymous
So every fifth kid is a "token" just there for show? The demographics at that school match up more closely with those in the nation as a whole than those at most schools in the area. And, knock on wood, it's a high-achieving school, too. If you have a point, you need to restate it, because your comments about tokenism are absurd and offensive. |
Anonymous
They don't match up more closely with the nation. The Hispanic population in the US is 17%, for one thing. Moreover, "diversity" isn't defined as "mirrors the US population." I really don't care if you find my comments about tokenism to be offensive. That's your problem. I find pp's (you?) claim that this school -- populated by less than 20% with students typically defined as "at-risk" to be "diverse" to be offensive. |
Anonymous
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Everyone always puts down ACPS because of the rankings. If you check the schooldigger site, certain ACPS elementaries are performing significantly better than those in FFX county. For example, Lyles-Crouch elementary in ACPS is ranked 152. And is only 57% white with a large African American pop (27%). By contrast, Kent Gardens elementary in McLean is ranked 102 and is approximately 70% White with a larger Asian population and much lower african american/latino population.
So...IMO, ACPS is doing something right with that school! Lyles-Crouch would be my pick. |
Anonymous
Ha. As long as you move out by middle school. |
Anonymous
Black students at TC Williams averaged 1268 on the SATs last year. Black students at McLean averaged 1611. That "outperformance" at Lyles-Crouch you're claiming, based on its being ranked 52 below Kent Gardens by one source, sure doesn't seem to carry forward very far. |
Anonymous
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Sorry ASF isn't diverse "enough" for you, PP. But no one is forcing you to send your kids there.
Sadly, the progression in ACPS heads in the wrong direction. The best elementary school, Lyles-Crouch, is a GreatSchools 7. Then you get GW, a 5, for middle schools, before ending up at TC Williams, a 3. You have a lot of "at risk" kids there, and parents of kids who aren't at risk prefer not to put them at risk by sending them to a school that doesn't care about the above-average kids. You'd be amazed how many ACPS refugees there are in Arlington now. |
Anonymous
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ACPS does have some strong elementary schools based on ratings. Maury is an 8 on Great Schools. Lyles Crouch is a 7. And classes are so much smaller than APS or FCPS. And that's with a very diverse student body. So I agree that one can get as good an elementary education at those schools as kent gardens, glebe, or other more diverse schools. Wait is kent gardens even diverse? How many Latino or AA students are there? Basically none.
Unfortunately, ACPS loses it's luster for middle school. That's when most families move or go private. But I agree that for elementary, you cannot go wrong with some ACPS schools. I would take the smaller classes of 16-20 over 28-30 in some of the popular Arlington and Fairfax county less diverse places. |
Anonymous
I was referring to elementary schools. Not high school SAT scores. Totally irrelevant. Of course there is no comparison between TC Williams and McLean Higj. But you have no idea how many of those kids feed from kent gardens either. Weak argument. I can confidently say that my child is getting as good an education at Lyles Crouch in ACPS than she would at Kent Gardens. Probably even better. Her class has 15 kids in it. She is in an advanced reading group. And she has the benefit of being in a diverse environment with kids of many different backgrounds. And no ridiculous AAP BS to deal with. Will we stay through middle school? Maybe not. But ACPS is doing something right with LCTA, Maury, Charles Barrett and other elementary schools. |