Great Falls or Reston?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have lived in both and DH prefers Reston for racial and socioeconomic diversity and length of commute to HS. We are both from the NVA area. GF area has a lot of really high levels of wealth. Reston has a lot of mix, including quite a bit of upper middle class but not as much extreme wealth (at least not in your face wealth, maybe stealth wealth).

The one thing I will warn you is that from our personal experience, elementary schools vary quite drastically even within Reston. Although they are all "fine," we have been at two very different ones and much prefer the one we are at now, due to significantly higher parental involvement, higher baseline academic standards, much lower teacher turnover, and fewer behavioral incidents. For us this correlated to the level of socioeconomics that fed into the elementary schools. YMMV.

Dogwood isn't "fine". Sunrise Valley is preferred.

By whom? If I could choose any ES in Reston, I'd choose Lake Anne, Terraset, or Hunter's Woods.

By people who prefer their kids to be around intelligent kids.

Percent that passed their reading / math SOLs "advanced":
Aldrin 25 / 36
Armstrong 17 / 30
Dogwood 1 / 4 = WORST
Forest Edge 9 / 19
Hunters Woods 20 / 18
Lake Anne 19 / 5
Sunrise Valley 31 / 30 = BEST
Terraset 10 / 5

Percent that failed their reading / math SOLs:
Aldrin 23 / 14
Armstrong 19 / 7
Dogwood 64 / 39 = WORST
Forest Edge 44 / 19
Hunters Woods 28 / 19
Lake Anne 35 / 38
Sunrise Valley 8 / 2 = BEST
Terraset 31 / 18

Conclusions:
1. The largest number of smart kids and the smallest number of stupid kids attend Sunrise Valley.
2. The smallest number of smart kids and the largest number of stupid kids attend Dogwood.
3. There are some smart kids at Lake Anne, Hunters Woods, Terraset but also a large number of stupid kids.

Sunrise Valley is strong because it’s an AAP center; smart kids are sent there from different schools. It doesn’t mean that the teaching is better there.