the Key/ASFS building switch...

[Anonymous]

Also, people choose where to live for a number of reasons, commute, walkability, diversity (for some of us) besides schools, and I don’t think housing is cheaper in the Jamestown neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county is loaded with disadvantaged ELL school children. Therefore immersion is a NEED.

No, that’s not at all what immersion in APS is about. You know nothing about the immersion program here.

As I parent of two kids who have gone through the immersion program in APS (Key and Gunston), its clearly not an absolute need. But many people want it, it produces superior academic outcomes for both non-English speakers and English speakers, and it doesn't cost more (in terms of dollars) than non-immersion programming. So why wouldn't APS want to continue (and expand) the program if there is demand for it).

Judging by sol scores, I’m not quite sure you can use the word superior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve lived here for ten years, and I know that there are people in the former neighborhood zone that chose ASFS over Key because the demographics at Key were not what they wanted. They believed a lower ranking and a higher FARMS rate made it a worse school, and some of them view Asians as a model
immigrant group, so they’re okay with FARMS students who are Asian, but not Hispanic. They’re not willing to say this in public, but let’s not pretend it isn’t true for some, and that it hasn’t influenced the current situation. Of course, this is not everyone in the former zone,, considering half of the students at Key still come from the neighborhood.

We just know different people— but we should not pretend like this speaks for the entire asfs community or the neighborhood around key. If people wanted a school with demographics like Jamestown, why wouldn’t they just move closer to there? The housing is much cheaper there than in Lyon village or Rosslyn. Why wouldn’t these people have advocated against the swap then since that would have made asfs significantly less diverse ethnically and socioeconomically?
Arguments like this just don’t pass the sniff test. Spread your hate somewhere else.

+1

The only anti-diversity comments I’ve heard were from transfers.

The people close to Key were actively pushing to KEEP the diversity.

[Anonymous]

How is the neighborhood of single family homes around key diverse? It doesn’t seem that way. But I’m willing to look at objective facts. To be sure, the new neighborhood key — and, sorry, the swap is happening, folks — will have some diversity from Rossly lb and wine be lily white.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is the neighborhood of single family homes around key diverse? It doesn’t seem that way. But I’m willing to look at objective facts. To be sure, the new neighborhood key — and, sorry, the swap is happening, folks — will have some diversity from Rossly lb and wine be lily white.

^^ Rosslyn
will be

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is the neighborhood of single family homes around key diverse? It doesn’t seem that way. But I’m willing to look at objective facts. To be sure, the new neighborhood key — and, sorry, the swap is happening, folks — will have some diversity from Rossly lb and wine be lily white.

There aren’t just SFHs around Key.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is the neighborhood of single family homes around key diverse? It doesn’t seem that way. But I’m willing to look at objective facts. To be sure, the new neighborhood key — and, sorry, the swap is happening, folks — will have some diversity from Rossly lb and wine be lily white.

^^ Rosslyn
will be

Lyon village isn’t diverse, but Courthouse/Clarendon/Rosslyn/colonial village are. They are all apartment buildings and pockets of affordable housing. That’s why the demographic/racism argument against the swap makes no sense. The neighborhoods that would have been zoned out of the school are the ones that bring diversity to the school.
If they wanted a lily white school, why wouldn’t they have bought in the areas north of lee highway. That area is 300-4”0k cheaper than Lyon village.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county is loaded with disadvantaged ELL school children. Therefore immersion is a NEED.

No, that’s not at all what immersion in APS is about. You know nothing about the immersion program here.

As I parent of two kids who have gone through the immersion program in APS (Key and Gunston), its clearly not an absolute need. But many people want it, it produces superior academic outcomes for both non-English speakers and English speakers, and it doesn't cost more (in terms of dollars) than non-immersion programming. So why wouldn't APS want to continue (and expand) the program if there is demand for it).

Judging by sol scores, I’m not quite sure you can use the word superior.

I don't have the details, but I am told that the APS has done some long term studies of immersion students has has concluded that they do better (in some way) relative to similarly situated non-immersion students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is the neighborhood of single family homes around key diverse? It doesn’t seem that way. But I’m willing to look at objective facts. To be sure, the new neighborhood key — and, sorry, the swap is happening, folks — will have some diversity from Rossly lb and wine be lily white.

^^ Rosslyn
will be

Lyon village isn’t diverse, but Courthouse/Clarendon/Rosslyn/colonial village are. They are all apartment buildings and pockets of affordable housing. That’s why the demographic/racism argument against the swap makes no sense. The neighborhoods that would have been zoned out of the school are the ones that bring diversity to the school.
If they wanted a lily white school, why wouldn’t they have bought in the areas north of lee highway. That area is 300-4”0k cheaper than Lyon village.

In Maywood? Yeah but far from metro and can’t walk to ambar and feel like a 20 something again while au pair watches kids.

[Anonymous]

It’s true that the Rosslyn/Courthouse neighborhoods brought diversity to the former Key/ASFS zone, and it’s very likely that Rosslyn will be zoned out of whatever neighborhood school they try to put in the Key location when they redraw the boundaries and expand the walk zone. Probably to Taylor (where western Rosslyn already is zoned) or Long Branch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The county is loaded with disadvantaged ELL school children. Therefore immersion is a NEED.

No, that’s not at all what immersion in APS is about. You know nothing about the immersion program here.

As I parent of two kids who have gone through the immersion program in APS (Key and Gunston), its clearly not an absolute need. But many people want it, it produces superior academic outcomes for both non-English speakers and English speakers, and it doesn't cost more (in terms of dollars) than non-immersion programming. So why wouldn't APS want to continue (and expand) the program if there is demand for it).

Judging by sol scores, I’m not quite sure you can use the word superior.

I don't have the details, but I am told that the APS has done some long term studies of immersion students has has concluded that they do better (in some way) relative to similarly situated non-immersion students.

APS has studied it- but the story is more complicated than that. Here is the most recent study- https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/World-Languages-Evaluation-Report-Revised.pdf
the success measures for subjects other than spanish are found starting on page 65.
Basically- for ELL, the scores in 3rd grade are lower than ELL peers in a non-immersion environment. Those that make it to 8th grade appear to be doing better.
For those who are native English speakers- the immersion kids outperform non-immersion kids.
Those that are boosters of immersion take that data and say- look, benefits of bilingual brain, 3rd grade scores no big deal they are learning in two languages - yadayadayada.

Those that are immersion skeptics take that data and say- look, ELL actually do better in non-immersion. Also- that data doesn't account for the tremendous rate of drop out of kids from immersion. Those kids (both native English and native Spanish) who are struggling in school drop out of immersion. The kids that stay are doing well. So of course you would expect the scores to be higher- there is an increasing level of self-selection in the immersion group.

[Anonymous]

APS has studied it- but the story is more complicated than that. Here is the most recent study- https://www.apsva.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Wo...-Evaluation-Report-Revised.pdf
the success measures for subjects other than spanish are found starting on page 65.
Basically- for ELL, the scores in 3rd grade are lower than ELL peers in a non-immersion environment. Those that make it to 8th grade appear to be doing better.
For those who are native English speakers- the immersion kids outperform non-immersion kids.
Those that are boosters of immersion take that data and say- look, benefits of bilingual brain, 3rd grade scores no big deal they are learning in two languages - yadayadayada.

Those that are immersion skeptics take that data and say- look, ELL actually do better in non-immersion. Also- that data doesn't account for the tremendous rate of drop out of kids from immersion. Those kids (both native English and native Spanish) who are struggling in school drop out of immersion. The kids that stay are doing well. So of course you would expect the scores to be higher- there is an increasing level of self-selection in the immersion group.

Thank you for posting this (I am the poster you were responding to). This is definitely a more nuanced set of data, for all of the reasons you note. The most interesting one is the idea that kids who are struggling drop out of immersion. I know some kids don't make the transition from Key to Gunston because of distance, and others drop out of Gunston and head to Swanson for both academic and social reasons. I wonder how they end up doing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for posting this (I am the poster you were responding to). This is definitely a more nuanced set of data, for all of the reasons you note. The most interesting one is the idea that kids who are struggling drop out of immersion. I know some kids don't make the transition from Key to Gunston because of distance, and others drop out of Gunston and head to Swanson for both academic and social reasons. I wonder how they end up doing?

There are a LOT of kids who drop out of immersion before they even finish 5th grade. I think it averages about 30 kids in a grade from 1st-5th grade. We are an immersion family drop out- and I have spoken with a ton of immersion drop out's. I am not aware of any real study that APS has done- in the same report linked above there are some interviews with immersion drop outs- but it is still more anecdotal than true research.
If you look at the research that Dr. Meyers, former Key Principal did- kids with learning issues do as well in immersion as in non-immersion environments- e.g. they do badly both places.
That being said- her research tracked those that continued in immersion, not those that withdrew.
In talking to parents- both who dropped out and who continued on- most will justify their choice.
Teachers frequently encourage the drop out. Again- looking at that study teachers are quoted as saying that kids are in immersion because their parents want them there, not because they want to be there- and they should be allowed to leave. Also, that they should be kicked out after 2nd grade if they don't know enough Spanish. I get the appeal of this thinking- but it leads to more self-selection. A teacher in a neighborhood school could never say to a parent- 'hey, I think you are the one who wants Larla to learn to read, Larla's not that interested and I think Larla would be better off not going to school.'
Also- while this is obviously a generalization, and there are some glaring exceptions- I think the teachers outside of immersion are generally better. The school appears to overlook a lot of mediocre teaching b/c the teacher is bilingual, and that's really hard to find.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is the neighborhood of single family homes around key diverse? It doesn’t seem that way. But I’m willing to look at objective facts. To be sure, the new neighborhood key — and, sorry, the swap is happening, folks — will have some diversity from Rossly lb and wine be lily white.

There aren’t just SFHs around Key.

Uh, that’s why I specifically referred to the neighborhood of sfhs around Key.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for posting this (I am the poster you were responding to). This is definitely a more nuanced set of data, for all of the reasons you note. The most interesting one is the idea that kids who are struggling drop out of immersion. I know some kids don't make the transition from Key to Gunston because of distance, and others drop out of Gunston and head to Swanson for both academic and social reasons. I wonder how they end up doing?

There are a LOT of kids who drop out of immersion before they even finish 5th grade. I think it averages about 30 kids in a grade from 1st-5th grade. We are an immersion family drop out- and I have spoken with a ton of immersion drop out's. I am not aware of any real study that APS has done- in the same report linked above there are some interviews with immersion drop outs- but it is still more anecdotal than true research.
If you look at the research that Dr. Meyers, former Key Principal did- kids with learning issues do as well in immersion as in non-immersion environments- e.g. they do badly both places.
That being said- her research tracked those that continued in immersion, not those that withdrew.
In talking to parents- both who dropped out and who continued on- most will justify their choice.
Teachers frequently encourage the drop out. Again- looking at that study teachers are quoted as saying that kids are in immersion because their parents want them there, not because they want to be there- and they should be allowed to leave. Also, that they should be kicked out after 2nd grade if they don't know enough Spanish. I get the appeal of this thinking- but it leads to more self-selection. A teacher in a neighborhood school could never say to a parent- 'hey, I think you are the one who wants Larla to learn to read, Larla's not that interested and I think Larla would be better off not going to school.'
Also- while this is obviously a generalization, and there are some glaring exceptions- I think the teachers outside of immersion are generally better. The school appears to overlook a lot of mediocre teaching b/c the teacher is bilingual, and that's really hard to find.

Sounds a little bitter.