Fleeing APS schools for FFX County

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We left APS because of the lack of intellectual challenge and the soft, but pervasive, racism.

Where is there racism? This county votes overwhelmingly Democratic and I often see BLM banners in folks’ yards. So I’m puzzled by your comment.

I assume that was tongue-in-cheek. Actions speak louder than words. Take a look at which neighborhoods were moved out of W-L to Wakefield.

You expect white parents to flee their nirvana-like existences in, say, 22207, so their kids can integrate a Arlington schools? I just don’t see this happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Fairfax County and live in Arlington now. Will probably move by elementary. I received a fantastic education in FCPS (including at Marshall HS, which is really a gem). APS seems unwilling or unable to face reality and that scares me.

NP. I'm in the exact opposite boat. Grew up in Arlington and now live in Fairfax. Three kids in elementary school here. My in-laws are in poor health and still live in Arlington, as do my parents. Both sets of parents desperately want us to move back to Arlington, to the point that my parents repeatedly try to get us to move in with them (they have the space and their house is in a very desirable school district). DH and I are not interested in moving back, and the school situation is a big reason why. I loved growing up in Arlington but the problems that APS is facing now have been looming since I was a kid.

To each their own. Both my husband and I graduated from Fairfax County public schools (me from one of the 'best' and he from one of the 'worst') and we aren't leaving APS. The quality of the teachers my kids have had in APS has been the determining factor. I had language teachers in Fairfax that didn't actually speak the language, long term subs who couldn't teach math, gym teachers who bullied and belittled kids unchecked, and on and on. The APS teachers we've had have been, with one or two exceptions, outstanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We came from FFX to APS. I do have some concerns about the need for a fourth HS and Arlington's seeming inability to plan and figure this out. But we moved because of commute, which frankly as mentioned above FFX cannot fix, and we have no plans to leave APS.

In the case of our IEP student, APS has been gobs better. WAY more responsive and helpful. Overall for both kids (IEP and non IEP), the rest of it is remarkably similar to FCPS. All this handwringing seems overwrought. It's basically the same.

Former APS parent here. There are no schools in APS on par with the top tier in FCPS. APS appeals primarily to white people who don’t want their kids challenged too much, especially by Asian kids who excel academically.

Or alternatively, to play off your nonsense, maybe Asians don’t want to go to schools with large Latino populations.

Ding ding. We have a winner.

There are very few middle and high schools in FCPS with large Asian populations that don’t also have substantial numbers of Hispanic kids. But only APS has found the magic formula for repelling Asians while simultaneously perpetuating a large performance gap between the white kids and everyone else (this is why the high schools are now rated so poorly by Great Schools).

Uh, no, Asian immigrant families like big McMansions, not Arlington shitshacks. That (and TJ) are why they live in Fairfax, instead of Arlington. --Signed, child of Asian immigrants.

[Anonymous]

Why are you talking about FCPS when you were students decades ago and assuming things are as you experienced them now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Fairfax County and live in Arlington now. Will probably move by elementary. I received a fantastic education in FCPS (including at Marshall HS, which is really a gem). APS seems unwilling or unable to face reality and that scares me.

NP. I'm in the exact opposite boat. Grew up in Arlington and now live in Fairfax. Three kids in elementary school here. My in-laws are in poor health and still live in Arlington, as do my parents. Both sets of parents desperately want us to move back to Arlington, to the point that my parents repeatedly try to get us to move in with them (they have the space and their house is in a very desirable school district). DH and I are not interested in moving back, and the school situation is a big reason why. I loved growing up in Arlington but the problems that APS is facing now have been looming since I was a kid.

To each their own. Both my husband and I graduated from Fairfax County public schools (me from one of the 'best' and he from one of the 'worst') and we aren't leaving APS. The quality of the teachers my kids have had in APS has been the determining factor. I had language teachers in Fairfax that didn't actually speak the language, long term subs who couldn't teach math, gym teachers who bullied and belittled kids unchecked, and on and on. The APS teachers we've had have been, with one or two exceptions, outstanding.

Sounds like your kids will be through the system before the crunch. Good for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Fairfax County and live in Arlington now. Will probably move by elementary. I received a fantastic education in FCPS (including at Marshall HS, which is really a gem). APS seems unwilling or unable to face reality and that scares me.

NP. I'm in the exact opposite boat. Grew up in Arlington and now live in Fairfax. Three kids in elementary school here. My in-laws are in poor health and still live in Arlington, as do my parents. Both sets of parents desperately want us to move back to Arlington, to the point that my parents repeatedly try to get us to move in with them (they have the space and their house is in a very desirable school district). DH and I are not interested in moving back, and the school situation is a big reason why. I loved growing up in Arlington but the problems that APS is facing now have been looming since I was a kid.

To each their own. Both my husband and I graduated from Fairfax County public schools (me from one of the 'best' and he from one of the 'worst') and we aren't leaving APS. The quality of the teachers my kids have had in APS has been the determining factor. I had language teachers in Fairfax that didn't actually speak the language, long term subs who couldn't teach math, gym teachers who bullied and belittled kids unchecked, and on and on. The APS teachers we've had have been, with one or two exceptions, outstanding.

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Based on what? Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools: admission to UVA and William & Mary. Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS. No discernible difference. But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded? I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.

TJ students are FCPS students, for the most part. Why exclude them?

DP, but the problem is that the presence of TJ makes it hard to truly compare the school systems because you're not comparing truly similarly-situated populations. Families with kids who may qualify for TJ and who want that kind of environment (which isn't all families) will be more likely to move to FCPS to improve their odds of getting in over, say, Arlington. The result of this is not just a concentration of high-achieving students at TJ, but also a greater concentration of high-achieving students at some other FCPS high schools who didn't get into TJ, which makes the student score/profile of these schools better.

FCPS boosters assume that this high-achieving profile at the high school level means FCPS schools are superior, but really it's a classic correlation/causation situation because those high-achieving students would probably be high-achieving in any school system rather than it being the result of some FCPS magic. If FCPS didn't have TJ, FCPS wouldn't have the same draw for those families and they'd probably settle throughout the region in a more balanced fashion, narrowing, if not closing completely, the gaps between the schools (which aren't huge to begin with).

[Anonymous]

And what is really amusing is that you won't have a better chance getting into TJ if you move to Fairfax from Arlington. It is hilarious watching these intellectual "TJ or nothing" parents having to put up with ridiculous commutes just for the non-existent benefit of going to Carson Middle School.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Why the hate for Springfield? Backwater?10 miles from the Pentagon, metro, reasonable housing prices, NGIA, Ft. Belvoir - yeah, just horrible place to live. Yes, the white folks have run away in large numbers, but it is actually a really nice place to live.

I guess I should expect as much on DCUrban Moms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, so AAP is untouchable for dealing with overcrowding, and instead it was better to put kids in an office building whose outdoor space was some four-square grids drawn on a blacktop. Got it.


I don't understand this. What is being described here?
In instances where AAP centers have resulted in overcrowding, FFX has created new AAP centers, redrawn the AAP lines, and also created Level IV programs at feeder schools. AAP has not been "untouchable."


PP has asserted that if FCPS faced the kinds of overcrowding APS is, it would disband choice programs and turn them into expanded neighborhood schools to accommodate more students. AAP is a choice program, and yet when FCPS has faced terrible overcrowding, it hasn't disbanded those programs in order to better manage neighborhood school capacity.

When FCPS considers disbanding TJ to deal with overcrowding, then you can talk about HB Woodlawn.

TJ is a Governor's magnet school that is located in FFX county. It is open to FFX, Loudoun, and Arlington counties (and others who pay into it). They cannot just "disband" it to make room for more in FFX. To compare it to HB Woodlawn is ridiculous and ill-informed. If you live in Arlington, you surely know that some Arlington kids go to TJ.

And I don't know why you continue to cling to this idea that FFX needed to disband AAP to manage overcrowding. All they needed to do, and did do, is open more AAP centers and create more Level IV programs. They've done that, and will continue to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, so AAP is untouchable for dealing with overcrowding, and instead it was better to put kids in an office building whose outdoor space was some four-square grids drawn on a blacktop. Got it.


I don't understand this. What is being described here?
In instances where AAP centers have resulted in overcrowding, FFX has created new AAP centers, redrawn the AAP lines, and also created Level IV programs at feeder schools. AAP has not been "untouchable."


PP has asserted that if FCPS faced the kinds of overcrowding APS is, it would disband choice programs and turn them into expanded neighborhood schools to accommodate more students. AAP is a choice program, and yet when FCPS has faced terrible overcrowding, it hasn't disbanded those programs in order to better manage neighborhood school capacity.

When FCPS considers disbanding TJ to deal with overcrowding, then you can talk about HB Woodlawn.

TJ is a Governor's magnet school that is located in FFX county. It is open to FFX, Loudoun, and Arlington counties (and others who pay into it). They cannot just "disband" it to make room for more in FFX. To compare it to HB Woodlawn is ridiculous and ill-informed. If you live in Arlington, you surely know that some Arlington kids go to TJ.

And I don't know why you continue to cling to this idea that FFX needed to disband AAP to manage overcrowding. All they needed to do, and did do, is open more AAP centers and create more Level IV programs. They've done that, and will continue to do that.

AAP growth is out of control. FCPS has allowed people to push their way into the program and this has degraded the quality of the program. If everyone is special, then no one is special. AAP has really been a way for parents to get their kids out of schools they don't like and this in turn negatively impacts base schools (while the students being pushed into AAP programs aren't super intelligent, they are probably likely to pass the SOLs). So more and more students who can pass the SOLs are removed from the base schools. FCPS has made a monster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Why the hate for Springfield? Backwater?10 miles from the Pentagon, metro, reasonable housing prices, NGIA, Ft. Belvoir - yeah, just horrible place to live. Yes, the white folks have run away in large numbers, but it is actually a really nice place to live.

I guess I should expect as much on DCUrban Moms.

Hey, by all means then, you enjoy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Ah, so AAP is untouchable for dealing with overcrowding, and instead it was better to put kids in an office building whose outdoor space was some four-square grids drawn on a blacktop. Got it.


I don't understand this. What is being described here?
In instances where AAP centers have resulted in overcrowding, FFX has created new AAP centers, redrawn the AAP lines, and also created Level IV programs at feeder schools. AAP has not been "untouchable."


PP has asserted that if FCPS faced the kinds of overcrowding APS is, it would disband choice programs and turn them into expanded neighborhood schools to accommodate more students. AAP is a choice program, and yet when FCPS has faced terrible overcrowding, it hasn't disbanded those programs in order to better manage neighborhood school capacity.

When FCPS considers disbanding TJ to deal with overcrowding, then you can talk about HB Woodlawn.

TJ is a Governor's magnet school that is located in FFX county. It is open to FFX, Loudoun, and Arlington counties (and others who pay into it). They cannot just "disband" it to make room for more in FFX. To compare it to HB Woodlawn is ridiculous and ill-informed. If you live in Arlington, you surely know that some Arlington kids go to TJ.

And I don't know why you continue to cling to this idea that FFX needed to disband AAP to manage overcrowding. All they needed to do, and did do, is open more AAP centers and create more Level IV programs. They've done that, and will continue to do that.

AAP growth is out of control. FCPS has allowed people to push their way into the program and this has degraded the quality of the program. If everyone is special, then no one is special. AAP has really been a way for parents to get their kids out of schools they don't like and this in turn negatively impacts base schools (while the students being pushed into AAP programs aren't super intelligent, they are probably likely to pass the SOLs). So more and more students who can pass the SOLs are removed from the base schools. FCPS has made a monster.

+1. All you have to do is look at the poster here who thinks the whole answer to overcrowding is to expand the AAP program. Speaks volumes about her mindset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX. You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully. But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.

Why the hate for Springfield? Backwater?10 miles from the Pentagon, metro, reasonable housing prices, NGIA, Ft. Belvoir - yeah, just horrible place to live. Yes, the white folks have run away in large numbers, but it is actually a really nice place to live.

I guess I should expect as much on DCUrban Moms.

Hey, by all means then, you enjoy it.

Will do.