Anonymous wrote:FCPS under Michelle Reid views transparency as getting in the way of equity. So FCPS is no longer disclosing (at least not on a timely basis) data that used to be disclosed every year, such as:

- SAT scores by school (school-wide or disaggregated by race/ethnicity);
- Admissions to TJ by middle school; and
- Racial/ethnic data for individual schools

Instead, we should all pretend every school is the same, where all outcomes will be the same, and that no data can be shared without "contextualizing" it so that the stupid FCPS parents understand how exactly Reid and her staff want everyone to interpret it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS under Michelle Reid views transparency as getting in the way of equity. So FCPS is no longer disclosing (at least not on a timely basis) data that used to be disclosed every year, such as:

- SAT scores by school (school-wide or disaggregated by race/ethnicity);
- Admissions to TJ by middle school; and
- Racial/ethnic data for individual schools

Instead, we should all pretend every school is the same, where all outcomes will be the same, and that no data can be shared without "contextualizing" it so that the stupid FCPS parents understand how exactly Reid and her staff want everyone to interpret it.

They need to be spanked by the SCOTUS very soon.

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS under Michelle Reid views transparency as getting in the way of equity. So FCPS is no longer disclosing (at least not on a timely basis) data that used to be disclosed every year, such as:

- SAT scores by school (school-wide or disaggregated by race/ethnicity);
- Admissions to TJ by middle school; and
- Racial/ethnic data for individual schools

Instead, we should all pretend every school is the same, where all outcomes will be the same, and that no data can be shared without "contextualizing" it so that the stupid FCPS parents understand how exactly Reid and her staff want everyone to interpret it.

They need to be spanked by the SCOTUS very soon.

Anonymous wrote:The School Board has been a disaster over the past four years, but most people don't pay attention and tend to vote a party line. Then they wonder why their schools are kind of a mess and/or their kids aren't getting as rigorous an education as they'd hoped, but then tend to either suck it up or pull their kids out of FCPS.

Realistically, the real pressure on the School Board will come eventually from the Board of Supervisors. They are also mostly from the same party and can see that the School Board is flailing. To some extent, they don't want to get involved with FCPS matters, because then it becomes their mess as well, but some know that FCPS was once a big draw for the county and that's no longer the case.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The School Board has been a disaster over the past four years, but most people don't pay attention and tend to vote a party line. Then they wonder why their schools are kind of a mess and/or their kids aren't getting as rigorous an education as they'd hoped, but then tend to either suck it up or pull their kids out of FCPS.

Realistically, the real pressure on the School Board will come eventually from the Board of Supervisors. They are also mostly from the same party and can see that the School Board is flailing. To some extent, they don't want to get involved with FCPS matters, because then it becomes their mess as well, but some know that FCPS was once a big draw for the county and that's no longer the case.

We need a Republican Party in Fairfax County that is serious about the business of governing. We're long past being able to have that across the country, but there are enough sensible conservatives in Northern Virginia that we should end up with better candidates than Harry Jackson and Debbie Tisler and Saundra Davis. The Fairfax County GOP - at least based on their Twitter account and their endorsements - seems to be obsessed with being as Trumpy as possible when that tack has been proven repeatedly to be unsuccessful in this area. Fairfax County is not a place to appeal to the lowest common denominator and we should demand better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS under Michelle Reid views transparency as getting in the way of equity. So FCPS is no longer disclosing (at least not on a timely basis) data that used to be disclosed every year, such as:

- SAT scores by school (school-wide or disaggregated by race/ethnicity);
- Admissions to TJ by middle school; and
- Racial/ethnic data for individual schools

Instead, we should all pretend every school is the same, where all outcomes will be the same, and that no data can be shared without "contextualizing" it so that the stupid FCPS parents understand how exactly Reid and her staff want everyone to interpret it.

They need to be spanked by the SCOTUS very soon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The School Board has been a disaster over the past four years, but most people don't pay attention and tend to vote a party line. Then they wonder why their schools are kind of a mess and/or their kids aren't getting as rigorous an education as they'd hoped, but then tend to either suck it up or pull their kids out of FCPS.

Realistically, the real pressure on the School Board will come eventually from the Board of Supervisors. They are also mostly from the same party and can see that the School Board is flailing. To some extent, they don't want to get involved with FCPS matters, because then it becomes their mess as well, but some know that FCPS was once a big draw for the county and that's no longer the case.

We need a Republican Party in Fairfax County that is serious about the business of governing. We're long past being able to have that across the country, but there are enough sensible conservatives in Northern Virginia that we should end up with better candidates than Harry Jackson and Debbie Tisler and Saundra Davis. The Fairfax County GOP - at least based on their Twitter account and their endorsements - seems to be obsessed with being as Trumpy as possible when that tack has been proven repeatedly to be unsuccessful in this area. Fairfax County is not a place to appeal to the lowest common denominator and we should demand better.

To be fair, many conservatives see public service as beneath them.