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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]if all that was true, you'd see test scores- including scores that can be compared across districts like AP and SAT scores- falling in comparison to other districts. You're not because it really doesn't matter because educated parents will have expectations for their kids and those kids will more often than not follow in their parents' footsteps. FCPS bends over backwards trying to fix the achievement gap, but a kid whose parents are doctors or lawyers or who has an ivy educated SAHM is going to do well in school and a kid whose parent's don't have diplomas or who is learning English and math at the same time probably won't. Unfortunately for FCPS, it has very large numbers in both groups so the gap that everyone cares about looks particularly bad  [/quote]

Well, time will tell.  I can't imagine that today's crop of elementary and middle school children, receiving the "lowest common denominator," textbook-free education that FCPS is providing, will do very well on standardized tests in high school.

I agree with some of what you've described -- there are wealthy parents who will, for whatever reason, keep their kids in FCPS while supplementing their education with tutors, extracurricular learning opportunities, etc., and those kids will do well.  But I expect that many wealthy families in this demographic will pull their kids out of FCPS as the quality of education continues to decline (and as the discipline and safety issues continue to degrade due to politicized issues like "disproportionate discipline") and that this will exert downward pressure on test scores and other metrics of achievement.

There are the students at the other end of the achievement gap, to whom FCPS will continue to devote the bulk of its resources, but the result will continue to be low-achievement and possibly worse achievement, as the discipline situation continues to degrade.

But the real damage will be caused by those parents in the middle -- the ones who aren't going to keep their kids in FPCS while trying to supplement FCPS's deficiencies with costly tutors, private instruction, and other such extracurricular activities.  They will just pull their kids out -- move, send them to Catholic school, or do whatever it takes to flee the sinking ship that is FCPS.  These students are the worst-affected -- they are ignored by FCPS because they don't fit anyone's political hot-button categories, but their parents can't buy their way out of FCPS's lowest common denominator approach to education.  This is where you'll see the bottom drop out.  [/quote]

Thank-you NJ for your posts; both are eloquently said and honestly should be stickied on these threads. Regarding discipline, it is definitely true that continuing to avoid it by applying lax or no measures will eventually lead to terrible learning outcomes. We are already seeing this 20 minutes away across the river in MCPS, a large school system in Maryland. From everything I've read and heard, even ok schools in nice areas such as Rockville are becoming affected by the inability to allow teachers to teach. Parents have realized this and have made plans to escape the illusion that MCPS is still one of the nation's top school systems. It's clear that FCPS seems to be following suit.[/quote]

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