Reply to Langley Gives Janie Strauss the Finger

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]
I just wish the amount of time and attention that has been spent on AAP kids would be paid to the General Ed. kids. All the time, resources, and energy goes to the special ed kids and the "advanced" kids. Woe to those in the middle. [/quote]

Yes, it is ironic.  I know of two families that were fighting for inclusion in gen ed for their special education students while they were sending another child to the GT center--this was before the "twice exceptional" label was given and there were no LD kids in the centers.  They wanted their kids with special needs to be in the classroom with my "average" child--but they wanted their "smart" kid to be segregated from the masses.[/quote]
  
Do you see what's happening? All of us homeowners are being pitted against each other, complaining about resources for AAP vs. General vs. Special Ed. We're made to feel ashamed for enjoying what our parents and grandparents have left to us and our children to enjoy.

The real problem is the takers. The Herndon and Springfield and Richmond Highway types are draining FCPS, making them divert instructional resources toward discipline and other non-instructional matters.

What we need to do is outsource the education of these types of kids.
  
For a fraction of what we spend here, we could arrange with the DC or PG County or PW County to take these kids off our hands. We'd be paying tuition on each kid, but we'd save on the various "support services" we have to provide. If we're clever in how we design the routes, we could keep these kids penned up on a 90-minute bus route in each direction, rather than having to grant "financial waivers" to extended day programs or fund any impact on "co-curricular" programming needs.

Plus we'd GAIN especially talented would-be AAP kids. These are kids who would be attending AAP programs, but are afraid of being in class with the Horatio Alger type who "rises up from poverty" or the fields or whatever. Out of the thousands of anchor kids the Strausses welcome to Fairfax, a tiny percentage produces some small # who happen to be particularly bright intellectually. Yet a PALS or CoGAT does not identify how woefully ill-equipped such children are to deal with the social expectations one has for participation in an AAP.

Outsourcing such kids to a place where they feel more comfortable benefits them immensely, and it makes it far more comfortable for a Chesterbrook or Georgetown Day or Congressional or Madeira type to take a chance on a Fairfax County AAP. That in turn builds support from the thought leaders for the property taxes Fairfax charges, as the people who pay the most actually see a benefit to what they pay. Plus you can rent out the empty space you create in say Herndon high school for say light industrial usage, generating a revenue stream that can subsidize the tuition you're paying to outsource those kids.

At this point, we've been happy with our choice to send our children to private school. But FCPS has a lot of potential. With the economic power found in the county, and the political influential scattered about, pockets of Fairfax County can stand tall when compared to any community anywhere. That is, IF the Herndon/Springfield/Richmond Highway problems are resolved. We'd love to redirect our current tuition dollars to fund more fully education savings accounts that can be directed toward their graduate education, as family trusts in the past only recognized a need for a Bachelor's-level education. But FCPS needs to do its share by thinking outside the box, and not wedding itself to the solutions of yesteryear.
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