Reply to Trump's new educational secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, have a reaching affect on VA Public Schools?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wakefield, according to Niche's information on SAT, ACT, and graduation rate, is most similar to Annandale and West Potomac High School. It has higher scores than Stuart, Lee, Edison, Falls Chuch, and Mount Vernon. It would not  be in the bottom 5% of Fairfax County's schools.[/quote]

Niche somehow manages to be even less of an authority on anything than GSs (consider that their rankings take into account such things as sports, "culture and diversity," clubs and self reported parent/student surveys) and "Falls Chuch" is not FCPS.  So yes-- maybe Yorktown has better Sports teams than than Lee. But more importantly, in terms of SAT scores, Yorktown is second to last among all schools is Northern VA-- only Mt. Vernon is worse. So yeah-- bottom 5%.  West Potomac was 140 points higher and Annandale was 90 points higher. So no-- Wakefield is not "most like these schools."  (And BTW-- both of these schools are considered to be relatively weak within FCPS.  Sending a kid to Annandale is not generally considered to be a great thing.

http://thebullelephant.com/northern-virginia-sat-scores-by-school-for-2016/

Also-- do you prefer the 7-1 shift or the 2-8 shift for your high school student?[/quote]

I only compared SAT, ACT, and graduation rate averages among the schools on niche. I didn't check other resources and perhaps Niche has old data or poor data. The point was that even Arlington's weakest school is not a terrible school compared to the rest of the state and even it's neighboring schools in other counties. Niche rated it highly, so I didn't understand why it is Arlington Public School's fault that Wakefield is not doing well. Wakefield issues are a symptom of the neighborhood it is located in and there are things can be done to improve the neighborhood and the school, but individual charter schools will not fix Wakefield. Yorktown is doing fine (I assume you meant Wakefield) but even Wakefield according to Niche had an 80% graduation rate, 1130 SAT, and 26 ACT. Annandale had an 80% graduation rate, 1170 SAT, and 26 ACT. Falls Church High School (which is in Fairfax County) had a 77% graduation rate, 1140 SAT, and 25 ACT. Stuart had 72% graduation rate, 1140 SAT, and 28 ACT, Lee High School had a 70% graduation rate, 1110 SAT, and 26 ACT. Edison had an 89% graduation rate, 1110 SAT, and 26 ACT. Mount Vernon had an 82% graduation rate, 1060 SAT, and 24 ACT. TC Williams has a graduation rate of 76%, SAT of 1090 and an ACT of 26. Wakefield did better than it's surrounding schools overall according to Niche (even if their SAT data was off) and many of the schools near Wakefield are considered decent and not failing schools. Some people have concerns about Annandale, but it isn't failing. I haven't even checked Prince William, Manassas, or Loudoun but am sure there are some low performing schools there as well, so Wakefield should not end up being the 2nd worse school in NOVA for SAT scores. The national average for SAT's I'm reading is 1462 and Wakefield was 1431. Not that far off.

Have you seen the photos of Detroit schools? Charter schools and public funding for private schools have partially caused this deterioration. Wakefield's issues are much less severe. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2016/01/more_than_100_photos_of_mice_l.html[/quote]

It's unclear where Niche is getting its data from-- but not a reliable source.  It appears SATs and ACTs may be based on self reports. FCPS's and other NOVa's released SATs are linked above-- and again, Wakefield was second to last in NOVA. And no-- neither you nor Niche can choose to disregard one of the three tests that goes into the old SAT score (it looks like the numbers you cite are out of 1600, not 2400).  Graduation rates on Niche are also way, way off (by as much as 10% for some schools).  Check the VA DOE website for the actual numbers. I don't know of anyone who releases reliable ACT scores across NOVA schools in a convenient list form. But I do know for the most recent year Mt. Vernon reported an average ACT score of 23 and TC Williams of 24-- so Wakefield is in pretty sorry company.  And, of course you know that NOVA scores beat ROVA scores, and all of VA scores beat national scores. So doing worse than the national average is a problem for a NOVA school in an affluent jurisdiction.

And yes-- Detroit schools are worse (as are Newark schools, many rural southern schools, many DCPS schools, etc). That does not mean I would send my kid to any of the above.

But mostly, please, please find a better source than Niche, which is less than useless, and frequently downright wrong.

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