Reply to What do I need to know about the Fairfax County School Board?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was interested in the suggestion that the FARMS enrollment in FCPS is spiraling out of control, or that this could be due in any way to School Board policies.

Turns out that the growth in the FARMS percentage in FCPS over the past 15 years has been lower than in the state of Virginia as a whole.  Loudoun is the only public school system of any size in Virginia with a lower FARMS rate than Fairfax.  Changes in the FARMS eligibility formulas may have something to do with the increase as well.  Families currently can have incomes that are 185% of the poverty level and qualify for assistance.

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Needs Based Staffing is current FCPS policy that allocates more resources (teachers, support staff and administrators - funding) to schools based on their FARMS percentage.  The changes in County population demographics are what they are, but these changes reflect in changing allocation of limited funds and resources between schools.  The School Board also determines whether and how to fund other identified needs.  As an example, spending on General Ed students has actually fallen (in inflation adj terms) over the past 5 years while spending on SpecEd and ESOL students has increased over the same period (all on a per pupil basis) - in large part a futile attempt to address the "achievement gap" (and to be responsive to organized groups advvocating and promoting special interests).  The allocation of funds as between the many programs and segments (GenEd, SpecEd, ESOL, AAP, AP, IB, TJHSS, arts, science, transportation, sports etc) is very much the purview of the School Board.  These allocations and entitlements, and seeking more pay and benefits for teachers, staff and administrators, are largely what challenges the School Board.  The net result is that increasing FARMS enrollment, under current FCPS policies, is diverting significant funds, and this is becoming more widely understood and advocates are devising and implementing actions to protect and advance their interests and concerns.  Normal stuff...[/quote]

Addressing the needs of the less privileged is neither futile nor a "diversion" of funds.  It's doing what we, as a society, need to do to educate the adults of the future.[/quote]

Allow me to be more precise - I intended to use "futile" in the sense that it has not worked - i.e. the "achievement gap" has not been closed.  I didn't mean to express an opinion on whether this effort is appropriate or not - rather to note that it has not been effective to date.  I stand by the use of "diversion" as funds that are used for one purpose cannot be used for another - the School Board is diverting or allocating funds from one need to another all the time.  As to the assertion of what "we, as a society, need to do" - this is determined by the political process and is what we argue about and advocate for in the discussions on this forum, elect our representatives to do, write letters, speak up at PTA etc.  You have your opinion and I have mine - I didn't share mine here but simply described how the School Board is allocating funds under current policies and noted the lack of success to date in one particular effort.

I don't know what "addressing the needs of the less privileged" means to you - how do you determine privilege?  simply by money, skin color, facility with languages or a musical instrument, languages, trips to Disney World, number of shoes in the closet?  Seriously, how can we use this to determine how to spend real money and design programs to educate our kids?  Is it more appropriate to spend money on certain kids than others?  How do you make that decision - largest return for the investment? responding to the most vocal advocacy group? favoring those who are poor - or rich?

There are a lot of buzzwords bantered around in favor of some program or another - part of the political process of shaming, enticing, building group loyalties, creating constitutencies to secure funding for special interests.  My view is that resources should be allocated carefully, evaluated often and honestly and allocated elsewhere or differently if the  anticipated results are not achieved.  In this way, we can make progress in achieveing the aim of educating each child to the maximum of their individual potential in the most efficient way possible.
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The "achievement gap," as that term is generally understood, has not been eliminated, but that does not mean that it has not been narrowed, at least in some schools, or that it might not be wider were less money spent in classrooms with larger numbers of ESOL, FARMS and non-Asian minority students.

Obviously, money spent in one area cannot be spent in a different area, at least not if FCPS wants to balance its books.  I don't want to get into any more semantics than are necessary, but the term "diverted" does have a different tone than "allocated," which you apparently believe is a synonym.

I also remain skeptical of the frequency with which you use terms like "special interests," at least without a clearer acknowledgment on your part that the most vocal, and most successful, "special interest" groups within FCPS have been those supporting AAP and the continued designation of TJHSST as a state governor's school with a limited enrollment, not those advocating for low-income and/or minority students.

If you want to benchmark performance, the academic performance of white and Asian students in FCPS is probably the easiest benchmark, because they are the most economically heterogeneous groups within the county (there are very few low-income whites in FCPS, and low-income Asians are mostly in a few pockets of Falls Church and Springfield).  It is quite strong, despite the occasional suggestions that "average" or "typical" kids (and we know that usually means "average white kids") are somehow getting the shaft in FCPS.  [/quote]

You make a lot of assertions and assumptions - but please provide some comprehensive data that shows the "achievement gap" (however defined) has been substantively addressed by FCPS policies.[/quote]

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