Reply to Are Fairfax County Alexandria schools better than Alexandria City schools?

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Reply to "Are Fairfax County Alexandria schools better than Alexandria City schools?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Not the PP you’re responding to but I agree with her.  No one said that every school is equal.  You’re focusing on the entire school, not how an individual student will perform.  FCPS isn’t required to provide the most challenging environment for students, they are to educate all kids to a minimum standard set by the government.  That standard is the same across FCPS.  You’re implying that students in the rich areas of FFX are offered better educational opportunities (more challenging opportunities) than those in the poorer area.  That’s simply not the case.  If that were true, you can bet there’d be quite a few lawsuits about it.  While scores may vary, every student in FCPS has the same education opportunities provided by their school.  Every school feeds into an AAP center or has differentiated instruction for those who benefit from greater challenges.  I don’t know why you think higher achieving students are being ignored in favor of lower scoring students.  You don’t seem to have any experience with those kids of schools or know anyone who actually attends them.  All you have is your opinion about poor kids whose families don’t speak English at home.   
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I think the PP did suggest every school was more or less equal.  No doubt FCPS is expected to meet minimum standards in every school.  As to whether the educational opportunities are comparable across-the-board, that's open to debate.  A complaint was recently filed by the NAACP and another group called the "Coalition of the Silence" (headed by a former FCPS School Board member) with the Department of Education specifically alleging that there are "enormous disparities in the quality of Fairfax County schools and the programs offered in these schools" and that "as a result, FCPS has evolved into a system that essentially operates a network of separate and unequal schools."  Do you think these claims, or the circumstances that give rise to them, are lost on parents?  In addition, if students attend schools with higher-achieving peers, who come from families where a high priority is placed on education, that allows teachers to explore materials in greater depth and spend less time worrying about maintaining order in the classroom or seeking to ensure that the students achieve a minimum level of competency.  That may not readily lend itself to a lawsuit, since the teachers and administrators may be doing the best they can, but it provides students at some schools with superior educational opportunities.  This is pretty elementary stuff, no pun intended.  Sometimes there's a reason for the conventional wisdom, after all.

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