Reply to If ATS is so popular, why not create two of them?

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Reply to "If ATS is so popular, why not create two of them?"

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[quote=Anonymous]ATS, like many Arlington schools has a Twitter account and so does the principal, Vice-Principal and many of the teachers. It’s a great way to get a glimpse of what the school is about.

The last principal Holly Hawthorne, told Dr Duran to treat ATS at the control school when she refused to implement standard based grading. If other schools want to implement new methods they can go ahead. But ATS will stick to traditional methods of instruction. And guess what? Time and time again ATS was proven to be right. In the 70s when classrooms without walls was the new thing, ATS stuck to classrooms with walls. Well turns out classrooms without walls were so disruptive that APS went back to walls. Then balanced literacy and whole language became a thing. So all schools switched to balanced literacy and whole language while ATS stuck to phonics. Well years later the science of reading advocates proved that structured literacy is key and that balanced literacy and whole language is actually harmful. Now APS finally got rid of balanced literacy and is moving to a structured phonics based curriculum. At the same time there was a push away from teacher led direct instruction that was content rich and towards inquiry based learning. Again the science proved that inquiry based learning is ineffective and that students need a content rich curriculum in order to develop their vocabulary and to understand what they are reading. ATS stuck to a content rich curriculum (teachers developed units for each year and those units were content rich and cumulative). Now of course APS has recognized that a content curriculum is key to closing the opportunity gap (kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do not have access to the knowledge base that richer kids do) so they start kindergarten with with much lower vocabulary. So this year APS finally adopted CKLA which is content rich. ATS has proven to be correct time and time again. What’s the next fad? Standards Based Grading. ATS stood their ground and refused to implement it for the upper grades. I’m pretty sure that eventually ATS will be proven right. [/quote]

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