Reply to FCPS's "reduced quality of public education due to the illegal situation"

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Reply to "FCPS's "reduced quality of public education due to the illegal situation""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]For those of you who deny that being in school with poor kids from uneducated families,[/b] my personal experience (from 40+ years ago) reveals the truth:

My parents lived in a nice middle-class area, and I was sent to the assigned school. We had "tracking" (the gifted program), and I was in the top track from grade 1 through grade 4. I was challenged and loved school.

Then they re-drew the district line, and my house "missed" the nice middle class school by one block. I was diverted to the poorer school, despite my parents trying to fight it (I didn't understand why at the time), and transferred to the poor school (kids with uneducated parents) in fifth grade. They were learning the math that I had mastered in 2nd grade! They were reading books that I read at age 7! Then it was on to the poor junior high school. These kids were not academic (to put it mildly) and bullied the "smart" kids who took their studies seriously. It was horrible. I learned the material, but it was boring, and I hatred school.

My parents moved to a new neighborhood, and more expensive house, just as I entered high school. There I met the same kids that I knew from my first elementary school (grades 1 - 4). They were light years ahead of me! After years of straight As, I brought home BS and Cs. After a year, I had caught up, went back to my high grades, and went on to college and grad school. But if my parents hadn't moved and I remained in the poor school, I would have gone to a mediocre college - if that.

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No one is denying that schools with high FARMs/ESOL struggle. The point was that you can't blame it all on [i]illegal[/i] immigration. People from all income-levels - including those here legally - move to the DC area for the job opportunities. The issue is that the low-income housing is all concentrated in pockets rather than being spread out more evenly across the area. If the schools across the area reflected the area demographics then many more schools would be thriving. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution for this. Rich Bs in McLean (who pretend to be accountants) don't want affordable housing near them and would fight like crazy to keep it out.

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You do realize that a large number of people living in low cost housing in McLean are Asians who have pooled their family money so that kids could get on the track through Longfellow MS to TJ.  Failing that they could still go to top performing McLean and Langley High Schools.  [/quote]

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