Reply to South Arlington and North Arlington Schools

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "South Arlington and North Arlington Schools"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Assume the AH has to go on the Pike or nowhere (I understand this is far from the case, but political obstacles may make this the practical reality). Then the choice is between giving these families a place to live or preserving a lower FARMs rate.  I assume the lower income families are ok with schools with higher FARMs rate if the alternative is no housing.  For those who can afford a house, they only experience the fluctuation in FARMs rates and don't feel the threat of no housing.  In a world of imperfect choices, I can see why voice is prioritizing housing, with the impact on schools being secondary.[/quote]

This is the deep philosophical divide. It's literally the billion dollar question, because that's what we are talking about.
Yes, if you subscribe to VOICE's thinking housing is the first and foremost. Giving those in need a stable home fixes The other probelms. Those children will perform better in school and that is enough because it's better than nothing.
They aren't really wrong. 
However, we can't house every family without means that wants to live in Arlington. How many middle class families would have liked to live in Arlington and couldn't afford to make it work? I'm sure they'd like shorter commutes to their jobs and more time at home with their kids too. 
I don't see how having almost 1 in 5 arlingtonians receiving government assistance to live is a realistic goal. The county is choosing winners and losers in these housing lotteries and it's not particularly fair to anyone. If we are going to play that game, why not set the targets a little lower and do a  better job. Provide better services and not screw over the people who are footing the bill, because that is what is happening. 
The highest percent hike in assessments this last go around was in the 22204 area code. They saw percentage tax increases in the teens and have the worst schools. These younger families didn't pay 125k to move into these neighborhoods. It's hard to hear older neighbor's wax on about the importance of affordabiliy in our neighborhoods and then smugly gloat that their children went to bishop oconnel and their unrenovated home is worth 750k now.
We all know that the cost of living and housing has not kept pace. It's awesome that a GS 12 dad with a sahm could do private schools 30 years ago.... How nice for them. 
There has been talk that if the middle class families would only send their kids to the local school and not choice out ( which is getting harder and harder btw) this problem would be solved.
Where would they sit in these schools that are over crowded right now? 
APS is playing a shell game as it is trying to shoehorn in these kids. The current planned schools will still be behind once they are completed.

So the question is : what's it worth to you? Is getting more people who need help into our county worth your kid's education? Is it worth your taxes and monthly bill? 
For some people the answer is unequivocally yes. I admire those people. I admire them less when they don't have a kid sitting in those classrooms and they didn't get a nosebleed when they took on a present day Arlington mortgage.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics