Reply to Husband taking a job in Springfield, VA -- where to live?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Wow, do people really try to intentionally avoid schools where there are poor kids? I don't have elementary aged children of my own, so I guess I am clueless, but I'm surprised.[/quote]

ABSOLUTELY!  It's a rough substitute for kids who are not bringing a lot of academic experience to the classroom, don't have a stable/loving/disciplined home environment, need more time/attention/services to stay at grade level, etc., etc.

Yes, I said it's a ROUGH estimate, but the test scores nationally and within a school bear this out.  Also, the "cultural" environment of the school is usually tougher/rouger if the percentage of FARMs is higher.  [/quote]

I live in the Franconia/Rose Hill area of Alexandria (Fairfax County, NOT Alexandria City) and you're probably talking about a school like ours (Rose Hill, Twain, Edison).  There is NOTHING 'rough' about any of these schools.  I bet the graduation rate, SAT scores and percentage of graduates attending high education for any of the schools you classify as "rough" signficantly exceed those of most midwestern schools.  Does Langley have fewer FARM kids and high scores than Edison?  Certainly!  But, from my perspective as a transplant from a homogenous farming community in the midwest, there isn't a single Fairfax County school that I would avoid.  I'm not buying into the hysteria many people on this forum have about poor people, minorities and test score.  I hope OP doesn't buy into it either.

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I know the area well (I'm the poster you quoted) and yes, if I had a choice, I'd take Orange Hunt over Rose Hill.  I do know someone whose two children went to Rose Hill and later went to TJ -- so it obviously didn't hurt them b/c they are uber smart and come from uber smart, educated parents.  However, the facts are the facts.  I said it was a ROUGH estimate.  And no, to the poster who asked about mingling with a "few" FARMs kids --- I have not problem with that or those kids.  I do have a problem with schools that have 25, 35, 50% FARMs kids.  It does make a difference.  The upside is that if your school is that high on the FARMs percentages, it might be a title I school and they get tons of extra federal funding so that instead of 30 kids in a class (that has low FARMs numbers) those Title 1 schools end up with 18 kids in a class.... in which case, your above average kid may just get a lot of attention.  But, on the whole, kids who come from non-poverty (I'm not talking about richy rich here), are going to be better prepared, have better vocabularies, more experiences to share and simply be able to move along further in the class, which benefits every kid in the class.... not all learning comes from the teacher.

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