Reply to Arlington magazine - Public school exodus cover

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just can't get super worked up about this.    A bunch of things going on.  A huge factor is Arlington is getting wealthier and wealthier.   More people CAN afford private school than ever before.  Covid, some left and won't ever come back.   And yes, the equity dog whistle.   [google]There is a lot of misrepresentation I see on this board about how there is no homework (not true), no one is allowed to fail any more (not true), everyone gets an A (not true), no rigorous content for more advanced students (not true), blah, blah.  High school is plenty rigorous in APS if your student is capable and on that track.  Intensified content is back in middle school.  And if you want your kid pulled out for gifted services in APS, well we never did that so move to Fairfax and enjoy all that comes with that.[b]

Many kids are still going public in Arlington and my genuine reaction is I'm glad for anyone to leave.  More space for my kids and I hope it siphons off the more extreme wealth, which I don't want my kids around anyway.[/quote]

Exactly. People misrepresenting probably don’t even have kids in APS.

[/quote]

Did you see the link I posted regarding writing at APS. We need to stop denying that there are issues. Most grads are unprepared for college. This is a country wide issue and Arlington is not immune.[/quote]

I’m a DP and I read it.  Thank you for posting this.  I am grateful to hear these perspectives.  It is beyond unacceptable that students are reporting they were never assigned a research paper during their entire time at APS.  To this day I can remember some of the research papers I was assigned in my (excellent) public high school.  My first research paper was assigned in 5th grade.  We had a unit on using the library for research and we all had to write a 2 page paper.  I’m not sure if we should expect research papers from 5th graders, but by high school it should be standard for all English and History classes.

How in the world is this not happening?  Is the student wrong?  [/quote]

That student is wrong, perhaps not about their individual experience, but it’s not the norm. My kids definitely have done them in ES, maybe they’re not called that, but they’ve had writing assignments that are age-appropriate “research papers.” And same for MS, obviously a lot closer to a real research paper at that point.

I do think the writing curriculum is lacking, but I think that’s a problem at the National level, and even when I was in college, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, my ENG professors complained that none of their students could write a good paper. I don’t know what the answer is, but it might have something to do with public school teachers largely having education degrees, while private school teachers often have other degrees, like English, for example. You can’t major in English without learning how to write well, and you can’t teach how to write if you can’t do it well yourself. [/quote]

Given the fact that ELA staff believe that that APS’ writing program is dismal and are working to improve it, and the ELAAC committee believe the same (see their recommendations), and Dr Duran seemingly agreed with the ELAAC committee during their presentation, the students are most likely not wrong. [/quote]

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