Reply to South Arlington and North Arlington Schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote][b]It's not that the education isn't equal, in the sense that the facilities and the resources and the quality of the teachers is the same in all schools across Arlington. What's different is--what the teachers have to spend time in class focusing on, what kinds of opportunities the kids have (funding for after school activities, parent support for various clubs, etc.), what the general tenor of the school is. My kids go to schools in south Arlington and the stuff that we get from the schools and the stuff the parents talk about is different from north Arlington schools. We get flyers about sending in food [/b]for backpacks for kids who would otherwise go hungry on the weekends. [b]Other schools send home flyers about enrichment activities and academic competitions. [/b]The focus at our middle school seems to be on getting kids to pass and stay in school through high school graduation--it emphasizes "career" readiness as much as "college" readiness. If I have a kid who I want to go to college, he is missing out somewhat by not being immersed in a culture where college is the expectation. We just don't hear about certain opportunities, because the teachers and the other parents don't know about them or don't focus on them. If the schools were less segregated economically, you wouldn't have this kind of divide, but the board is unwilling to implement more choice schools or drastically redraw the boundaries to get this kind of change. [/quote]

[quote=Anonymous][b]10:48 gets it. Have had kids in schools  north & south. Speaking only for my middle class kids (And my family was not afraid of the 50% ++ FARMS school that we attended for 5 years), the difference in the learning environment & opportunities in class & out are night & day.[/b] It's a shame that VOICE & Mary Hynes don't want to pursue that for less affluent kids. They will at least  get adequate schools though. And that seems To be all the VOICE advocates in S. Arl want. [/quote]

I think you two are right on the money.  
It is NOT that the schools themselves or the teachers are different at all, it is the environment, the feel of the school, expectations, and activities offered through the PTA ....
And that stems solely from an unequal and disproportionate socioeconomic distribution at the respective schools.
IF there was a more even distribution, I think it would lift all the schools, without causing any negatives in the highest SES schools.

I would be interested in more concrete examples from the PP who had kids in schools in different (neighborhood?) schools in Arlington!  And I'd like to hear from that PP, if your experiences were in elementary school, vs. middle and high school (if applicable).  Thanks!

Regardless, overcrowding is a serious issue in ALL of Arlington, at every school level, and any "Affordable Housing plan" that aims to add thousands and thousands of new kids that need assistance into the county is unconscionable at this point.

[/quote]
Thank you for compiling the above posts. Agree with all of the above.[/quote]

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