Reply to Anyone else educated by FCPS and sees the decline?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I went to FCPS ES-HS with a relatively large cohort of Vietnamese and Iranian refugees. I can’t think of one of my immigrant classmates who struggled to learn English nor do I recall any needing much or any special assistance. All were quickly integrated into the school community and several became my close friends. Notably and with few exceptions, this group ended up being high-achieving, stellar students.

FCPS is now overwhelmed by illegal immigrants and students who arrive here at 16 or older and emancipate themselves. [/quote]

And certain areas have large ESOL populations that are largely uninterested in assimilating because of undocumented individuals in their community or because of the resources/opportunities that already exist within their sub-community.  [/quote]

Vietnamese and Iranian refugees back then were political refugees, not economic migrants. Big difference. I also grew up in a neighborhood which was a destination for families fleeing these countries, by and large they were the children of educated, middle and upper class to wealthy highly skilled professionals (they had servants they weren't servants). The parents weren't illiterate and for the most part, they were fluent in multiple languages including English.

Now that's the first wave of Vietnamese immigrants, the subsequent waves, the "boat people" had issues similar to more modern economic migrants, but they were welcomed and given assistance from the Federal Govt. when they arrived. Their numbers were manageable, and they settled in cities, as per traditional immigrants of the past. And there were maybe a couple hundred thousand a year who were given status, so they worked above the table, but even still these later waves didn't have the same advantages as the first waves, often they were neither educated, financially stable or  proficient English speakers.

Also, immigration has changed, people no longer flock to cities, they often settle in the suburbs. This is true of the wealthier and more advantaged immigrants as well as the poorer less well educated (functionally or entirely illiterate) and they are arriving in big numbers. The Local, State and Fed. Governments need to cough up more money, a lot more money and they need to get creative in ways to bring these kids up much faster than they are doing. Fairfax One is great in theory, but in actuality in order to make it work, you need to make the pie a lot bigger. You need a lot more money for these groups, not the same amount of money, or even proportional amounts, and the outreach needs to not be just through the schools, but community based. But hey who wants to pay more taxes right? Even if a failure to do so means boats get dragged down rather than lifted up. [/quote]

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