Reply to Arlington Has A Drug Problem - From Middle School to High School to Our Community at Large

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Arlington Has A Drug Problem - From Middle School to High School to Our Community at Large"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Correction:  Arlington has a drug problem and is trying to do something about it.  The other surrounding jurisdictions continue to hide their heads in the sand on this issue.
[/quote]

I'm sure it's very uncomfortable for Arlington residents to see their dirty laundry constantly aired.

Even so, it's debatable whether other jurisdictions have issues similar to those at Yorktown, which in part reflect what happens when you concentrate wealthy white students in a school that also loses many of the kids who otherwise would be the top academic performers to other schools and jurisdictions (to W-L for IB, and APS as a whole does not attract the motivated Asian kids like FCPS). [/quote]

Do we really know that the issue is especially bad at Yorktown (and Williamsburg), or is it possible that it's getting more attention there because the parents there get more attention when they're vocal and, to be perfectly honest, there's a non-trivial portion of the population that is shocked when well-off white kids get into drugs but treat it as expected and thus unworthy of note when poor black kids do it?[/quote]

You got it a bit backwards. Most evidence shows use rates are similar between black and white kids (although which drug varies with income).  Evidence also shows that on average, the black kids get harsher, less forgiving penalties when caught.[/quote]

I didn't say anything about the punishments kids get for getting caught. I'm talking about the amount of attention incidents receive from the community when they happen, and how that may affect the public perception of the extent of the problem. If an arrest happened at Yorktown and one happened at Wakefield, would the community give the arrests the same amount of attention and show the same degree of concern for the students at both schools, or would the one at Yorktown get more attention because people are shocked that a white kid from a "good home" got into trouble with drugs and think it's a sign we need to put more resources into helping them while the Wakefield one gets a shrug because "What do you expect from kids like that? Their parents need to do better."[/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