Reply to Why is FCPS trying to keep high performing students out of AAP?

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Reply to "Why is FCPS trying to keep high performing students out of AAP?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's mostly to help with optics.  If the top 10% across all schools is in pool, then around 1400 kids are in-pool.  Some number of those kids will be URMs or FARMS.  If they let all 99th percentile kids into the pool, they'd probably end up with 1800 kids in the pool, but few or no extra URMs or FARMS kids.  This would make the in-pool demographics look worse, even though they'd actually be including more kids and not keeping anyone out.

I think the same is somewhat true for AAP admissions.  There is no reason whatsoever to keep kids out who have both high CogAT scores and high achievement scores.  Yet, they do.  My take is twofold:

By keeping some number of qualified white or Asian kids out of AAP, they're making the demographics look better.  As a small example, if 20 Black kids and 80 white/Asian kids are in AAP, it looks better than 20 Black kids and 180 white/Asian kids, even though the exact same number of black kids are being given access.

[b]The other sad reality is that gen ed largely doesn't function without some number of very able kids that the teacher can either ignore or force to act as assistant teachers.  My above grade level in all subjects, gen ed DD only had a reading group with the teacher for 15 minutes every second week in a language arts block that was 2 hours per day.  The teacher wouldn't have had enough time with the below grade level kids if she didn't have an entire group of kids that she was allowed to ignore.  One of the kids in my DD's above grade level reading group spoke fluent Spanish and would constantly be paired with the ESOL kids for projects to act as an assistant ESOL teacher. [/b] [/quote]

The parents of the ignored/assistant teacher delegates should sue FCPS for neglect.  We get that they care about kids that won't pass without massive extra attention, but these kids deserve to progress as well.  [/quote]

How on earth could you prove anything?  Say your kid has in-pool test scores for your school, is above grade level in all subjects, and has a high teacher rating, but your kid still gets rejected.  You then meet with the AART who says that your kid absolutely did deserve to get admitted.  You still have no recourse.  There is no one from the central office who will meet with you and explain why your kid didn't get in.  The only thing you can do is appeal, and if that fails, apply again.  You can't prove that your kid deserved to be admitted, because the party line is that the process is holistic and the selection panel of experts determined that your child's needs could be met in gen ed.

Then, you get the gen ed catch-22:  Your child consistently gets high scores on iready tests and perfect scores on the SOLs.  They can argue that your child is thriving in the gen ed classroom and clearly doesn't need AAP.  If instead your child starts falling off in iready and SOL levels, they can argue that your child is not performing at an AAP level and thus doesn't belong.  If your kid is the first type, and you can show that the teacher is ignoring your child, it would still be difficult to show neglect.  The party line is then that your kid is academically ahead, so the teacher/school/FCPS are doing a great job with your child.  [/quote]

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