Reply to Best elementary schools in Fairfax

Forum Index » Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)

Reply to "Best elementary schools in Fairfax"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is terrible but the truth is to buy into a school with a low FARMS rate. School performance and SES are highly correlated. [/quote]

Great Schools rating and FARMS are correlated, but whether that impacts a particular student is questionable.

Our ES is a 3 because of Great Schools' equity score.  But if you give it any more than a passing glance, you see that white and asian kids are testing at a 9/10 rate and hispanic kids are 1/10.  So, if you are not an English learner, the school is working out very well for you.[/quote]

The outcome is still going to be different because of the level of teaching and the students being taught to. Teachers have to teach to the lowest denominator and the lowest denominator is a lot higher at a low FARMS rate school. So this only works at your school if your child is in the AAP class, but if you compare Gen Ed to Gen Ed, there is a markable difference, even for the white and asian kids. That said, an average white or asian kid is probably more likely to get into AAP at your school than at a high SES school, so maybe that makes up the difference. [/quote]

I have two elementary schoolers and i generally agree with this post. My kids are “bright average”/above average based on standardized tests and grades. We are at a high SES, AAP center school and my kids are in Gen Ed. I am really glad we aren’t at a school where I feel like my kids “have” to be in AAP in order to be challenged and to have a good peer group. There are plenty of bright above average kids in Gen Ed at my kids’ school and they are getting what they need. This is because the vast majority of families at the school care about education regardless of whether their children are gifted or not. I have friends in other parts of the county and they have put a lot of pressure/stress on themselves and their kids to try to get into AAP at schools where they worry that the peer group in Gen Ed is not going to beneficial to their children.

Some people here love to say “oh your kids will be first be at any school in FCPS” because they have kids who are or almost certainly will be in AAP. OP you know your kids and you and your spouse’s academic history best. If your kids aren’t likely to be a lock for advanced academics I do not recommend  a school where most parents who care about education feel that it’s “AAP or bust”.  [/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