Reply to FCPS High School prestige ranking

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS attends one of the 4th tier, low prestige schools. The school sent lots of kids to UVA, VT, W&M this year, as they do every year, plus a number get into Ivies, MIT, CMU, UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, Duke, Hopkins, etc.

So your “prestige” rankings are meaningless. Or maybe they even work against you, if you believe colleges have “quotas” from each high school.

Nobody cares what high school you went to. And a few years after you graduate from college, nobody will care what college you went to.[/quote]

Capable students from below average HS’s CAN do well. The college acceptances at ACHS for example are often really strong.

The problems are as follows: 1, this is not as much an issue in FCPS as our schools are larger. But some smaller, low income HS will not be able to offer many, if any, AP classes (or IB or whatever). This leaves students at a huge disadvantage when it comes to college readiness. They simply aren’t ready for a demanding college class having had only general education math/English up to what you might be tested on in a standardized state test. 2, people worry about what their kids might be exposed to in terms of fights and behavior at a lower SES school. 3, adults at low SES schools perpetuate a more restrictive, punitive environment on the kids. There is little to no trust from adults to students. There are more punishments and the school environment feels very negative. 4, a kid who is borderline - intelligent and capable but vulnerable to a “bad crowd,” and there are lots of teens like this - will be lifted up by a higher income, higher education, rule following peer group, but potentially brought down by low achievers and peers/parents who don’t emphasize attendance and achievement. Not as much an issue if your kid is more self-motivated, but not all kids are, some need more help to be kept on the straight and narrow as impressionable teens.

Obviously a really smart kid can stand out a lot at a lower SES HS. But students who are just average or even “above average” good students will fall through the cracks in a big way because the admin’s emphasis will be on the larger population of at risk kids. [/quote]

This statement is more speculative of what life is like at a smaller, low-income school, rather than what actually happens.

1. All FCPS schools must offer advanced courses. Perhaps one school offers more niche advanced courses, like AP Music Theory, but that does not negate the fact that one can take advanced courses and be prepared for college regardless of what high school. (And as many have pointed out on this forum, those at the "tier 4" schools can go on to successfully attend "tier 1" colleges.)

2. This is working off the assumption that lower-income students are fighting, doing drugs, members of MS-13, etc. On the contrary, many of the kids at the "tier 4" school my child attends are actually working part time in their spare time while also juggling school. They take their future seriously, they have to work harder to pay for things like college, and no, they're not MS-13.

3. This is working off the assumption that the teachers at the lower-income schools are of poor quality and lacking in empathy, while the "richer" schools draw the best teachers out there. That's a cruel statement to make regarding the teachers at those schools. I can say from first-hand experience that my child at a "tier 4" school has encountered wonderful, supportive teachers.

4. See point 2. Again, you're working off the assumption that poor equals MS-13 or the like. You're also assuming that rich equals well-behaved, and that's not always the case.

I do tire of how some parents on this forum continually tear down schools in this county with wild hyperbole. Maybe it helps those parents feel better about pouring so much money into real estate? They don't want to believe that someone paying less in property taxes could also have a child receive a strong, well-rounded high school education and go on to a competitive college?

Let me just say it's okay for you to buy the super expensive house. If that's what you feel your kid needs, you do you. You don't need to reassure yourself by putting down the successful kids in other schools.[/quote]

Add to this, your highly motivated student will have more leadership opportunities at tier 4 schools. [/quote]

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