Reply to South Arlington elementary school boundary adjustments 2019

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think one of the sad things in these conversations that no matter that options are being offered we are really just talking about diluting the effect of lower income/ESOL/at risk kids scores on the overall scoring of the school. None of these suggestions have been made on how to improve education for these kids. If the kids at Randolph were suddenly moved to Tuckahoe and the kids from Tuckahoe were moved to Randolph the scores would just flip. The former Randolph kids wouldn't start magically performing better.

Is there any realistic situation or idea to better address the educational needs of these kids. I am not saying I have any real ideas, just wondering if anyone else does. [/quote]

You are not correct.

Majority poor schools impact every student’s perfornance. 
So, the 6 middle class kids sitting in a room of 20 very poor children? Their scores go down. I know people don’t want to hear that, but it’s reflected on the SOLS at Randolph.
If you flip that script and have 6 poor children in a room of 20? All kids do better. 
So switching schools doesn’t help, but integrating actually does. 
The very best think for the extremely immigrant families? Put them in majority middle class schools.,
But nobody wants that. Not the uneducated poor families. Not the highly educated wealthy families.

Oh you’re middle class and are ok with it? Cool. Move to Fairfax.[/quote]

So the only answer to solving the problem is to mix up schools. I am fine with that, but even if you look high performing schools there is still an achievement gap. It helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. For what it is worth, I am a S. Arlington parent with a kid in a choice school, school has a good economic mix IMO, but disadvantage kids still lag behind (by a lot). So not as simple as mixing things up.

I just feel that there should be some other option out there that really truly helps these kids, but maybe I am wrong. [/quote]

There is. Carlin Springs has it. It's called community schools and from as near as I can tell, it's basically a suite of wraparound social services that use the school as the delivery site. Not sure why Randolph doesn't get the same. Costs too much I guess.

Really yawning achievement gaps are a problem, but at some point, a public elementary school can only do so much. UMC families have been spending more and more on their children's enrichment nationally over the last several decades. A lot of high schoolers don't even have summer jobs anymore; they've better things to do than guard a pool or wait tables ... although the test scores offer some objective yardstick, I guess, the gap is more a case of the well to do pulling up and away in performance using private resources like preschool,  test prep and tutors as it is poor children falling behind. Most of all, its pre kindergarten enrichment. Unless you get into a means tested preschool program, you'd better have a lot of dough. Private preschool is another mortgage, but it works. Kids who go to preschool are prepared to succeed in kindergarten and their advantage compounds as they get older.[/quote]

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