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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think you need to read some of the threads about ASFS if you're contending that it's a special program that the rest of us are being unfairly deprived of.  The immersion programs have a lottery etc., but could stand to establish a third school to accomodate growing demand. [b] Are you saying everyone in the north has an automatic in to these programs and everyone in south arlington is edged out???[/b]  If you look at the school by school transfer reports, I'm pretty sure that's not the case with most if not all of the choice schools.  I thought the bigger complaint and what has inspired so much debate is the concentrated high-density housing on the Pike (and proposed in the future for the Pike) that disproportionately overwhelms south arlington schools.  That is a valid and serious complaint and one that, as others have noted, goes to housing policy and establishing better coordination between the county and APS to insure that we've got adequate infrastructure in place.  It's not a schools issue in the first instance.  Getting into the nuanced differences between schools like ASFS and the rest of the elementary schools is kind of silly and not how the bigger problems will be solved.  I also think you're more likely to get county-wide support for addressing the real problems by not leading with criticism of how great everyone in north arlington has it and how unfair it is that they've got schools like ASFS.  That alienates people who would otherwise be on board to really address these questions because they think you're complaining about trivial distinctions between schools.  Find the common ground, which is capacity and nurturing and expanding rather than dismantling special programs, and start there.  Just a suggestion.[/quote]

I should have been more clear.  No I am not saying this, at all.  What I am saying is that many choice schools are no longer options at all, because of the tiered lottery system currently in place.  "Area" choice schools have supplanted countywide choice schools.  This means that some neighborhoods have preference over others, and given the capacity crisis in both N and S Arlington, many lotteries are not open to students living outside the preferred boundary. The only true countywide choice elementary is ATS.

And I am saying that this policy is contributing to socioeconomic segregation rather than becoming part of the solution.  Whether these programmatic distinctions are actually better is kind of irrelevant to the argument I am making, which is that these programs are PERCEIVED as better by many parents of means, and could be a way to attract more high SES families into lower SES schools, instead of doing what they are doing now, which is allowing the highest SES families to purchase their place in these schools, to the exclusion of lower SES families.   I am not making a value judgement about whether ASF, or any other choice school, is the best fit for all children, or even that they do offer superior educational experiences.

I bring this up as someone raised in a neighboring jurisdiction that has many magnet school options at the elementary level.  I think choices are great, and welcome more.  We don't really have choices right now.  We have the illusion of choices.

Of course I would like to see housing policy that naturally lead to more diverse schools, but I don't think it has be one or the other.  Neither will be easy to accomplish.  [/quote]

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