Reply to Who sends their kid to Wakefield HS? Is it really that bad?

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Reply to "Who sends their kid to Wakefield HS? Is it really that bad?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Let's get real by comparing apples to apples.  When you compare a school as a whole that has lots of ESOL/FARMS kids to another school (as a whole) that has very few needy/language learners... of course the school with the higher SES and low language learners is going to appear better.

But, looking at the white kids at Wakefield (which is 20% of the population) compared to other schools like Yorktown or McLean (where the white population is closer to 60%), you still have the impact of family wealth affecting the results, but you also have a lot of similarities.

40% of the white students at Wakefield take AP classes.  47-59% of white kids are taking AP classes at Yorktown and McLean.  85-94% of not-low-income kids at Wakefield are passing SOLs in Biology/World Hist2/Writing.  95-97% of not-low-income kids are passing the same subjects at Yorktown and McLean.

Yes, there is a bump up in passrates and AP participation at Yorktown and McLean.  I think that higher household income could easily account for that.  It's not like Wakefield isn't providing a good education --- the kids who are ready to make use of it are doing just that.

The big difference is that Wakefield is really diverse.

I posted much further back in this thread that my friend's kid just started there.  She is having a great experience.  She is involved in sports, so that is her group.  Perhaps a different kid who didn't have a group of like-minded/similar SES peers might not have such a good experience.  I can't say for sure.  I know that they are very happy with it.  In fact, they are so happy with it and impressed by other kids who went to ARlington public school for MS, that they are taking their younger child out of catholic school and putting her in public MS and then on to Wakefield.

So, you can crow all you want about National Merit semifinalists and what not.  You can compare apples to oranges.  Or you can look at the data that applies to kids who aren't poor and aren't learning English and think about how that data would apply to your kid (assuming your kid is in the same categories).

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Mclean poster can’t do that. They aren’t the brightest.[/quote]

Assuming the McLean poster's kids take after her, they are the brightest.  In VA, anyway.   [/quote]

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