Reply to Who said there isn't a North-South divide?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yep, 3rd grade is where underperforming schools start to show the problems. Performing schools start to shine.

And, those who send their kids to underperforming schools often do not know any better. I am the PP with the long post on Barcroft. Every single family I know (and there are 8) that have moved from Barcroft or moved schools has said the differences between the new school and Barcroft was light and day. In the classroom, on the playground, everything. [/quote]

It's quite simple. UMC have had enrichment since the day they were born and continue to get it from peer exposure, summer enrichment, after school activities and PTA funded extras. Poor kids get none of these things; they get winter coats and SOL drilling instead of chess club. Of course there is a difference.

These differences could be mitigated by in school tracking, which would help to keep UMC families and their resources at elementaries with significant share of ED students. After school enrichment would actually be available to poor kids since a critical mass of UMC could sustain it at a place like Randolph or Barcroft.. But for some reason, the admin has decided that tracking is evil, when it fact it is a way to teach children of different abilities under the same roof. So instead we track by income and geography such that poor kids are poorly served in NA schools where they have no peers, and UMC are poorly served by SA schools, where they have no peers and yes, are being held back by the slower pace of instruction. The decision not to track is a major factor in why our schools are so segregated. This is undeniable. UMC parents move to where their kids will have peers to ensure that instruction is aimed at their level. In school tracking would help convince them that can happen at any Arlington elementary, not just the ones north of 50. I'm sick and tired of hearing my kid will be fine. I want my kid to do well and enjoy school, not be "fine".

A personal note: 
was tracked into the "dumb" math classes all my life. I have a graduate degree and make a comfortable income. I'm still not great at math but that's what was good for me, and it what was good for my peers, who did have high ability in math. And it didn't seem to adversely affect my life.

Tracking is the answer. Not this bs individualized learning mumbo jumbo.

[/quote]

One problem with tracking as you propose it is what do you do with children who have the academic ability to learn at the pace of the higher track, but have language barriers that mean some classroom time with have to be spent working through that before moving on to the next concept? Or are you proposing segregation by first language so that kids have to be tracked into lower level classes, regardless of academic potential, because English isn’t their first language?[/quote]

If English learners were tracked into the lower classes until their language skills increase, would they really be worse off than when everyone is automatically taught at the lower level?[/quote]

Given how ELL status tends to correlate with race and national origin, APS might have some civil rights issues if they forced all of those kids into lower-level classes than they were capable of in order to move the native-born white kids out into their own advanced classes.[/quote]

How about forcing them into segregated schools? Is that a civil rights issue?[/quote]

Who forced them into segregated schools? Nobody forced them to buy houses in that school zone. Further, there's legal precedent that schools are allowed to draw sensible geographic boundaries for neighborhood schools, and that as long as the intent wasn't to segregate the schools, it's not a violation if there are disparities between schools that reflect underlying geographic realities. There is no such precedent protecting a school that creates a tracking system for the effective purpose of segregating students within the school based on race, national origin, etc.[/quote]

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