Reply to HB Woodlawn and ATS

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "HB Woodlawn and ATS"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ll say it again — I don’t think we should get rid of the special programs, I think we should find a way to offer more of them. Create a second ATS and house it at whichever of the neighborhood elementary schools is currently most underenrolled. Those parents would be IRATE but all the parents who get into the new ATS would be thrilled. Then use part of the WL building for a new HB Woodlawn. That way W-L doesn’t have to be so big and APS doesn’t have to find additional space for a new HB Woodlawn. Just use the WL space. [/quote]

+ 1 million[/quote]

Or they could just improve the instruction at all the other schools so every kid can have "the best."[/quote]

ATS and HB are self-selecting populations. In the case of ATS, you're judging a program by its standardized test results when everything about ATS is leading up to getting good standardized test results. That's not everyone's goal.

HB has the second most affluent student population among the high schools. I think most high school kids would benefit from more independence,  but let's not confuse correspondence with causation here.[/quote]

Here we go again. A person who’s kids don’t know to ATS claiming that they know what ATS does. No ATS doesn’t teach to the test. The reason they have such high scores is because they believe structured literacy and focus on phonics and phonemic awareness as opposed to balanced literacy. While the rest of APS was using Lucy Calkins and does phonics on the fly, ATS was using Wilson’s reading and Heggerty. They also have an ELA curriculum that they made that is knowledge rich (focus on social studies). They were so successful in fact that APS adopted Heggerty a few years ago for all schools. Now the entire country is moving towards structured literacy & knowledge rich ELA curriculums. Virginia passed a literacy act and APS adopted CKLA which is phonics based and is knowledge rich. Hopefully this means that the quality of all APS schools goes up. ATS also has a two hour ELA block as opposed to a much shorter block in other APS schools. [/quote]

Not an ATS parent here - so hope you accept my ignorant opinion -  but I agree. It is the neighborhood schools that "teach to the tests" which have lower standards than ATS has for its students.  ATS' success is primarily due to the expectations and standards it sets for its students and the curriculum and instructional methods it employs. Lower the bar, kids will perform accordingly.  Raise the bar, kids will perform accordingly. The rest of ATS' success is due to the students and families who choose to go there, who appreciate and want those higher standards and proven instruction methods and curricula, who don't mind or even value the structure and discipline and return to their neighborhood schools if they don't.[/quote]

Schools teach to the test because if they didn’t their scores and accreditation suffer.  They don’t have the luxury of a motivated parents for EVERY student like they have at ATS. You have incarcerated parents, foster kids, ESL, low income, on and on and like zero of that at ATS [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics