^ thoughtful post

Anonymous wrote:Students are tracked. Told they are gifted, or not, or how gifted - it pits students against each other. Only a limited number of spots in AAP, so parents fight fiercely. It's so toxic. In HS, which should not have tracking, class grade distributions for the same subject are all over the place. No predictability. No consistency between schools or classes of the same subject/level in the same school.

FCPS are handed students, the vast majority are, of the well educated, the well off. FCPS does an ok job, but FCPS is not the reason these kids are doing well in life and headed to college.

This isn't true. They will form as many classes as needed to meet the population. My children's school has fluctuated between 2 and 4 AAP classes each year depending how many kids qualify.

NOVA schools can be competitive. The kids taking AP/IB classes at the HS in out area are getting an excellent education. There are some bad teachers but that exists in every school. AP/IB classes have a mandated elements that are the same across the country, you have to teach to that standard if you want kids to do well on the AP/IB exams. The kids in our area tend to do better then the kids across the country because the area has so many parents who know the value of getting high scores and being able to skip classes in college.

There are issues at some of the HS where the regular classes are a joke. the base school my kid is supposed to attend is one where anyone who wants to go to college avoids the gen ed classes and takes all honors. The gen ed classes have many kids in them that are years behind in skills and do not care about completing school. They have been allowed to continue to the next grade because being retained is deemed to be too socially damaging for the kids. These are the kids that teachers have been forced to pass for ages. You will find this population is larger as you see a decline in the income levels at schools. There are studies showing that grades and educational quality drops once you get over a certain threshold of students living in poverty. FCPS has a decent number of ES, MS, and Hs that are considered Title 1, which means a large number of impoverished kids, and those schools tend to perform poorly.

Then you have the hyper competitive families who think that their kids need to do a ton more outside of school and push enrichment, like RSM or AoPS or fully academic summer programs. Not all the kids in those programs are there because the parents are obsessed with high stats, there are kids there because they genuinely like the material and want to be there but a large percentage are there because their parents make them attend. People have been doing this for ages, my parents sent my brothers to summer programs for smart kids in the 1980's because they needed more then they were getting at school, our HS did not have AP/IB classes at the time. It really isn't anything new. The market seems to have exploded though. I remember SAT prep being controversial when I was in HS and Sylvan being a new thing to help struggling kids. Now those are normal and the kids who want more or whose parents want more turn to RSM and AoPS.

The kids in the Honors/AP/IB track in HS are doing well and will be fine at college. They are getting an excellent education. The parents saying that they are so far behind are, many times, parents who come out of the Asian tradition were the kids are in school far longer then our kids are, there are tutoring centers all over the place, and where there are tests to take to be accepted into MS and HS across the country. It is a different tradition with a massive emphasis on education. The European schools do focus more on writing, which is the distinctive element of the IB degree, but are not as far ahead in math and science as you can get in the AP programs in the US.

Students are tracked. Told they are gifted, or not, or how gifted - it pits students against each other. Only a limited number of spots in AAP, so parents fight fiercely. It's so toxic. In HS, which should not have tracking, class grade distributions for the same subject are all over the place. No predictability. No consistency between schools or classes of the same subject/level in the same school.

FCPS are handed students, the vast majority are, of the well educated, the well off. FCPS does an ok job, but FCPS is not the reason these kids are doing well in life and headed to college.

The proliferation of places like Kumon and RSM are due to the increased rat race. In past generations kids went to half day kindergarten and didn’t even start to learn to read until 1st grade. The top districts for the most part started algebra no earlier than 8th grade. Parents were not checking the school portal and learned about grades twice a year.

The top 10% of students are doing better, academically at least, than ever.

Look at all the educational enrichment centers. The curriculum has been watered down from when we were kids and places like AOPS, RSM, Kumon, etc fill in the gaps.

Because the basic curriculum is watered down so much, anyone who cares about education has their average kids take honors/AP/IB classes. Everything is open enrollment now so there is a huge range of abilities. Even the College Board has admitted to norming the AP test scores to reflect the fact that kids know less than 10 years ago but they still want to get paid. Schools love to brag about how many kids are taking higher level courses but the teachers know that tons of the kids taking them shouldn’t be there. Admin gets on us if not enough kids pass so we have to make the classes easier. It’s like a housing bubble. Lots of hype, little substance.

because both can be true

Education in NOVA (Fairfax County) is light years ahead of education in most of the USA. I grew up in an affluent area in another state, and the schools do not offer as many opportunities. There are also less services for gifted kids and less services for kids with special needs compared to NOVA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The opportunities available here to the best students (TJ, governor's schools, etc.) for no cost are amazing, if you compare it to the typical school district in America.

Yet, teachers still complain about how dumb and lazy students are at those schools

Who are these teachers? The TJ teachers I know think the students are pretty smart and hardworking. They also like that kids at TJ aren't bullied for being smart like they would be in many other schools in the US.

1. Most students here don't go to TJ. Most go to regular public high schools.

2. Parents usually can't choose which school to go to.

3. For the most part, America has a reputation that education is bad. NOVA is included.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The opportunities available here to the best students (TJ, governor's schools, etc.) for no cost are amazing, if you compare it to the typical school district in America.

Yet, teachers still complain about how dumb and lazy students are at those schools

Who are these teachers? The TJ teachers I know think the students are pretty smart and hardworking. They also like that kids at TJ aren't bullied for being smart like they would be in many other schools in the US.

Anonymous wrote:The opportunities available here to the best students (TJ, governor's schools, etc.) for no cost are amazing, if you compare it to the typical school district in America.

Yet, teachers still complain about how dumb and lazy students are at those schools

Anonymous wrote:The opportunities available here to the best students (TJ, governor's schools, etc.) for no cost are amazing, if you compare it to the typical school district in America.

It is huge and survival of the fittest, but for the right kid, these opportunities are lifechanging. I say that as someone who went to a school that was not dangerous, but lacked any rigor and challenge.

The opportunities available here to the best students (TJ, governor's schools, etc.) for no cost are amazing, if you compare it to the typical school district in America.

Perhaps a lot of very invested parents who will fill in any gaps left by the schools? Just a guess.

It makes no sense. I don't know how it's true that the education system here is awful and students are poorly educated when people are also saying the schools are competitive here and that it's hard to stand out. Aren't the two contradictory?