I think PP doesn't realize that schools have traditionally played a significant part in indoctrinating culture. The requirement that schools solve the problem of poverty and/or lack of value of education, though, is new. And probably impossible, but still worth some effort.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Privatized preschool and private k we attended are far superior to all the ES public schools. Im no fan of public school where $$ goes to bussing and meals

School should be @ education

The "meals" money is federal, not local. It's a red herring.

Busing? We aren't doing that. Unless they can build a school every mile or so, some kids will have to ride the bus. If you attend a private school that isn't walking distance to your house, you are responsible for driving your child to school. Is it better to have 30 kids hop on a bus or to have 30 individual parents driving to a private school. You make no sense.

Not either PP, but I agree about the buses. First PP may be talking about busing to special schools. For example, in FCPS, AP center kids and some magnet schools get busing provided which is an additional cost.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Privatized preschool and private k we attended are far superior to all the ES public schools. Im no fan of public school where $$ goes to bussing and meals

School should be @ education

The "meals" money is federal, not local. It's a red herring.

Busing? We aren't doing that. Unless they can build a school every mile or so, some kids will have to ride the bus. If you attend a private school that isn't walking distance to your house, you are responsible for driving your child to school. Is it better to have 30 kids hop on a bus or to have 30 individual parents driving to a private school. You make no sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Privatized preschool and private k we attended are far superior to all the ES public schools. Im no fan of public school where $$ goes to bussing and meals

School should be @ education

The "meals" money is federal, not local. It's a red herring.

Anonymous wrote:Privatized preschool and private k we attended are far superior to all the ES public schools. Im no fan of public school where $$ goes to bussing and meals

School should be @ education

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

FCPS is already basically divided into the haves and have nots. If you live in one of the garbage pyramids like I do, you would be all for vouchers. Let's face it. If you're in certain FCPS pyramids, your schools are failing and not getting any better. The ESL and FARM students just keep coming, and middle class families avoid your pyramid like the plague. Give me my tax dollars back so I can send my kids to a school that isn't failing.

Should those without children get a rebate, too? What about people whose kids are too young for school? Too old for school?

No, no, and no. You don't pay taxes for "your" kids. You pay taxes because we live in a society, and providing a free education to all members of that society is good for the country as a whole. You should neither get "your" tax dollars back for going private than I should get "my" tax dollars back for not driving, or my neighbor should get "her" tax dollars back because she doesn't use the library.

That's your opinion. Thankfully, we will now have a President and Secretary of Education that doesn't buy into your liberal bs.

No, this is not liberal BS. This is the price of living in civilized society. Your vision of the world ends in a Mad Max-like hellscape.

Unless you are secretly a billionaire, you're going to wind up just as screwed as those you're intent on crapping on. There will be no middle, no upper middle. The winners are going to take all for themselves, and leave the rest of us to fight like dogs in the street. And in case you haven't noticed, you are not one of the winners. If you were you wouldn't be on here with the rest of us plebeians.

You need to chill with the hyperbole.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield, according to Niche's information on SAT, ACT, and graduation rate, is most similar to Annandale and West Potomac High School. It has higher scores than Stuart, Lee, Edison, Falls Chuch, and Mount Vernon. It would not be in the bottom 5% of Fairfax County's schools.

Niche somehow manages to be even less of an authority on anything than GSs (consider that their rankings take into account such things as sports, "culture and diversity," clubs and self reported parent/student surveys) and "Falls Chuch" is not FCPS. So yes-- maybe Yorktown has better Sports teams than than Lee. But more importantly, in terms of SAT scores, Yorktown is second to last among all schools is Northern VA-- only Mt. Vernon is worse. So yeah-- bottom 5%. West Potomac was 140 points higher and Annandale was 90 points higher. So no-- Wakefield is not "most like these schools." (And BTW-- both of these schools are considered to be relatively weak within FCPS. Sending a kid to Annandale is not generally considered to be a great thing.

http://thebullelephant.com/northern-virginia-sat-scores-by-school-for-2016/


Also-- do you prefer the 7-1 shift or the 2-8 shift for your high school student?

I only compared SAT, ACT, and graduation rate averages among the schools on niche. I didn't check other resources and perhaps Niche has old data or poor data. The point was that even Arlington's weakest school is not a terrible school compared to the rest of the state and even it's neighboring schools in other counties. Niche rated it highly, so I didn't understand why it is Arlington Public School's fault that Wakefield is not doing well. Wakefield issues are a symptom of the neighborhood it is located in and there are things can be done to improve the neighborhood and the school, but individual charter schools will not fix Wakefield. Yorktown is doing fine (I assume you meant Wakefield) but even Wakefield according to Niche had an 80% graduation rate, 1130 SAT, and 26 ACT. Annandale had an 80% graduation rate, 1170 SAT, and 26 ACT. Falls Church High School (which is in Fairfax County) had a 77% graduation rate, 1140 SAT, and 25 ACT. Stuart had 72% graduation rate, 1140 SAT, and 28 ACT, Lee High School had a 70% graduation rate, 1110 SAT, and 26 ACT. Edison had an 89% graduation rate, 1110 SAT, and 26 ACT. Mount Vernon had an 82% graduation rate, 1060 SAT, and 24 ACT. TC Williams has a graduation rate of 76%, SAT of 1090 and an ACT of 26. Wakefield did better than it's surrounding schools overall according to Niche (even if their SAT data was off) and many of the schools near Wakefield are considered decent and not failing schools. Some people have concerns about Annandale, but it isn't failing. I haven't even checked Prince William, Manassas, or Loudoun but am sure there are some low performing schools there as well, so Wakefield should not end up being the 2nd worse school in NOVA for SAT scores. The national average for SAT's I'm reading is 1462 and Wakefield was 1431. Not that far off.

Have you seen the photos of Detroit schools? Charter schools and public funding for private schools have partially caused this deterioration. Wakefield's issues are much less severe. http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2016/01/more_than_100_photos_of_mice_l.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield, according to Niche's information on SAT, ACT, and graduation rate, is most similar to Annandale and West Potomac High School. It has higher scores than Stuart, Lee, Edison, Falls Chuch, and Mount Vernon. It would not be in the bottom 5% of Fairfax County's schools.

Niche somehow manages to be even less of an authority on anything than GSs (consider that their rankings take into account such things as sports, "culture and diversity," clubs and self reported parent/student surveys) and "Falls Chuch" is not FCPS. So yes-- maybe Yorktown has better Sports teams than than Lee. But more importantly, in terms of SAT scores, Yorktown is second to last among all schools is Northern VA-- only Mt. Vernon is worse. So yeah-- bottom 5%. West Potomac was 140 points higher and Annandale was 90 points higher. So no-- Wakefield is not "most like these schools." (And BTW-- both of these schools are considered to be relatively weak within FCPS. Sending a kid to Annandale is not generally considered to be a great thing.

http://thebullelephant.com/northern-virginia-sat-scores-by-school-for-2016/


Also-- do you prefer the 7-1 shift or the 2-8 shift for your high school student?

Anonymous wrote:Wakefield, according to Niche's information on SAT, ACT, and graduation rate, is most similar to Annandale and West Potomac High School. It has higher scores than Stuart, Lee, Edison, Falls Chuch, and Mount Vernon. It would not be in the bottom 5% of Fairfax County's schools.

Anonymous wrote:When he deports the illegals the drain on the schools will be lower and it will even out. Remember Fairfax is a sanctuary county so the illegals will be driven away.

Anonymous wrote:12:05 - You have a very rosy view of APS. Yes, it is a highly ranked system, but has huge disparities within the system. Sorry, you cannot compare the student experience at a north arlington school such as Nottingham, to Barcoft or any of the 4 other elementary schools with high FARMS rates. APS can throw all the money it wants at these schools, it will not eliminate the achievement gap and improve the experience. Yes, land use and related housing policy is the issue and it is almost impossible to change it at this point as long as affordable housing (which includes the developers) have such sway over the decisionmakers - and wealthier families north of 50 work to keep it that way.

As far as Wakefield, yes just renovated and about to be over crowded again. Wasn't it also the last to be renovated? The school board is about to make the FARMs rate at that school even higher and the county plans to build about 10,000 more affordable housing units within its boundaries - you think the scores will improve????