Anonymous wrote:Without AAP, Fairfax County will lose many of its best and brightest to Montgomery County or Arlington. That means less tax revenue for the county and would hurt all of us.

Why would people incur the disruption and transaction costs of moving to a neighboring jurisdiction where the GT/AAP programs are less extensive than in Fairfax?

Anonymous wrote:Without AAP, Fairfax County will lose many of its best and brightest to Montgomery County or Arlington. That means less tax revenue for the county and would hurt all of us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it is elitism to educate children the way they need to be educated? Check out the research on how to educate GT students that is easily available by viewing FCPS's expert's testimony at one of the December meetings (I think work session). These cries of elitism really bother me. So, we should treat everyone exactly the same regardless of their needs and abilities? AAP does not provide better instruction it provides different instruction to children who need it (of course, the county has vastly broadened that pool which I figure is the reason this program causes so much angst).

To those of you who cry elitism, I assume that your reasoning applies equally to sports? So my kid who has absolutely no sports skills should get to play on travel soccer, elite swim teams, varsity sports ...?

It is not elitism to customize education to meet children's individual needs, but it is harmful to gen ed students when they are grossly outnumbered by AAP students. We need to balance the needs of all the students. The need to provide AAP services should not be at the expense of the gen ed populations. The needs of students in each group should be equal. Maybe a stand-alone center is an option. I believe most people prefer to keep their young children in their base school with LLIV vice busing to stand-alone centers. If the centers stay in the base schools, then the population of the centers should be equal to or less than the corresponding grade's population.

On another note, it appears that the growth in the AAP centers, and the change in the name from GT to AAP, is a reflection of a FCPS effort to provide services to more students - not just the small percentage at the very top. AAP is not a Gifted and Talented center. Advanced Academic Programs are geared towards those who demonstate a need for advanced instruction.

Those few very specific demands have the option to pull their kids out of public and go to private school instead. These programs have expanded with a mushy name of AAP replacing an actual GT program and swung the doors wide open. The cost for this small percentage should not be a burden on the everyday tax payer.

That's fear mongering. Without AAP Fairfax would be decimated... No it would not. Arlington does not have an AAP equivalent so why would people leave FCPS for Arlington? FCPS obviously does not have enough tax revenue now as many/ most of its schools are many decades old and on the whole overcrowded.

Without AAP, Fairfax County will lose many of its best and brightest to Montgomery County or Arlington. That means less tax revenue for the county and would hurt all of us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it is elitism to educate children the way they need to be educated? Check out the research on how to educate GT students that is easily available by viewing FCPS's expert's testimony at one of the December meetings (I think work session). These cries of elitism really bother me. So, we should treat everyone exactly the same regardless of their needs and abilities? AAP does not provide better instruction it provides different instruction to children who need it (of course, the county has vastly broadened that pool which I figure is the reason this program causes so much angst).

To those of you who cry elitism, I assume that your reasoning applies equally to sports? So my kid who has absolutely no sports skills should get to play on travel soccer, elite swim teams, varsity sports ...?

It is not elitism to customize education to meet children's individual needs, but it is harmful to gen ed students when they are grossly outnumbered by AAP students. We need to balance the needs of all the students. The need to provide AAP services should not be at the expense of the gen ed populations. The needs of students in each group should be equal. Maybe a stand-alone center is an option. I believe most people prefer to keep their young children in their base school with LLIV vice busing to stand-alone centers. If the centers stay in the base schools, then the population of the centers should be equal to or less than the corresponding grade's population.

On another note, it appears that the growth in the AAP centers, and the change in the name from GT to AAP, is a reflection of a FCPS effort to provide services to more students - not just the small percentage at the very top. AAP is not a Gifted and Talented center. Advanced Academic Programs are geared towards those who demonstate a need for advanced instruction.

Those few very specific demands have the option to pull their kids out of public and go to private school instead. These programs have expanded with a mushy name of AAP replacing an actual GT program and swung the doors wide open. The cost for this small percentage should not be a burden on the everyday tax payer.

Anonymous wrote:The percentage of FCPS students who qualified for Level IV services used to be 5%, now its about 19%. That is an increase.

And, yes, separate instruction is what serves gifted kids. They receive the most effective education by grouping and the least effective education by differentiation in a regular classroom. See Van Tassel-Baska's presentation to the school board.

Public schools are not required to provide the "most effective" or "the best" education for their bright students, they are required to provide an appropriate education and they need to balance the needs of all students and they need to balance their budget.

Anonymous wrote:
On another note, it appears that the growth in the AAP centers, and the change in the name from GT to AAP, is a reflection of a FCPS effort to provide services to more students - not just the small percentage at the very top. AAP is not a Gifted and Talented center. Advanced Academic Programs are geared towards those who demonstate a need for advanced instruction.

Changing the name was just a PC move. It's less controversial to focus on the academic instruction than on the students themselves. But the percentage in GT/AAP was climbing quickly when the name was still GT.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So it is elitism to educate children the way they need to be educated? Check out the research on how to educate GT students that is easily available by viewing FCPS's expert's testimony at one of the December meetings (I think work session). These cries of elitism really bother me. So, we should treat everyone exactly the same regardless of their needs and abilities? AAP does not provide better instruction it provides different instruction to children who need it (of course, the county has vastly broadened that pool which I figure is the reason this program causes so much angst).

To those of you who cry elitism, I assume that your reasoning applies equally to sports? So my kid who has absolutely no sports skills should get to play on travel soccer, elite swim teams, varsity sports ...?

It is not elitism to customize education to meet children's individual needs, but it is harmful to gen ed students when they are grossly outnumbered by AAP students. We need to balance the needs of all the students. The need to provide AAP services should not be at the expense of the gen ed populations. The needs of students in each group should be equal. Maybe a stand-alone center is an option. I believe most people prefer to keep their young children in their base school with LLIV vice busing to stand-alone centers. If the centers stay in the base schools, then the population of the centers should be equal to or less than the corresponding grade's population.

On another note, it appears that the growth in the AAP centers, and the change in the name from GT to AAP, is a reflection of a FCPS effort to provide services to more students - not just the small percentage at the very top. AAP is not a Gifted and Talented center. Advanced Academic Programs are geared towards those who demonstate a need for advanced instruction.

Those few very specific demands have the option to pull their kids out of public and go to private school instead. These programs have expanded with a mushy name of AAP replacing an actual GT program and swung the doors wide open. The cost for this small percentage should not be a burden on the everyday tax payer.

Anonymous wrote:So it is elitism to educate children the way they need to be educated? Check out the research on how to educate GT students that is easily available by viewing FCPS's expert's testimony at one of the December meetings (I think work session). These cries of elitism really bother me. So, we should treat everyone exactly the same regardless of their needs and abilities? AAP does not provide better instruction it provides different instruction to children who need it (of course, the county has vastly broadened that pool which I figure is the reason this program causes so much angst).

To those of you who cry elitism, I assume that your reasoning applies equally to sports? So my kid who has absolutely no sports skills should get to play on travel soccer, elite swim teams, varsity sports ...?

It is not elitism to customize education to meet children's individual needs, but it is harmful to gen ed students when they are grossly outnumbered by AAP students. We need to balance the needs of all the students. The need to provide AAP services should not be at the expense of the gen ed populations. The needs of students in each group should be equal. Maybe a stand-alone center is an option. I believe most people prefer to keep their young children in their base school with LLIV vice busing to stand-alone centers. If the centers stay in the base schools, then the population of the centers should be equal to or less than the corresponding grade's population.

On another note, it appears that the growth in the AAP centers, and the change in the name from GT to AAP, is a reflection of a FCPS effort to provide services to more students - not just the small percentage at the very top. AAP is not a Gifted and Talented center. Advanced Academic Programs are geared towards those who demonstate a need for advanced instruction.

Let's not forget Who really is at fault for the position several schools are at right now. It is NOT the AAP parents, NOT the base parents, NOT the principals, NOT the teachers. It is the Fairfax County School Board. The population in general in the county has skyrocketed and this will continue. The AAP program has increased 300% in the last 10 years. The school board has performed the "shuffle" for many years instead of coming up with a concrete plan on how to deal with overcrowding and tight budgets. The school board now believes that they should create at least 1 AAP center in every pyramid so that students will be more aligned with their peers that they will go to middle and high school with. Thank goodness they slowed down the process and put a halt to ALL of the changes they wanted to make starting with the 2013-14 school year(the plan is just not that well thought out to make one big leap). Unfortunately Louise Archer, Hunter woods and Haycock get to be the guinea pigs for this new plan. Parents, of course, need to advocate to the SCHOOL BOARD. Attacking each other will do nothing but cause stress in the communities and that will trickle down to the children which is just plain awful! What ever decision will be made, it will became clear in the near future and like it or not it will be implemented next September. Shortly it will be time to come together and support each other so that our kids and teachers can make this transition(whether it be a move or more years of greater overcrowding) with confidence that everything is going to work out for the better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The percentage of FCPS students who qualified for Level IV services used to be 5%, now its about 19%. That is an increase.

And, yes, separate instruction is what serves gifted kids. They receive the most effective education by grouping and the least effective education by differentiation in a regular classroom. See Van Tassel-Baska's presentation to the school board.

Then you should have a big problem with the 19%.

Exactly. AAP is a bloated program driven by parent demands and appeals that their kids are gifted. The 19% is statistically impossible number that these students are all actually GT. Put real standards back in place and enforce them strictly then you'll have a real GT program in varying in size between 5% to 8% of the student population from year to year.

Anonymous wrote:The percentage of FCPS students who qualified for Level IV services used to be 5%, now its about 19%. That is an increase.

And, yes, separate instruction is what serves gifted kids. They receive the most effective education by grouping and the least effective education by differentiation in a regular classroom. See Van Tassel-Baska's presentation to the school board.

Then you should have a big problem with the 19%.

The percentage of FCPS students who qualified for Level IV services used to be 5%, now its about 19%. That is an increase.

And, yes, separate instruction is what serves gifted kids. They receive the most effective education by grouping and the least effective education by differentiation in a regular classroom. See Van Tassel-Baska's presentation to the school board.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, those are problems they are going to face anyway. They need more school space. Many schools, not just Haycock, are very overcrowded. They are going to have to renovate empty buildings or build schools in the coming years. Why couldn't they renovate/build an AAP center or two? When they do open new schools they are going to have to redistrict, which will upset people. THis could actually be easier politically.

No. It's not easier politically, and you'd have to have your elitist head pretty firmly up your ass to think otherwise.

These ideas are, in a fundamental sense, un-American. People would associate them with China or what used to be East Germany. The idea that some kids would have to walk or get bussed past a renovated center to get to their own school is sad.

Ever heard of TJ? I don't see many people crying elitism and petitioning to shut it down.

TJ is a high school, not an elementary school. There is more acceptance of the notion that a child may have demonstrated both aptitude and achievement by the age of 14 than by the age of seven or eight.

In addition, TJ was not created when FCPS was overcrowded as a "solution" to that problem. Had TJHSST not been opened as a magnet school in the late 1980s, when county enrollment was declining, FCPS was threatening to close it. The community decided it was better to have a magnet school in the building than no school at all, but it has created problems down the road. The Jefferson area did not want to be split among different high schools, so FCPS initially agreed to reassign the entire area to Annandale HS. That led to major overcrowding at Annandale, with trailers everywhere. FCPS eventually realized that it had created a mess, and started to parcel Annandale students out to other schools, including Falls Church, Lake Braddock, Woodson and Edison, disrupting the lives of many non-TJ families. Last year, it decided to move some of the old Jefferson area from Annandale to Edison. However, these students now have to cross 495 to get to school, and some of them also have to cross 395. At the time, some of the parents complained bitterly that none of this would have been necessary if TJ was still their neighborhood high school. TJ may be an academic success story, and a feather in Fairfax County's cap, but the decision to convert it to a stand-alone magnet has turned out to be a poor decision from a facilities management perspective. Groups like the Coalition of the Silence have also complained about current AAP/TJ admissions policies, and proposals to open additional, magnet schools in western Fairfax have been rejected.

The bottom line is that proposals to establish stand-alone AAP centers at the elementary level would be criticized and rejected.