Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They fare as well in SOL scores (basic curriculum--which is a very low learning standard for an average to bright elementary student) but not in learning much beyond that because all schools teach to the middle and at those schools the middle is quite different. Your child of parents with advance degrees will do fine at both schools--if "fine" is what you aspire to. You have fewer families at Barcroft and Randolph who have advance degrees, etc. because those parents usually aspire to more than "fine" for their kids.

You do understand that the sfh neighborhood's in south Arlington are filled with well educated successful people right? Do you think those homes are full of blue collar workers now? 30 years ago maybe, but not now. This is such a strange train of thought to me. Low level clerks and office workers can't afford homes in south Arlington.

It's clear you have only been to one tiny little area of S. Arlington. It's filled with mostly smaller SFH, some duplexes and some townhomes, some condo buildings and apartment buildings. Most are older, many are in need of repair. The number of well educated successful people buying updated SFH is a small portion of the overall population.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They fare as well in SOL scores (basic curriculum--which is a very low learning standard for an average to bright elementary student) but not in learning much beyond that because all schools teach to the middle and at those schools the middle is quite different. Your child of parents with advance degrees will do fine at both schools--if "fine" is what you aspire to. You have fewer families at Barcroft and Randolph who have advance degrees, etc. because those parents usually aspire to more than "fine" for their kids.

You do understand that the sfh neighborhood's in south Arlington are filled with well educated successful people right? Do you think those homes are full of blue collar workers now? 30 years ago maybe, but not now. This is such a strange train of thought to me. Low level clerks and office workers can't afford homes in south Arlington.

Many of the SFH neighborhoods in south Arlington are rental neighborhoods, though, and are "affordable" rentals (since they are small, old, and haven't been rehabbed) so people move around a lot. We live (own) in a SFH neighborhood in 22204 but in the 9 years I've had kids in the schools there have never been the same kids at our bus stop for more than 2 years.

When the tear-down activity makes more of a difference you may see that in the schools -- ArlNow featured a new build in south Arlington for $1.3M today (good luck) -- but despite the prevalence of SFHs, the rate of home ownership in 22204 is about half that of 22207.

There is literally a home across the street from Randolph that sold for 1.2 last year. The ARLNoW home will sell, but this isn't the real estate thread. No need to go into it.

Just responding to the idea that "sfh neighborhood's in south Arlington are filled with well educated successful people." Yes, there are some, and if these million dollar houses sell there will be more. But the demographics of the neighborhoods that feed into south Arlington schools remain very different from north Arlington schools. If anything, many of the well educated successful people living in south Arlington DON'T have kids and are living where they do because they like Arlington but didn't want to pay the premium for the "better" schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They fare as well in SOL scores (basic curriculum--which is a very low learning standard for an average to bright elementary student) but not in learning much beyond that because all schools teach to the middle and at those schools the middle is quite different. Your child of parents with advance degrees will do fine at both schools--if "fine" is what you aspire to. You have fewer families at Barcroft and Randolph who have advance degrees, etc. because those parents usually aspire to more than "fine" for their kids.

You do understand that the sfh neighborhood's in south Arlington are filled with well educated successful people right? Do you think those homes are full of blue collar workers now? 30 years ago maybe, but not now. This is such a strange train of thought to me. Low level clerks and office workers can't afford homes in south Arlington.

Many of the SFH neighborhoods in south Arlington are rental neighborhoods, though, and are "affordable" rentals (since they are small, old, and haven't been rehabbed) so people move around a lot. We live (own) in a SFH neighborhood in 22204 but in the 9 years I've had kids in the schools there have never been the same kids at our bus stop for more than 2 years.

When the tear-down activity makes more of a difference you may see that in the schools -- ArlNow featured a new build in south Arlington for $1.3M today (good luck) -- but despite the prevalence of SFHs, the rate of home ownership in 22204 is about half that of 22207.

There is literally a home across the street from Randolph that sold for 1.2 last year. The ARLNoW home will sell, but this isn't the real estate thread. No need to go into it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They fare as well in SOL scores (basic curriculum--which is a very low learning standard for an average to bright elementary student) but not in learning much beyond that because all schools teach to the middle and at those schools the middle is quite different. Your child of parents with advance degrees will do fine at both schools--if "fine" is what you aspire to. You have fewer families at Barcroft and Randolph who have advance degrees, etc. because those parents usually aspire to more than "fine" for their kids.

You do understand that the sfh neighborhood's in south Arlington are filled with well educated successful people right? Do you think those homes are full of blue collar workers now? 30 years ago maybe, but not now. This is such a strange train of thought to me. Low level clerks and office workers can't afford homes in south Arlington.

Many of the SFH neighborhoods in south Arlington are rental neighborhoods, though, and are "affordable" rentals (since they are small, old, and haven't been rehabbed) so people move around a lot. We live (own) in a SFH neighborhood in 22204 but in the 9 years I've had kids in the schools there have never been the same kids at our bus stop for more than 2 years.

When the tear-down activity makes more of a difference you may see that in the schools -- ArlNow featured a new build in south Arlington for $1.3M today (good luck) -- but despite the prevalence of SFHs, the rate of home ownership in 22204 is about half that of 22207.

Of course they live there. They just don't send their kids to the neighborhood school.

Anonymous wrote:They fare as well in SOL scores (basic curriculum--which is a very low learning standard for an average to bright elementary student) but not in learning much beyond that because all schools teach to the middle and at those schools the middle is quite different. Your child of parents with advance degrees will do fine at both schools--if "fine" is what you aspire to. You have fewer families at Barcroft and Randolph who have advance degrees, etc. because those parents usually aspire to more than "fine" for their kids.

You do understand that the sfh neighborhood's in south Arlington are filled with well educated successful people right? Do you think those homes are full of blue collar workers now? 30 years ago maybe, but not now. This is such a strange train of thought to me. Low level clerks and office workers can't afford homes in south Arlington.

Anonymous wrote:You sound just like the County. We can't compare Nottingham and Randolph/Barcroft/Abingdon? Apples and oranges? This is the DEFINITION of a double standard. And it allows these schools to continue to languish and the disparities in wealth (ie. the segregation in this county) continue to justify mediocrity in results. All our schools should be working towards the same goals. Not one goal for Title I schools and another for the rest. The "advance" pass rates at these schools are appalling. And "advanced" for purposes of SOL is really just mastery of the grade level curriculum--not advanced for your grade level.

Well, if you have a classroom full of kindergarteners who don't speak English at home and a classroom of kindergarteners who do speak English at home and are read to in English frequently, your goals for kindergarten are going to be pretty different for those two classes, aren't they?

If you want the goals to be the same, you need those two classes to look more the same. But you'd have to bus some kids south and some kids north, and if they do that through any means other than choice everyone loses their (*&@# minds.

They fare as well in SOL scores (basic curriculum--which is a very low learning standard for an average to bright elementary student) but not in learning much beyond that because all schools teach to the middle and at those schools the middle is quite different. Your child of parents with advance degrees will do fine at both schools--if "fine" is what you aspire to. You have fewer families at Barcroft and Randolph who have advance degrees, etc. because those parents usually aspire to more than "fine" for their kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that schools with high levels of poverty have more difficulties.
Where I disagree is the idea that AH contributes to this problem- I think that AH improves school outcomes.

Could you distribute AH throughout the county? I think Arl has tried pretty hard to do this. Yes- it does rely on converting cheap market rate AH to CAF's- but again I think this improves school outcomes- not the opposite.

Should you do away with neighborhood schools in order to even out FARMS rates at various different schools? I think people can legitimately disagree about this one. I can see both sides of the argument.
I think the more interesting and realistic discussion is about whether or not school outcomes are really worse for the nonFARMS kids in predominantly FARMS schools. Are they getting a lesser education than their income peers in less significantly FARMS schools?

This has been talked to death and the answer is YES. The answer is always YES. Fairfax county has done studies on this. Studies that we like to ignore in Arlington. There is a tipping point. When a school becomes overburdened by poverty, all children suffer. All of them.
So are south Arlington schools bad?
No. They're fine.
But your middle class kid is statistically less likely to match the outcomes of a kid of the same means in north Arlington.
Look at the breakdown of scores at Randolph compared to Nottingham. It's 5-12 points per subject.
Does that mean your kid will be a failure at life? Of course not.
That's not what we are talking about.
This is a fight worth having.
The people in charge for the last 25 years have been fine with this arrangement.
I'm not fine with this arrangement. It's a terrible arrangement.
I'm sick to death of watching older democrats patting themselves on the back for a job well done. They've made terrible choices, and we have to work to undo the damage.

Ummm... It's way more that 5-12 points. I'm bored and decided to look it up.


These are the results for non disadvantaged kids

Randolph Nottingham

Math 82% 96%
Reading 87% 97%
Science 71% 95%
Writing 86% 96%



Is the Randolph science score even considered passing?
How on earth are those parents defending that prinicipal? Their kids are behind.

I'm not sure that this is a like to like comparison. The "non disadantaged kids" category is awfully wide. Presumably it covers kids from families that only just missed the cut off for free and reduced lunches. The parents may be working multiple jobs and probably don't have a lot of education themselves. The category also covers kids from families living in million dollar homes where both parents hold advanced degrees. You are going to have more of the former at Randolph and more of the latter at Nottingham.

I am really interested to know if there is a significant difference in outcomes for kids from similar circumstances at Randolph (or any of the other lower performing South Arlington elementaries) versus Nottingham (or any of the other higher performing North Arlington elementaries). In other words, how does a child with parents with advanced degrees and from a million dollar home fare at Randolph? It's possible that there aren't any children in that position zoned for Randolph, but I know for a fact that there are children in that position zoned for Barcroft. Some of those kids actually attend Barcroft; some don't.

Immersion would be Claremont. Most people are very happy with that school. Sadly, it's not an option for many. It's basically become a neighborhood school. We moved here 10 years and waited to have kids. At that time we had many options. Now, Claremont of out of bounds for my family. If you are interested you should check out if you are in bounds.

What about the immersion schools? Folks seem to like them.

You sound just like the County. We can't compare Nottingham and Randolph/Barcroft/Abingdon? Apples and oranges? This is the DEFINITION of a double standard. And it allows these schools to continue to languish and the disparities in wealth (ie. the segregation in this county) continue to justify mediocrity in results. All our schools should be working towards the same goals. Not one goal for Title I schools and another for the rest. The "advance" pass rates at these schools are appalling. And "advanced" for purposes of SOL is really just mastery of the grade level curriculum--not advanced for your grade level.

Randolph really isn't the only comparison. Look at Barcorft, Campbell too. And even abingdon. Otherwise you are looking at the most extreme end for scores. Also have to look at advance passage rates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I believe their defininition of non-economically disadvantaged kids means they don't get free or reduced lunch which is far from being middle class (and especially upper middle class). Undocumented kids also don't get assistance.

Undocumented kids are eligible for free or reduced lunch, as long as they apply and their family income doesn't exceed the maximum allowed to qualify. Page 27 of the USDA manual re: eligibility has more info about this: http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/cn/SP40_CACFP18_SFSP20-2015a.pdf

Most of the undocumented kids are getting free lunch at Randolph. They are also esol. Lot of stress with those kids.

Anonymous wrote:I believe their defininition of non-economically disadvantaged kids means they don't get free or reduced lunch which is far from being middle class (and especially upper middle class). Undocumented kids also don't get assistance.

Undocumented kids are eligible for free or reduced lunch, as long as they apply and their family income doesn't exceed the maximum allowed to qualify. Page 27 of the USDA manual re: eligibility has more info about this: http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/cn/SP40_CACFP18_SFSP20-2015a.pdf