Anonymous wrote:I am a PP who wrote about a bunch of differences I see b/t my two kids schools (one AAP, one not). It's not that the non-AAP school "sucks" -- it's a pretty normal school and people (parents, teachers, kids) seem pretty happy with it. But, now that I see what is happening at the AAP school (re: expectations for the kids), I see that there IS a difference and the AAP school is a higher level.

I'm starting to see at the dinner table that my 3rd grader is using words that my 5th grader doesn't understand. It's not b/c my 5th grader is lower level in reading/verbal. 5th grader actually scored in the 99th percentile and 3rd grader was more like 95th or 92% (based on local norms). But, 3rd grader's teacher uses different words in explaining things and they have vocab words that are far above what my 5th grader is doing.

The 5th grader is getting a decent education, but we feel bad that she's still not getting as much as the 3rd grader. If only the non-AAP school would up the ante a bit and challenge the kids a little more. That would go a long way.

New poster - thank you both posts very helpful. Would you be willing to share name of Aap school? Sounds like it has stellar teachers.

Anonymous wrote:To the OP Dad looking for answers. It comes down to AAP providing accelerated math - IF your particular elementary school offers this path for your child.

Although this report focuses on the math curriculum, it highlights many of the issues debated on DCUM. I guess it just takes an outside company to deliver the message.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9U697F6E31F9

Thanks for posting this. This is great info and directly echoes my concerns with current ES math curriculum and placement. Nice to see that FCPS commissioned this study and hope they act on its findings.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's better because it utilizes curricula that encourages critical thinking and problem solving skills.

It uses more 'real life' projects and examples for students to more fully engage in the problem solving challenge.

The English/Vocab curriculum encourages greater understanding of the English language by utilizing methods to understanding via stem words.

This also greatly increases the child's ability for later standardized tests such as the SATs.

The teachers in AAP have more training and are skilled at making learning easily accessible for different types of learners.

They learn techniques and strategies to help a child think more deeply and use these strategies in classroom lessons.

Instead of simply instructing, Socratic seminars are more common to get kids talking, debating and learning.



In a nutshell, AAP is better because it is an empirically greater method of learning and teaching.

It's sickening that "average kids" don't deserve this quality of education....

When we first moved to Fairfax County, I was told that pretty much everyone receives quality education (with some exceptions here and there) in this county - and that AAP is just more advanced, skipping a year ahead kind of curriculum for those that need to be more challenged. After reading such opposing views, now I don't know what to think. With this constant it's great/it sucks and let's get rid of it/good luck with that kind of arguing, can't we just focus our energy and attention on what's best for our own child and meet them where they're at? I came to this site for help and advice, but am finding myself filtering through so much bickering and negativity.

You might want to try City-data if you want civility, bra.

The benefit of AAP is more apparent in middle school....in AAP there seems to be peer pressure to do well. When I was in middle school, beck when Ford was president, peer pressure was to do poorly; cool kids did bad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IMHO: The only real benefit to AAP is that the teachers have more advanced training and that in theory, your child is surrounded by other children and parents who have the same focused drive on education and its importance.

The reality is that AAP was initially designed for the top 5% of kids that are actually really smart, those kids that are on a different intellectual level. Today, we have many kids that have tested into the program due to parental prepping. People will tell you that they didn't prep, or that prepping does not work...but it they do and it does. I prepped and so have many others.

People Redshirt their kids when possible as that also helps their kids get into AAP (testing over a grade allows you to either skip or go into AAP).

In a way it is sad because all kids should benefit form from teachers with better training etc., but the bureaucracy of the public school system will never allow this, so parents do everything they can to get their kids into AAP and hope for a more focused, enhanced, richer curriculum, etc. The reality is that the AAP label is not all that much better than GenPop....but is sounds good I suppose.

Those kids that are true geniuses are again not really surrounded by others of their intellectual calibre.

When I think of geniuses, I think of people like these: http://listverse.com/2007/10/06/top-10-geniuses/ or more recently: http://www.teachthought.com/interest/the-10-youngest-college-students-of-all-time/

I wonder how many true geniuses are around us and if they were to be separated from the rest, wouldn't they be in a classroom more or less alone?

What you are talking about is so rare, no public school system need to have a program to support it. It would be on a case by case basis to determine what it the appropriate direction for each child.

To the OP Dad looking for answers. It comes down to AAP providing accelerated math - IF your particular elementary school offers this path for your child.

Although this report focuses on the math curriculum, it highlights many of the issues debated on DCUM. I guess it just takes an outside company to deliver the message.

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/fairfax/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=9U697F6E31F9

Anonymous wrote:IMHO: The only real benefit to AAP is that the teachers have more advanced training and that in theory, your child is surrounded by other children and parents who have the same focused drive on education and its importance.

The reality is that AAP was initially designed for the top 5% of kids that are actually really smart, those kids that are on a different intellectual level. Today, we have many kids that have tested into the program due to parental prepping. People will tell you that they didn't prep, or that prepping does not work...but it they do and it does. I prepped and so have many others.

People Redshirt their kids when possible as that also helps their kids get into AAP (testing over a grade allows you to either skip or go into AAP).

In a way it is sad because all kids should benefit form from teachers with better training etc., but the bureaucracy of the public school system will never allow this, so parents do everything they can to get their kids into AAP and hope for a more focused, enhanced, richer curriculum, etc. The reality is that the AAP label is not all that much better than GenPop....but is sounds good I suppose.

Those kids that are true geniuses are again not really surrounded by others of their intellectual calibre.

When I think of geniuses, I think of people like these: http://listverse.com/2007/10/06/top-10-geniuses/ or more recently: http://www.teachthought.com/interest/the-10-youngest-college-students-of-all-time/

I wonder how many true geniuses are around us and if they were to be separated from the rest, wouldn't they be in a classroom more or less alone?

I am a PP who wrote about a bunch of differences I see b/t my two kids schools (one AAP, one not). It's not that the non-AAP school "sucks" -- it's a pretty normal school and people (parents, teachers, kids) seem pretty happy with it. But, now that I see what is happening at the AAP school (re: expectations for the kids), I see that there IS a difference and the AAP school is a higher level.

I'm starting to see at the dinner table that my 3rd grader is using words that my 5th grader doesn't understand. It's not b/c my 5th grader is lower level in reading/verbal. 5th grader actually scored in the 99th percentile and 3rd grader was more like 95th or 92% (based on local norms). But, 3rd grader's teacher uses different words in explaining things and they have vocab words that are far above what my 5th grader is doing.

The 5th grader is getting a decent education, but we feel bad that she's still not getting as much as the 3rd grader. If only the non-AAP school would up the ante a bit and challenge the kids a little more. That would go a long way.

IMHO: The only real benefit to AAP is that the teachers have more advanced training and that in theory, your child is surrounded by other children and parents who have the same focused drive on education and its importance.

The reality is that AAP was initially designed for the top 5% of kids that are actually really smart, those kids that are on a different intellectual level. Today, we have many kids that have tested into the program due to parental prepping. People will tell you that they didn't prep, or that prepping does not work...but it they do and it does. I prepped and so have many others.

People Redshirt their kids when possible as that also helps their kids get into AAP (testing over a grade allows you to either skip or go into AAP).

In a way it is sad because all kids should benefit form from teachers with better training etc., but the bureaucracy of the public school system will never allow this, so parents do everything they can to get their kids into AAP and hope for a more focused, enhanced, richer curriculum, etc. The reality is that the AAP label is not all that much better than GenPop....but is sounds good I suppose.

Those kids that are true geniuses are again not really surrounded by others of their intellectual calibre.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's better because it utilizes curricula that encourages critical thinking and problem solving skills.

It uses more 'real life' projects and examples for students to more fully engage in the problem solving challenge.

The English/Vocab curriculum encourages greater understanding of the English language by utilizing methods to understanding via stem words.

This also greatly increases the child's ability for later standardized tests such as the SATs.

The teachers in AAP have more training and are skilled at making learning easily accessible for different types of learners.

They learn techniques and strategies to help a child think more deeply and use these strategies in classroom lessons.

Instead of simply instructing, Socratic seminars are more common to get kids talking, debating and learning.



In a nutshell, AAP is better because it is an empirically greater method of learning and teaching.

It's sickening that "average kids" don't deserve this quality of education....

When we first moved to Fairfax County, I was told that pretty much everyone receives quality education (with some exceptions here and there) in this county - and that AAP is just more advanced, skipping a year ahead kind of curriculum for those that need to be more challenged. After reading such opposing views, now I don't know what to think. With this constant it's great/it sucks and let's get rid of it/good luck with that kind of arguing, can't we just focus our energy and attention on what's best for our own child and meet them where they're at? I came to this site for help and advice, but am finding myself filtering through so much bickering and negativity.

FCPS has nationally recognized reputation across the board. Those who act like the non-AAP students are getting some poor education are not being truthful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's better because it utilizes curricula that encourages critical thinking and problem solving skills.

It uses more 'real life' projects and examples for students to more fully engage in the problem solving challenge.

The English/Vocab curriculum encourages greater understanding of the English language by utilizing methods to understanding via stem words.

This also greatly increases the child's ability for later standardized tests such as the SATs.

The teachers in AAP have more training and are skilled at making learning easily accessible for different types of learners.

They learn techniques and strategies to help a child think more deeply and use these strategies in classroom lessons.

Instead of simply instructing, Socratic seminars are more common to get kids talking, debating and learning.



In a nutshell, AAP is better because it is an empirically greater method of learning and teaching.

It's sickening that "average kids" don't deserve this quality of education....

When we first moved to Fairfax County, I was told that pretty much everyone receives quality education (with some exceptions here and there) in this county - and that AAP is just more advanced, skipping a year ahead kind of curriculum for those that need to be more challenged. After reading such opposing views, now I don't know what to think. With this constant it's great/it sucks and let's get rid of it/good luck with that kind of arguing, can't we just focus our energy and attention on what's best for our own child and meet them where they're at? I came to this site for help and advice, but am finding myself filtering through so much bickering and negativity.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's better because it utilizes curricula that encourages critical thinking and problem solving skills.

It uses more 'real life' projects and examples for students to more fully engage in the problem solving challenge.

The English/Vocab curriculum encourages greater understanding of the English language by utilizing methods to understanding via stem words.

This also greatly increases the child's ability for later standardized tests such as the SATs.

The teachers in AAP have more training and are skilled at making learning easily accessible for different types of learners.

They learn techniques and strategies to help a child think more deeply and use these strategies in classroom lessons.

Instead of simply instructing, Socratic seminars are more common to get kids talking, debating and learning.



In a nutshell, AAP is better because it is an empirically greater method of learning and teaching.

It's sickening that "average kids" don't deserve this quality of education....

School board is meeting later this month. I expect you to be there. Or you can start today by writing some letters to members.

Anonymous wrote:It's better because it utilizes curricula that encourages critical thinking and problem solving skills.

It uses more 'real life' projects and examples for students to more fully engage in the problem solving challenge.

The English/Vocab curriculum encourages greater understanding of the English language by utilizing methods to understanding via stem words.

This also greatly increases the child's ability for later standardized tests such as the SATs.

The teachers in AAP have more training and are skilled at making learning easily accessible for different types of learners.

They learn techniques and strategies to help a child think more deeply and use these strategies in classroom lessons.

Instead of simply instructing, Socratic seminars are more common to get kids talking, debating and learning.



In a nutshell, AAP is better because it is an empirically greater method of learning and teaching.

It's sickening that "average kids" don't deserve this quality of education....

Anonymous wrote:

Wolftrap uses the AAP curriculum for Science and Social Science for all kids, but does separate AAP and non-AAP classes and teachers for LA and Math

geeez I know where I should have sent my children

They may be the only FCPS elementary school that has my respect.

I believe Colvin Run does this too.

Wolftrap uses the AAP curriculum for Science and Social Science for all kids, but does separate AAP and non-AAP classes and teachers for LA and Math

geeez I know where I should have sent my children

They may be the only FCPS elementary school that has my respect.