Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ admissions gaming by “buying the test questions” was being done by South Asian families who enrolled DC in a specific tutoring center near the Loudoun county line which catered to that demographic and had collected most of the questions in the test pool. This news was broken on Facebook by South Asian students who were attending TJ, according to published news reports. See many TJ threads about this in the AAP forum. This has been hashed in detail there.

As far as I can tell, S Asian families in Fairfax County are not very often RW anything….so I think the RW allegations are confused/bogus.

I don't doubt it but the people who seem to be the most upset about these reforms are definitely RWNJ aligned.

Wrong. Most upset were the Asian/ Indian parents, who all vote D, if they vote at all (most prefer to stay out of it and do not vote).

Do you have friends and co-workers with school age kids? Talk to them. Learn about what they like or don’t like about schools. Look at your commute. I work in IT / Technology and DH works for an agency that has traditionally had office space in DC and Arlington. That roughly put us in Virginia in the triangle of 66, 267, and Rt. 28. to have reasonable commutes to our current jobs and the majority of jobs in our industry / career path. Maryland may have been a better fit for us culturally based on friend who live there, but it wasn’t worth the commute or changing jobs for us.

Once that was settled, we chose central Arlington. I have friends with slightly older kids who live in various parts of Fairfax county. I was not interested in the AAP program or potentially sending kids to TJ. I also wanted to be close to a Metro and closer to DC to minimize commute time. We have friends in Falls Church City who love their neighborhood and schools - but we felt it was too small for us. On the off chance a future kid struggled with behavior or social challenges, we didn’t want our kid type cast. We have coworkers in Alexandria, but they all send their kids to private schools. We were not interested in private. We know a few people in McLean and while they are happy, we were not excited about being on the lower end income wise. We wanted an elementary school with some racial and economic diversity. At the time we settled on Ashlawn and Glebe elementary zones as our first choice. We have subsequently been rezoned to Yorktown HS instead of W-L, but that could change again before HS. Our elementary zone was also adjusted, removing a neighborhood with a lot of apartments, changing the dynamic of the school. If you don’t have kids, you should assume that whatever you pick, things may change before your kids are in school.
I suggest honing in on a few neighborhoods and drive around or walk around on a nice weekend afterwards and look for strollers in driveway and other indications that other people will have young kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I question the old go-to “great schools.”

Be careful with that one.

People hate the scores because of the underlying truth. When we bought our first home years ago, we sought out an affordable enclave in a very highly rated elementary school district and it worked well.

This PP didn't say what the "underlying truth" that she's referring to is. It's racism. Great Schools is great if you're a racist who wants to live in a high SES, white and Asian area.

Ahem, guess who's a racist.

You.

Anonymous wrote:I question the old go-to “great schools.”

Be careful with that one.

Actually that's the most helpful starting point.

OP, be careful with posters who care about some ideology more than facts or actually helping you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No president since Carter has sent their kids to any DC public school (and Mayor Fenty begged Obama).

Cross DCPS off your list.

That leaves MoCo schools (but they just defunded their School Resource Officers / kicked police out). Just insane.

Alexandria did the same, and has had major violence problems this year.

I would not consider the PG public schools.

That leaves NOVA schools. Their school boards are packed with LWNJs (seriously - these people are crazy) but that may soon change.

FCPS has done an excellent job, but many of the RWNJ are upset that they put an end to gaming admission to many of the enriched programs at places like TJ. For example, students in affluent areas were buying access to the entrance exam which gave them an unfair advantage, but when the school board put a stop to that it sent many of the RW-extremists over the edge.

Few think FCPS has done an excellent job in recent years, although they try to divert attention from their failures by doing things like adopting quotas by middle school for TJ admissions, which is intended to make people in the struggling, low-performing pyramids feel better about their kids’ lack of preparedness. Of course, most of the kids in those pyramids will still never attend TJ.

Sure, the RWNJs are especially unhappy with FCPS since now they can't easily game admission into elite programs like TJ, but most everyone else is thrilled.

Not elite anymore. Have you seen the math level for the new freshman classes. Yikes.

I heard the overall class stats and college admission (outcomes) are now better than ever.

Anonymous wrote:The TJ admissions gaming by “buying the test questions” was being done by South Asian families who enrolled DC in a specific tutoring center near the Loudoun county line which catered to that demographic and had collected most of the questions in the test pool. This news was broken on Facebook by South Asian students who were attending TJ, according to published news reports. See many TJ threads about this in the AAP forum. This has been hashed in detail there.

As far as I can tell, S Asian families in Fairfax County are not very often RW anything….so I think the RW allegations are confused/bogus.

I don't doubt it but the people who seem to be the most upset about these reforms are definitely RWNJ aligned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No president since Carter has sent their kids to any DC public school (and Mayor Fenty begged Obama).

Cross DCPS off your list.

That leaves MoCo schools (but they just defunded their School Resource Officers / kicked police out). Just insane.

Alexandria did the same, and has had major violence problems this year.

I would not consider the PG public schools.

That leaves NOVA schools. Their school boards are packed with LWNJs (seriously - these people are crazy) but that may soon change.

FCPS has done an excellent job, but many of the RWNJ are upset that they put an end to gaming admission to many of the enriched programs at places like TJ. For example, students in affluent areas were buying access to the entrance exam which gave them an unfair advantage, but when the school board put a stop to that it sent many of the RW-extremists over the edge.

Few think FCPS has done an excellent job in recent years, although they try to divert attention from their failures by doing things like adopting quotas by middle school for TJ admissions, which is intended to make people in the struggling, low-performing pyramids feel better about their kids’ lack of preparedness. Of course, most of the kids in those pyramids will still never attend TJ.

Sure, the RWNJs are especially unhappy with FCPS since now they can't easily game admission into elite programs like TJ, but most everyone else is thrilled.

Not elite anymore. Have you seen the math level for the new freshman classes. Yikes.

The TJ admissions gaming by “buying the test questions” was being done by South Asian families who enrolled DC in a specific tutoring center near the Loudoun county line which catered to that demographic and had collected most of the questions in the test pool. This news was broken on Facebook by South Asian students who were attending TJ, according to published news reports. See many TJ threads about this in the AAP forum. This has been hashed in detail there.

As far as I can tell, S Asian families in Fairfax County are not very often RW anything….so I think the RW allegations are confused/bogus.

Anonymous wrote:No president since Carter has sent their kids to any DC public school (and Mayor Fenty begged Obama).

Cross DCPS off your list.

That leaves MoCo schools (but they just defunded their School Resource Officers / kicked police out). Just insane.

Alexandria did the same, and has had major violence problems this year.

I would not consider the PG public schools.

That leaves NOVA schools. Their school boards are packed with LWNJs (seriously - these people are crazy) but that may soon change.

Howard County is best! Frederick county seems to have decent enough old-school system, and Anne Arundel is not bad either. We seriously considered Severna Park.

Go by commute. Ask at your husbands or your office where the families live and how they like their neighborhoods.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No president since Carter has sent their kids to any DC public school (and Mayor Fenty begged Obama).

Cross DCPS off your list.

That leaves MoCo schools (but they just defunded their School Resource Officers / kicked police out). Just insane.

Alexandria did the same, and has had major violence problems this year.

I would not consider the PG public schools.

That leaves NOVA schools. Their school boards are packed with LWNJs (seriously - these people are crazy) but that may soon change.

FCPS has done an excellent job, but many of the RWNJ are upset that they put an end to gaming admission to many of the enriched programs at places like TJ. For example, students in affluent areas were buying access to the entrance exam which gave them an unfair advantage, but when the school board put a stop to that it sent many of the RW-extremists over the edge.

Few think FCPS has done an excellent job in recent years, although they try to divert attention from their failures by doing things like adopting quotas by middle school for TJ admissions, which is intended to make people in the struggling, low-performing pyramids feel better about their kids’ lack of preparedness. Of course, most of the kids in those pyramids will still never attend TJ.

Sure, the RWNJs are especially unhappy with FCPS since now they can't easily game admission into elite programs like TJ, but most everyone else is thrilled.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No president since Carter has sent their kids to any DC public school (and Mayor Fenty begged Obama).

Cross DCPS off your list.

That leaves MoCo schools (but they just defunded their School Resource Officers / kicked police out). Just insane.

Alexandria did the same, and has had major violence problems this year.

I would not consider the PG public schools.

That leaves NOVA schools. Their school boards are packed with LWNJs (seriously - these people are crazy) but that may soon change.

FCPS has done an excellent job, but many of the RWNJ are upset that they put an end to gaming admission to many of the enriched programs at places like TJ. For example, students in affluent areas were buying access to the entrance exam which gave them an unfair advantage, but when the school board put a stop to that it sent many of the RW-extremists over the edge.

Few think FCPS has done an excellent job in recent years, although they try to divert attention from their failures by doing things like adopting quotas by middle school for TJ admissions, which is intended to make people in the struggling, low-performing pyramids feel better about their kids’ lack of preparedness. Of course, most of the kids in those pyramids will still never attend TJ.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I question the old go-to “great schools.”

Be careful with that one.

People hate the scores because of the underlying truth. When we bought our first home years ago, we sought out an affordable enclave in a very highly rated elementary school district and it worked well.

This PP didn't say what the "underlying truth" that she's referring to is. It's racism. Great Schools is great if you're a racist who wants to live in a high SES, white and Asian area.

If you want your kid to go to a high school where the average SAT score is well the national average, feel free!

Anonymous wrote:^BUT I would not consider buying in DCPS, ACPS or PG county. I don’t know much about Maryland.

Most people can only afford to buy in the places you listed.

Anonymous wrote:No president since Carter has sent their kids to any DC public school (and Mayor Fenty begged Obama).

Cross DCPS off your list.

That leaves MoCo schools (but they just defunded their School Resource Officers / kicked police out). Just insane.

Alexandria did the same, and has had major violence problems this year.

I would not consider the PG public schools.

That leaves NOVA schools. Their school boards are packed with LWNJs (seriously - these people are crazy) but that may soon change.

FCPS has done an excellent job, but many of the RWNJ are upset that they put an end to gaming admission to many of the enriched programs at places like TJ. For example, students in affluent areas were buying access to the entrance exam which gave them an unfair advantage, but when the school board put a stop to that it sent many of the RW-extremists over the edge.