Anonymous
Post 06/10/2013 09:48     Subject: Arlington schools- a lot of the BS sounds familiar
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Thank you, 13:46.

A fellow North Arlingtonian


+1. Our DC is still in elementary school but we know a family with a child at ATS that is hoping to send their DC to H-B -- it certainly surprised me because the whole educational philosophy of H-B seems to me to be the opposite of ATS.

We do have a high degree of segregation in the Arlington schools - the elementary schools in N Arlington (except for Glebe, Barrett, and McKinley) are 85+% white. Accompanying that is a decent amount of unacknowledged racism -- you read the comments of N Arlington parents here on DCUM and you realize behind the smiling facade of diversity in Arlington is a lot of raw prejudice and racism.

I don't think the demographics of N Arlington are in fact 85+% white but my guess is that many non-white families (or adoptive families with non-white kids) up here opt for the countywide schools to avoid their kids being "the only one" (or pretty close to it) in their grade


Since you want to talk about racial demographics, understand that Arlington itself is 62% white and only 8.2% black. It is 15% Hispanic/Latino, and that community has off-the-charts drop-out rate for school.

Been looking for H-B racial makeup. But I bet it tracks the county more generally. White privilege bastion and all that.

(Here's a tip: When you start throwing around phrases like "white privilege" in an otherwise serious conversation, you immediately disqualify yourself as a thoughtful and credible participant).


This year HB is 64.5% white. (FWIW, ATS is 59.1% white.)
Anonymous
Post 06/10/2013 09:40     Subject: Re:Arlington schools- a lot of the BS sounds familiar
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:

People don't "clamor" to get into ATS, nor do they "agitate" to get into HB. They just fill out a single piece of paper to enter the double-blind lottery. Just like anyone else who wants to.


They fill out the piece of paper and then they wind themselves in knots about whether they'll get in and post here to say "We're 312th on the waiting list, what are our chances."

And honestly, if you sent your kid to ATS and can't stop talking about how it was the greatest thing ever and then applied to HB, you are fixated on something other than educational philosophy when picking schools.


The philosophies of the two schools are polar opposites. I always wondered about ATS families that then embrace the culture at HB.


As one ATS parent, I'm happy to explain my thought process. For us, it seems that ATS provides a wonderful start where smaller kids can learn the fundamentals, develop good habits, focus on character education etc. H-B seems appealing because kids may have different needs at different points in their lives. I don't think it makes sense to assume that small kids and adolescent kids need the same style of learning environment. The world out there is varied, and they're going to need to know how to get along in a lot of different environments. I don't know yet if we'll appy to H-B, but it deosn't seem like a really crazy thing to do after ATS. We've heard that a lot of ATS kids do well there because they have developed the self-discipline to handle that style. Of course, a lot of non-ATS kids have developed that too, so please don't jump down my throat about that comment.
Anonymous
Post 06/10/2013 09:35     Subject: Arlington schools- a lot of the BS sounds familiar
Found H-B Woodlawn racial breakdown:

http://www.apsva.us/cms/lib2/VA01000586/Centricity/Domain/11/civilrights/Civil%20Rights_2012-13_Web.pdf

Pretty closely tracks the county as a whole.