Which school pyramids are considered "desirable" in Fairfax County? (Burke: real estate, apartment)

[jbills]

What are the stay away schools in Fairfax County? I am finding that people post depending on where they live and of course where they live is so great. I went to the district and researched information on SAT scores and it seems Fairfax County High Schools are ranked in the top TEN in the country as a cluster. NOT a zone or pyramid or individual school. Isnt your child a independent student? It's not the school it's the PTA and child. So anyone out there with success stories on good or bad performing schools? Beltway, Tyson, All these different areas dont mean your child will be the means that changes the district scores. I pay just as much if not more to live in Springfield close to the beltway a block from the train and across from the mall. So where you live doesnt set a standard nor how much you make. Good teachers, and a strong PTA does. So if you are part of the PTA of a school and you attend district meetings and could give information on the performance based on your own witness post. Otherwise its all speculation.

[JEB77]

Originally Posted by jbills

What are the stay away schools in Fairfax County? I am finding that people post depending on where they live and of course where they live is so great. I went to the district and researched information on SAT scores and it seems Fairfax County High Schools are ranked in the top TEN in the country as a cluster. NOT a zone or pyramid or individual school. Isnt your child a independent student? It's not the school it's the PTA and child. So anyone out there with success stories on good or bad performing schools? Beltway, Tyson, All these different areas dont mean your child will be the means that changes the district scores. I pay just as much if not more to live in Springfield close to the beltway a block from the train and across from the mall. So where you live doesnt set a standard nor how much you make. Good teachers, and a strong PTA does. So if you are part of the PTA of a school and you attend district meetings and could give information on the performance based on your own witness post. Otherwise its all speculation.

I agree that some of the prior posts on this thread seemed to reflect advice to focus on a very small number of the county's schools, accompanied by warnings to stay away from an equally small number of schools - which happened to have higher levels of students speaking English as a second language and/or lower-income students. It made me a bit queasy, when the distinctions between many schools (apart from TJ) are relatively insignificant in the scheme of things.

For those seeking general information, here are the average SAT scores of the Fairfax schools for the Class of 2008:

TJ 2183
Langley 1824
McLean 1759
Woodson 1745
Oakton 1710
Marshall 1680
Madison 1674
Lake Braddock 1673
Robinson 1646
Herndon 1636
Chantilly 1621
West Springfield 1621
Westfield 1620
Centreville 1595
South County 1581
Falls Church 1568
South Lakes 1568
Lee 1563
Fairfax 1553
Stuart 1536
West Potomac 1530
Annandale 1523
NATIONAL AVERAGE - 1511
Hayfield 1503
Edison 1488
Mount Vernon 1475

In addition, US News and World Report also recently published rankings of the nation's top public schools. Eleven Fairfax schools were included:

TJ (Gold Medal - #1)
McLean (Gold Medal - #55)
Langley (Gold Medal - #76)
Woodson (Gold Medal -#90)
Chantilly (Silver Medal)
Lake Braddock (Silver Medal)
Madison (Silver Medal)
Marshall (Silver Medal)
Oakton (Silver Medal)
Robinson (Silver Medal)
Stuart (Silver Medal)

It really is critical to keep in mind that, in a region as diverse as Fairfax County, there are plenty of high-achievers at the schools with the lower averages, and low-achievers at schools with higher averages. The efforts of individual parents and students are what count at the end of the day.

[DWS43]

This is slightly off-topic but one summer I took a Calculus 3 class at NVCC in Annandale and I was amazed at the caliber of the students in that class. Many had come from Fairfax County schools and were there for economic reasons not because they could not compete. I was grateful just to get my transfer credit.

[HavetoSay]

Originally Posted by arabellava

Trying to figure out which Elementary and middle schools are good that feed in top High Schools. I am pretty sure anything into Langley is good- but what other combinations are good? Thank you!

School is what you make of it...don't pick a neighborhood based on the pyramid...that's a joke and it will make you go broke! Its what you and your kid make of their education. I know a teacher who thought he was a genius b/c his students were scoring in the 90th percentile. Well, he switched school districts, didn't change a thing teaching-wise, and guess what? These students scored in the 50th percentile! The difference? He had switched from a school district in which the parents cared how their kids did in school to one in which parents were not as involved.

[Denton56]

Even if you are allowed to transfer to the school that you want, you must provide transportation. That can be difficult for many families.

I suggest you move into the Thoreau Middle school and then Madison high school. If you move into the town of Vienna, it is VERY unlikely that you would ever be redistricted out of Thoreau or Madison since those are considered the town middle and high schools. All of the elementary schools in the town are pretty good.

[Denton56]

Originally Posted by HavetoSay

School is what you make of it...don't pick a neighborhood based on the pyramid...that's a joke and it will make you go broke! Its what you and your kid make of their education. I know a teacher who thought he was a genius b/c his students were scoring in the 90th percentile. Well, he switched school districts, didn't change a thing teaching-wise, and guess what? These students scored in the 50th percentile! The difference? He had switched from a school district in which the parents cared how their kids did in school to one in which parents were not as involved.

Yes, that's why you want your child in a good pyramid where parents care about the schools. Better schools are better because the kids are better, harder working, and from homes that place a high value on education. Most of us want our children in schools with other children that share our educational goals.

Regarding AP and IB, I would HIGHLY recommend and AP school. It offers more options and saves more money when going to college because the AP program is aligned with US colleges and universities. But if you think it's more important that your student is in a program with the goal of world peace, and not preparation for college, you might prefer IB. The majority of parents and students prefer IB which is why the school board could only get away with foisting it on schools with less parental involvement. It's a shame. The students who need college credit the most are the least likely to be able to get it.

[mpascal]

Typcially I'm not one to post a reply to a thread like this, but I'm just amazed at how snobby and self-righteous so many people are. I've been in education for 18 years now, and yes school choice was important in deciding where we'd live. But other than the posts that have cited actual data like SAT scores, so many people are making gross generalizations. To say that families at a certain school don't care about education is an insult. We live across the street from South Lakes HS. I currently have a student in elementary and one in middle. I think of myself as having educational goals for my kids, and both my wife and I are very active in both schools' activities. I'd venture to guess to a greater extent than some parents in the "good" schools that are often referenced here.

We know many, many families who share goals like ours, whose kids graduated from South Lakes, and have gone on to top colleges. The principal is relatively new and well-regarded. My neighbor teaches there and has taught at several other FCPS schools. Is South Lakes perfect? Of course not. But according to a teacher who has seen many sides of the county, issues there are comparable to those in other schools.

If you don't want to send your kids to a "school like South Lakes" that's fine, but please don't generalize and claim that families don't care about their kids' education. Focus on the fact that you're apprehensive about the diversity and the benefits that brings to a school or that you're nervous about your kids being around those on free and reduced lunch.

[JEB77]

Originally Posted by mpascal

Typcially I'm not one to post a reply to a thread like this, but I'm just amazed at how snobby and self-righteous so many people are. I've been in education for 18 years now, and yes school choice was important in deciding where we'd live. But other than the posts that have cited actual data like SAT scores, so many people are making gross generalizations. To say that families at a certain school don't care about education is an insult. We live across the street from South Lakes HS. I currently have a student in elementary and one in middle. I think of myself as having educational goals for my kids, and both my wife and I are very active in both schools' activities. I'd venture to guess to a greater extent than some parents in the "good" schools that are often referenced here.

We know many, many families who share goals like ours, whose kids graduated from South Lakes, and have gone on to top colleges. The principal is relatively new and well-regarded. My neighbor teaches there and has taught at several other FCPS schools. Is South Lakes perfect? Of course not. But according to a teacher who has seen many sides of the county, issues there are comparable to those in other schools.

If you don't want to send your kids to a "school like South Lakes" that's fine, but please don't generalize and claim that families don't care about their kids' education. Focus on the fact that you're apprehensive about the diversity and the benefits that brings to a school or that you're nervous about your kids being around those on free and reduced lunch.

Bravo for your post. I post a good amount of quantitative data on these threads, because I want people asking questions to have access to the hard data and national rankings, but also to reflect on how significant, for example, minor disparities in schools' SAT scores really should be to a relocation decision.

And, having many years of experience as both a student and parent in the county, I will - if asked - explain why I personally would choose one school over the other, if other factors were equal (which, as another poster recently noted, rarely is the case). But I will try to provide specific reasons - and not simply refer to the "reputation" of one school, because I think this is too often "code language" for simply steering people away from schools with higher percentages of lower-income students.

I think that last year's redistricting process that led to the reassignment of students to South Lakes was poorly managed and inflammatory for many reasons, but I never thought - then or now - that South Lakes was anything other than a vibrant, diverse school (of which there are many in the county).

I had to chuckle at Denton56's two posts suggesting that families should gravitate to Madison HS and avoid an IB program - such as that offered at South Lakes and Marshall - like the plague. Some parents do prefer AP (Woodson families rejected IB in favor of AP several years ago), but there are many high-achieving students who have enjoyed the program, and the suggested dichotomy between AP courses (hard, rigorous math and science) vs. IB (all fuzzy social sciences) is a bit overstated.

- If pre-IB and IB courses are so terrible, perhaps Denton56 can explain why SAT scores, including the math scores, at Marshall (an IB school that many Vienna area students attend) exceeded those at Madison (another area high school with AP courses) last year.

- If no parents want their kids in IB schools, why is Annandale High (an IB school) one of the largest schools in the county?

- If IB courses don't prepare students for college, why did the University of Virginia admit so many South Lakes graduates (over 25?) last year?

[HavetoSay]

Originally Posted by mpascal

Typcially I'm not one to post a reply to a thread like this, but I'm just amazed at how snobby and self-righteous so many people are. I've been in education for 18 years now, and yes school choice was important in deciding where we'd live. But other than the posts that have cited actual data like SAT scores, so many people are making gross generalizations. To say that families at a certain school don't care about education is an insult. We live across the street from South Lakes HS. I currently have a student in elementary and one in middle. I think of myself as having educational goals for my kids, and both my wife and I are very active in both schools' activities. I'd venture to guess to a greater extent than some parents in the "good" schools that are often referenced here.

We know many, many families who share goals like ours, whose kids graduated from South Lakes, and have gone on to top colleges. The principal is relatively new and well-regarded. My neighbor teaches there and has taught at several other FCPS schools. Is South Lakes perfect? Of course not. But according to a teacher who has seen many sides of the county, issues there are comparable to those in other schools.

If you don't want to send your kids to a "school like South Lakes" that's fine, but please don't generalize and claim that families don't care about their kids' education. Focus on the fact that you're apprehensive about the diversity and the benefits that brings to a school or that you're nervous about your kids being around those on free and reduced lunch.

I totally agree -- it is snobbery. I laugh every time I see an ad touting the prestigious "school pyramid". Then I hear that UVa (the Commonwealth's top public university) is only letting in one kid each year from that so-called prestigious high school -- so, then, what good was it to spend all that money just to be in that school district? Let the snobs be foolish and waste money on school pyramids, we'll see who the clever ones truly are .

[JEB77]

Originally Posted by Denton56

Even if you are allowed to transfer to the school that you want, you must provide transportation. That can be difficult for many families.

I suggest you move into the Thoreau Middle school and then Madison high school. If you move into the town of Vienna, it is VERY unlikely that you would ever be redistricted out of Thoreau or Madison since those are considered the town middle and high schools. All of the elementary schools in the town are pretty good.

Students in the town of Vienna attend both Kilmer and Thoreau Middle (most do go to Thoreau), and they all attend Madison. All are good, as are the elementary schools.