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It actually is more rational to pay attention to college rankings than those of high schools within the same district. Colleges differ greatly in the quality of the faculty, facilities, and curriculum they offer. High schools within Fairfax County do not. They only differ in the backgrounds, motivations and abilities of the students attending. If that were applied to colleges, we'd merely rank them by average GRE, GMAT, or LSAT scores.
I certainly agree that colleges differ greatly, which is a very good thing. What is less clear to me is whether the high schools in the county - putting aside the differences among students, which is no small thing to put aside - are as uniform as you suggest.
Some high schools receive a lot of donations from parents to pay for extras (and TJ, which has the second-lowest level of low-income students in the county next to Langley, has its own fund-raising foundation). Others don't.
Some schools were recently renovated, or can successfully lobby to get additions that they may or may not need, while others wait patiently in line for renovations.
To the extent that FCPS posts openings for teachers' positions, as it did this summer, it's not unreasonable to think that prospective teachers do their own due diligence on schools before deciding where to apply. I recall at least one thread on C-D from this summer where a candidate seemed to gravitate in part towards Woodson because people spoke favorably of its academic record.
And I have not checked the course handbooks to see whether the breadth of course offerings available at, say, Langley and Mount Vernon are similar, but I wouldn't assume they are the same without having done that legwork.
I'm squarely in the camp that would urge prospective residents not to get carried away with one set of test scores (even though I'm enough of a data geek to track them, kind of like I followed third-basemen's HRs and RBIs, and pitchers' ERAs in MLB as a kid), but there's a difference between saying (1) all FCPS high schools are the same apart from their student populations; and (2) students can probably do well at any of them.
In any event, it's always interesting to see how discussions evolve over time on C-D. It wasn't so long ago that we had a number of posters who typically tried to steer anyone who was looking at Fairfax to the five high schools with the highest test scores (Langley, McLean, Woodson, Madison and Oakton), with Robinson and Lake Braddock sometimes added to the list.
I certainly agree that colleges differ greatly, which is a very good thing. What is less clear to me is whether the high schools in the county - putting aside the differences among students, which is no small thing to put aside - are as uniform as you suggest.
Some high schools receive a lot of donations from parents to pay for extras (and TJ, which has the second-lowest level of low-income students in the county next to Langley, has its own foundation/fund-raising juggernaut). Others don't.
Some schools were recently renovated, or can successfully lobby to get additions that they may or may not need, while others wait patiently in line for renovations.
To the extent that FCPS posts openings for teachers' positions, as it did this summer, it's not unreasonable to think that prospective teachers do their own due diligence on schools before deciding where to apply. I recall at least one thread on C-D from this summer where a candidate seemed to gravitate in part towards Woodson because people spoke favorably of its academic record.
And I have not checked the course handbooks to see whether the breadth of course offerings available at, say, Langley and Mount Vernon are similar, but I wouldn't assume they are the same without having done that legwork.
I'm squarely in the camp that would urge prospective residents not to get carried away with one set of test scores (even though I'm enough of a data geek to track them, kind of like I followed third-basemen's HRs and RBIs, and pitchers' ERAs in MLB as a kid), but there's a difference between saying (1) all FCPS high schools are the same apart from their student populations; and (2) students can probably do well at any of them.
Both Mount Vernon and West Potomac here have been recently renovated as well as Whitman Middle School. They're all top notch facilities comparable to any others in the county. I doubt the amount of parent donations make a significant difference and I don't believe there are any "extras" offered at the higher scoring schools unavailable at the lowest. Supplemental programs like IB (MV) and AP (WP) are available at the lower performing schools. The teaching staff is all drawn from the same pool. Text books are the same. Curriculum is developed and managed at the district level. Class sizes are centrally mandated. In fact if there are any significant differences that would make for a nice lawsuit as all the schools draw from the same main taxpayer supported funding source. It would almost be as if some areas of the county were afforded better police or fire services.
Both Mount Vernon and West Potomac here have been recently renovated as well as Whitman Middle School. They're all top notch facilities comparable to any others in the county. I doubt the amount of parent donations make a significant difference and I don't believe there are any "extras" offered at the higher scoring schools unavailable at the lowest. Supplemental programs like IB (MV) and AP (WP) are available at the lower performing schools. The teaching staff is all drawn from the same pool. Text books are the same. Curriculum is developed and managed at the district level. Class sizes are centrally mandated. In fact if there are any significant differences that would make for a nice lawsuit as all the schools draw from the same main taxpayer supported funding source. It would almost be as if some areas of the county were afforded better police or fire services.
In terms of central funding, I think you are surely correct; if anything, schools that serve more low-income students tend to have smaller class sizes and more instructional assistants than schools that serve more affluent areas. One of the main campaign planks of the candidate challenging the current School Board member up in Dranesville (which includes Herndon, McLean and Great Falls) is that the incumbent hasn't done enough to challenge the disparity in class sizes. And certainly some of the areas that serve more low-income areas in Fairfax have fared well when in comes to renovations (for example, FCPS did not simply renovate Glasgow Middle a few years ago, but instead built a brand-new state-of-the-art facility).
I tend to think the impact of parent donations, and the success of student fund-raising efforts, can be more significant than you suggest in terms of some of the additional opportunities they afford students at some schools. You probably wouldn't have any problem understanding this point if it involved the differences in football fields among some schools, where athletic boosters have paid for improvements at some schools, but perhaps it's harder to appreciate when it comes to academics and other extra-curricular activities.
I am not sure what you mean when you say "the teaching staff is all drawn from the same pool." It's a truism to say the teaching staffs are all drawn from a common pool of prospective teachers, but the real question is how much choice teachers have to pick among school assignments and, whether, on balance, stronger teachers tend to gravitate to, and remain at, schools with larger percentages of motivated students. It's also surely the case that some teachers go into teaching specifically because they want to help low-income and/or ESL students succeed, but simply asserting that all teachers "are drawn from the same pool" doesn't really prove anything. Perhaps some of our current or former teachers can give us a refresher course on how teachers get hired, and what factors lead a teacher to remain at a school or leave the profession. I know from prior posts that they don't all speak with one voice, but they know more about the hiring process than I do.
I think we've had enough lawsuits against FCPS in recent years, so hopefully the amounts being spent on different schools by the county will not generate yet additional litigation. I have occasionally read posters on other discussion boards assert that a case could be brought against FCPS for perpetuating and/or permitting de facto segregation in some schools, but have generally had the impression that such assertions were a lot of hot air.
I tend to think the impact of parent donations can be more significant than you suggest in terms of some of the additional opportunities they afford students at some schools. You probably wouldn't have any problem understanding this point if it involved the differences in football fields among some schools, where athletic boosters have paid for improvements at some schools, but perhaps it's harder to appreciate when it comes to academics and other extra-curricular activities.
I'd be interested in knowing what those are. Perhaps a parent from one of the higher scoring schools can provide some examples. My kids have friends who went to schools around the county and have never made that observation. i honestly haven't heard of anything kids at any of the schools around here lack that others have. Hard to even imagine anything that would be more than marginal in impact.
Suppose you are in the market for a home, and have narrowed the choices to two virtually identical homes in very similar neighborhoods. Both are equally convenient to commuting routes, public transportation, shopping, and other amenities. Both have access to community parks and recreation space. But one neighborhood has a significantly higher crime rate than the other, largely because of a substantially higher population of low-income residents who receive generous housing subsidies from a local philanthropist. The home in that neighborhood is, not surprisingly, less expensive than its counterpart in the lower-crime community. Would you choose the lower-priced home in the higher-crime neighborhood and tell yourself that YOUR house won't be broken into because you are going to install an alarm system, get a large dog, and acquire a gun permit? Or would you pay the premium for the house in the safer neighborhood, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from not having to turn your home into a fortress?
Suppose you are in the market for a home, and have narrowed the choices to two virtually identical homes in very similar neighborhoods. Both are equally convenient to commuting routes, public transportation, shopping, and other amenities. Both have access to community parks and recreation space. But one neighborhood has a significantly higher crime rate than the other, largely because of a substantially higher population of low-income residents who receive generous housing subsidies from a local philanthropist. The home in that neighborhood is, not surprisingly, less expensive than its counterpart in the lower-crime community. Would you choose the lower-priced home in the higher-crime neighborhood and tell yourself that YOUR house won't be broken into because you are going to install an alarm system, get a large dog, and acquire a gun permit? Or would you pay the premium for the house in the safer neighborhood, and enjoy the peace of mind that comes from not having to turn your home into a fortress?
You on the right thread? I think that question would be more appropriate for why people choose NoVA over parts of MD.
To play along with your analogy: after more closely analyzing the situation it was determined the difference in crime rates was due entirely to a higher level of domestic violence in the low income neighborhood and the price differential was completely irrational.
You missed the point. Parents who seek out the schools with the highest SAT scores, and who are willing to pay a premium for housing in those districts, are not too different from homebuyers who seek homes in low-crime neighborhoods, and who are willing to pay a premium to get them. Pointing out that all Fairfax County schools have similar physical plants, books and teachers (though that last one is debatable) doesn't really address the issue that one's educational experience can be greatly influenced by the composition of the student body.
And there are no doubt many potential distractions and temptations at each of them as well.
It is natural I'm sure for parents of school-aged children to want to know something about the sort of schools to expect when moving into a region or neighborhood that one is not familiar with. It's the hair-splitting and the expectation that those hairs will have sea changes worth of effects on their children's lives that I question here. As a data-professional if not an outright geek, I can certainly testify that data do not interpret themselves. An observer must do that, hopefully based on knowledge and understanding of factors such as the methodologies governing sample selection, choice of data to be collected, and means and degrees of data aggregation. I certainly find average SAT data interesting, but would caution that they are at best suggestive of some things (including the ones you point out) and not conclusive of much of anything. They can easily be over-invested in by the unwary.
It is not schools that do the inspiring, but those who work in and in some cases attend the place. When a skilled and effective principal retires, a school changes. When talented individual teachers or counselors move on to a different school, both schools change. Every school is a dynamic place, affected annually by turnover at various levels. That said, the quality of the FCPS system itself is quite high and that tends to set bounds on particularly negative variance. I would suggest that any FCPS school is quite capable of inspiring many of the students that attend it, and that it is all but impossible to tell which one would better fit the individual natures and temperaments of your particular kid. Especially perhaps if what you are trying to do is find the best high school pyramid to get you current 6-year old into.
I agree with most of this, although I think some fair conclusions can be drawn from the scores, particularly when reviewed over a longer period of time.
The irony is that, although I posted the scores for people to look at if they are interested, and to draw whatever conclusions from it they believe appropriate, FCPS looks for favorable micro-trends every year that it can highlight in a press release, such as those schools that had year-over-year increases in the test scores in all three SAT categories. If test scores at those same schools come down next year, FCPS will just find a different set of schools that had year-over-year increases. With 25 high schools in the system, and the test scores sliced and diced among different demographic groups by the College Board, it's usually pretty easy to find some good news every year.
You missed the point. Parents who seek out the schools with the highest SAT scores, and who are willing to pay a premium for housing in those districts, are not too different from homebuyers who seek homes in low-crime neighborhoods, and who are willing to pay a premium to get them. Pointing out that all Fairfax County schools have similar physical plants, books and teachers (though that last one is debatable) doesn't really address the issue that one's educational experience can be greatly influenced by the composition of the student body.
Oh I got your point but you apparently missed mine, which is that a lot of those parents are paying a premium for something that will have little to no impact on their child's academic outcome, same as the homebuyer who worries about a crime rate that means nothing to his own safety. It would be like me deciding not to buy a house next door to Martha Stewart because I'm worried about living by someone who's been to prison.
[quote=CAVA1990;20930181]For being such a liberal minded place it's interesting how the Founders' concept of public education being a great equalizer has gone out the window here. A quaint idea people think we can no longer afford. I get more gratification seeing kids from humble backgrounds go to a mid-tier state college than I do from the kids of professionals getting into Ivy League schools. Segregating schoolkids socio-economically is just as harmful to society as in earlier times when it was done by gender or race.[/quote]
I am with you on this. I have been arguing for a while that what we have currently is Brown v. Board-type segregation based on socio-economic status, and this just continues to increase the distance between the haves and the have nots. When you have a school with 70% poverty in the same community as a school with practically no poverty, something is wrong. I don't know how to fix it, but the lover of the great equalizer concept in me is disturbed.
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