Arlington vs fairfax county schools (Chantilly, Springfield: middle-class, credit, home)

[mormegil27]

So over thanksgiving I had a conversation with an Arlington resident. The claim was made that Arlington schools are getting better and have surpassed fairfax co, while fairfax co schools are on the decline. Is this true? A claimed reason for this was due to overcrowding in the fairfax schools.

I currently live in the Lake Braddock district, so I would like to know. I'm not an area native, so I don't have an opinion one way or the other.

I had the impression that fairfax schools had a good rep, and this is usually due to good teaching (large tax base, you get what you pay for, etc). I don't see why the teachers would suddenly get worse. Perhaps with the housing downturn the county had to cut budgets, and the good teachers moved to higher pay in Arlington?

[tgbwc]

Overcrowding? What is considered "overcrowded"?

Who's really to say which district, as a whole, is better? Too many variables.

[Carlingtonian]

The schools here in Arlington are plenty crowded. So much so that they're expanding many of them and even thinking about relocating a magnet program (HB Woodlawn HS) in order to put in a large, new middle school in its place. However, many of the schools are highly regarded--even the crowded ones.

As to which schools are better, though, that's too general to be meaningful. There are poorly performing schools in Arl and in FFX--as well as high-performing ones.

I hate to sound so cynical, but I think school quality (whether measured by student achievement or teacher quality) will always correlate with student affluence, with a few exceptions (e.g.,Catholic schools and KIPP Academy). Not because the affluent kids are smarter but because low-income schools will always face problems that affluent schools generally don't--parents who don't speak English, kids with abusive parents or unstable home environment, gangs, kids with siblings in the justice system, etc. This in turn draws and retains the better teachers--although I'm sure there are some good ones at the struggling schools too.

[VAGeek]

This isn't a new development. The best schools in the most affluent parts of Arlington have been among the best schools in the region (public or private) for the past 30+ years. Arguably, these schools were even better in the past when class sizes were significantly smaller. Historically, these schools were among the most highly sought by teachers; whether this is still the case (with overcrowding) I can't say.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by mormegil27

So over thanksgiving I had a conversation with an Arlington resident. The claim was made that Arlington schools are getting better and have surpassed fairfax co, while fairfax co schools are on the decline. Is this true? A claimed reason for this was due to overcrowding in the fairfax schools.

I currently live in the Lake Braddock district, so I would like to know. I'm not an area native, so I don't have an opinion one way or the other.

I had the impression that fairfax schools had a good rep, and this is usually due to good teaching (large tax base, you get what you pay for, etc). I don't see why the teachers would suddenly get worse. Perhaps with the housing downturn the county had to cut budgets, and the good teachers moved to higher pay in Arlington?

So I guess it wasn't good enough to swap green bean casserole recipes over Thanksgiving?

Arlington has a much larger cohort of taxpayers without kids than Fairfax (16.7% of the Arlington population is under 18, vs. 24.0% in Fairfax). What that means in practical terms is that Arlington can build new schools at a faster rate than Fairfax (each of its three main high schools is in a new/renovated building, whereas FCPS has some high schools that are in aging, cruddy buildings), pay its teachers more, and offer somewhat smaller class sizes than Fairfax. In addition, I believe that APS had a lower percentage of schools than FCPS that were accredited "with warning" by the Virginia Department of Education for the current school year. Those are advantages that some Arlington residents can highlight as evidence that APS is now "better" than FCPS.

On the other hand, FCPS has other attributes that can be considered advantages over Arlington. It has what is indisputably the region's top magnet school in TJHSST (which draws about 80% of its students from Fairfax), higher average SAT scores, multiple high schools with higher Great Schools ratings (which are based on state SOL tests) than any high schools in APS, a more pronounced focus on the needs of academically advanced students, a higher percentage of Asian families (who tend to be focused on education and whose children perform well academically), and specialized "Academy" programs at various schools like Chantilly, Edison and Marshall with a mix of vocational and STEM-focused offerings.

With respect to teacher salaries, Arlington pays more than Fairfax, but housing is also generally more expensive there. My kids have had teachers in FCPS who left to move to lower-cost jurisdictions, but none who left to teach in APS. If you like the Lake Braddock pyramid, it's also probably worth noting that there really aren't any school pyramids in APS that will have the same vibe as Lake Braddock. [Ironically, if Lake Braddock graduate Tysons Engineer shows up on this thread, I'm guessing he'd observe that one reason why Fairfax wants to follow Arlington's lead and increase dense, transit-oriented development in places like Tysons and Merrifield is so that it can attract more taxpayers without kids who'll pay taxes that subsidize the education of other families' children.]

Bottom line - next time this comes up at Thanksgiving I'd politely say there are plenty of opportunities for students in both districts, declare a truce, and grab more of the pumpkin pie.

[mormegil27]

Thanks for the comments. I've never been sure whether the Great Schools ratings reflect good teaching or rich kids with stable environments and lots of after school extras.

In terms of Lake Braddock, what is the "pyramid" that you speak of? Is there a program at Lake Braddock that isn't in the other Fairfax schools? I just moved to the district.

And I agree, I didn't attempt to make a row out of it and did have seconds of pie.

[Vectorhead]

Fairfax County schools are arranged in pyramids... several elementary schools feeding (primarily) into one or two middle schools, which then feed into one high school. There are probably half a dozen or so elementary schools in the Lake Braddock pyramid -- they all feed into Lake Braddock, which is a secondary school (middle school and high school combined).

[mormegil27]

Oh, thanks, I see. I thought that system was used throughout the U.S. since most elementary schools are smaller than high schools. But maybe that's just the only system I have experience with.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by mormegil27

Thanks for the comments. I've never been sure whether the Great Schools ratings reflect good teaching or rich kids with stable environments and lots of after school extras.

In terms of Lake Braddock, what is the "pyramid" that you speak of? Is there a program at Lake Braddock that isn't in the other Fairfax schools? I just moved to the district.

And I agree, I didn't attempt to make a row out of it and did have seconds of pie.

I was using "pyramid" as shorthand to refer to school assignments that ultimately lead to a kid attending Lake Braddock SS.

It can be a bit tricky in FCPS, because FCPS may state that certain elementary and middle schools are part of a high school "pyramid" for administrative purposes, but some students attending those schools may in fact attend a different high school. So, for example, Sangster ES is in the Lake Braddock "pyramid," according to FCPS, but some Sangster students go to Irving/West Springfield, rather than to Lake Braddock.

My point about Lake Braddock relative to the Arlington schools, however, is that I don't think any of the high schools in APS have the same "feel" - they aren't as big; they don't have as many strong sports programs; and they don't have as high a percentage of students from what passes in the DC region as the "solid middle class" (which anywhere else would be considered upper middle-class). Closer-in areas like Arlington increasingly tend to skew more towards a mix of highly affluent families and low-income families, with fewer families in the middle. For a lot of families in Fairfax, schools like Lake Braddock are what they consider the "sweet spot."