Great Schools new “grades”
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Anonymous
I mean, your great schools website tells a different story, LOL |
Anonymous
I am looking at the parent reviews for this school and I think I found OP: "This school is completely unequipped to teach and challenge more advanced students. For three years in a row, my child has not been challenged and his math skills have not improved at all. Now, I learned that they restructured the ADP L IV program to make it a lot less selective. They qualified over 30% of students for Level IV, and less than 50% of students in the Level IV program will actually be Level IV students as they intermix a lot of other students. So in short, it's completely not selective. I strongly regret buying my house in the neighborhood I did." |
Anonymous
My child started his schooling at a low SES school, granted at the end of Covid, but he did not have a good experience. Kids yelling (even cursing) at teachers, he had to evacuate the classroom for disruptive students, and his snack was stolen daily for months. Now at a high SES school, he’s happy and content. Thank goodness. |
Anonymous
| Just buy in the Langley pyramid and you’ll be fine regardless |
Anonymous
The joke is on people who believe it. FCPS schools are pretty much the same. The difference is with the staff.....not the zip code. |
Anonymous
The student population in each school is not the same. That makes a difference. The leadership is not the same --- and that makes a difference in the types of teachers that stay or how the deal (or don't deal) with the students in their classes. You can't say that a school that has a majority of needy kids who may not speak English as a first language is the same environment as a school where most of the kids speak English and are coming from families where they are expected to take AP classes and it's assumed they are going to a 4 yr college. Of course, we don't need EVERYONE to go to a 4 yr college. It's good to have economic and academic diversity. But, it's just not true that every school environment is "the same." The resources that the kids have (be that financial, family-stability/support, academic, or even just their exprience of the world), makes a difference in the environment in the school. Likewise, administrations can be functional and supportive or disfuntional, punitive and confrontational. It can make a difference in who teaches and how much they are willing to do. On the whole, a student population that brings less problems into the school, makes it easier on the administration, teachers and other students. |
Anonymous
In a nutshell, this is an example of how the tenor of the school changes with the student population. If the administration is worn out from dealing with really big issues that students have, they don't have the bandwidth to deal with "smaller" issues that impact their peers, but maybe not the whole school. When admins have fewer dumpster fires to put out, they can turn their attention to the "nice to have" things. |
Anonymous
On the opposite end of the spectrum, they have to deal with incessant whining for unimportant issues like those brought forth by the Woodson baseball moms. |
Anonymous
I agree. If PP had said "wealthy white and asian kids who don't have any learning challenges", then perhaps they would be more accurate. My child was in what is now a GS4 school (it was a 7 when we moved there!) and was largely ignored, despite failing SOLs and doing terrible on iReady and other tests. If she had been an ESOL child, she probably would have received more support, but nope, she speaks English and has parents who can afford tutors so they ignored her. We pulled her out and put her in a private with small classes and she is thriving. |
Anonymous
Why is it a joke? Are these scores based on personal experiences? |
Anonymous
Scores are based on arbitrary weights applied to different measures of test scores and demographics. Yet the scores are only deemed accurate when they fit someone's world view. Herndon HS is a 2/10? That must be true, after all there is too much unwanted diversity there. McLean is a 6/10?! Absolutely not, that must be due to funky weighing of scores and should be a 9/10. |
Anonymous
Both of those scores are unreasonably low b/c Great Schools' formula puts WAY Too much weight on not having much of a difference in the scores of different SES groups. Well, that's just contrary to reality. A school that has a small population of newly-arrived immigrants and a large population of high SES/high performing kids is going to get knocked down quite a bit by the GS's latest formula. Their formula pretends that every kid comes to school with the same set of resources and it must be the school's fault if they can't get the same results. News flash: kids who are just learning English and haven't had a lot of education in their home country aren't going to do really great on US History exams or Chemistry Exams! It's not a failure of the school. The students are starting at different points. It's kind of perverse incentive to have a school where EVERYONE is sort of mediocre so that there isn't any disparity between groups. That's what their formula rewards. So, I don't think Herndon is a 2. And McLean isn't a 6. But, that's what happens when you prioritize uniform results. |
Anonymous
Agreed |
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