Saturday, October 9, 2010

School Board, Media, Are Dishonest About School System's Performance

Hi Yupette,

Do you want to know how much the Arlington School System spends to educate 21,000 children? You have to wade through 20 pages of self-congratulatory PR on the School System's budget Web site to discover the School Board will spend $452 million to educate 21,000 children in FY 2011. That's $21,500 per child.

We read press release after press release from the Arlington School System printed by the newspapers with data that are untruthful. The students are being manipulated by the School Board to make the School System look better than it is. Did you know that students who are not interested in going to college were told not to bother taking the SAT tests? Wonder why SAT scores rose this year?

Wake up Parents. We have been repeatedly deceived by the Arlington School Board and a bloated school bureaucracy that increases class size, cuts teachers and instructional assistants, and promotes the personal agendas of School Board members. We can only expect more of the same if Sally Baird is re-elected.


Linda, Arlington Ridge

27 comments:

Kim said...

Don't forget Patrick Murphy. He should be running a Club Med somewhere, not our schools.

Anonymous said...

Agree. Education is becoming secondary to recreation.

Anonymous said...

The local media will print any PR they are handed.

Parent said...

How about another thread about the TJ High School for Science and Technology? About 10% of TJ's graduates are multi-millionaires. This school is to high schools what the Artisphere is to live theater.

Anonymous said...

More like 20% of TJ's graduates are multi-millionaires.

Let's Be Free said...

And Arlington's high schools cost more per student than TJ -- must be something about that downscale real estate along Braddock Road -- couldn't be school management, just ask Sally.

Cindy said...

Where is justice for middle class children? Arlington is all about the needs of an upscale Elite who require under-educated and under-paid servants to cater to their every want.

Anonymous said...

TJ is another charade. A dump of a building. Last I saw no renewable energy on-site, has a LEED score that's a negative number.

Don't Make Wakefield a Rec Center said...

Don't re-elect Sally Baird!!!! Arlington School system can't hide the fact that fewer students are graduating in 4 years; the basic mission of the schools is supposed to be education.

Anonymous said...

Kids in Third World secondary schools build on-site renewable energy for their schools. TJ students spend their time hacking each others' computers.

Don't Make Wakefield a Rec Center said...

Anyone else read the 2010 School Bond FAQ Information PR the School Board had printed at taxpayers' expense? School Board (that's Sally Baird) admits that any enrollment over 1600 students will have detrimental effects on education at Wakefield.

Anonymous said...

Sally and the School Board also say that Wakefield can't accommodate more than 1850 students. Why not? Because what they don't say is they can't fit more classrooms on the school campus and still have room for their mega-recreation center.

Education Not Recreation said...

Did you know the School System put pay as you go maintenance and upgrades on the bond issue? How fiscally responsible is that?

Abingdon School Parent said...

I am voting NO for the school bond referendum. This project will create a huge recreation complex. I will NOT vote for a recreation complex that is likely to have trailer classrooms by 2015. The County Board and School Board are both disconnected from plans for massive in-fill along Columbia Pike. The County Board just approved plans for affordable housing at Arlington Mill. I would be happy to vote for a redesigned Wakefield that provides brick and mortar classrooms for 1900-2000 students and greatly reduced recreation for everyone else in Northern Virginia

Anonymous said...

In the real world (not the looney tunes Arlington Way world) Arlington's wealthy TJ alumni would be leading a campaign to fund and endow the Planetarium's operation.

fed up Democrat said...

THIS fed up Democrat endorses and is voting for Miriam Gennari for School Board.

Anonymous said...

The local print media only care about not offending anyone and gentrifying out the middle class so they can make their owners - General Electric, Berkshire Hathaway and the hedge funds - happy with more ad revenue.

Anonymous said...

In the real world - not the Northern Virginia world of corporate welfare and welfare for the wealthy - TJ alumni would have raised the funds to construct a state of the art high school years ago.

S. Dinwiddie said...

The most appalling thing about the design of the new Wakefield HS is the school board realized at the last minute that the huge influx of people to use the recreational facilities would create a "security problem".

Let's Be Free said...

Wakefield design was dictated by Inta Malis, Chris Zimmerman's CPRO gentrification queen who ensured subordination of educational goals to yuppfication.

Malis represents ACDC, CPRO, Planning Commission and Public Facilities Review Committee. Interlocking directorates and boards drive Arlington County Government and APS top down from the ACDC according to Zimmerman's whims.

A.Y. said...

(Deleted because of too many factual inaccuracies)

fed up Dem said...

Zimmerman is just carrying on the insipid Arlington Way of urbanization, re-segregation, and gentrification started by Eisenberg, Bozman, Whipple, etc.

Anonymous said...

LBF you keep forgetting the local media, which hype redevelopment and then make millions running ads for apartments, condos, and commercial and retail.

Let's Be Free said...

With local media the dollar chain is clear for all to see and as you say Anon. It's right there in the advertising mix. Indeed, Scotty complained this weekend about writing for his real estate masters -- crocodile tears falling.

But we can't see the dollar chain for members of the County Board and its shadow government. We need candidates who will work hard to reform and put some teeth into financial disclosure requirements.

Don't Vote republicrat said...

Where the hell is Mark Kelly? Certainly not speaking out at County Board meetings.

W-L Parent said...

Between 20% and 30% of Arlington's H.S. grads who graduate on-time and who attend NVCC are required to take remedial courses when they enter.

Donna said...

McCaffrey makes as much or more writing and editing real estate supplements as he does reformatting the PR he prints as "news" and writing drivel about his personal experiences.