Jay Mathews

• 2003 School Guide • Class Struggle Archives • Education News • Live Online transcripts • Subscribe to the weekly Live Online E-Mail Newsletter and receive the weekly schedule, highlights and breaking news event alerts in your mailbox.

Washington Area Schools
With Jay Mathews
Washington Post Education Reporter
Transcript

Jay Mathews is an education reporter and columnist for The Washington Post. As a supplement to washingtonpost.com's School Guide, he has put together a guide for parents on What to Look for in a Good School. His list is based in part on suggestions from readers.

Do you agree with Mathews's suggestions? Have a question on how to assess a school?

A transcript follows below.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Arlington, Va.: So how do you rank Yorktown High School in Arlington? Do you think winning a blue-ribbon award from the federal government actually, truly, means anything?

Jay Mathews: Sadly, I don't. Tom Loveless' research at Brookings showed that the blue ribbon program rewarded administrative energy in filling out the forms more than it did improvements in student achievement, but Yorktown High shines very brightly no matter how you look at it. It is a first class school with an excellent principal. It has the advantage of very well educated parents and very ambitious students, but it also has a significant Hispanic enrollment which it has been challenging in ways you rarely find in such schools. And on my national Challenge Index list, which Newsweek will publish soon, it ranks 23rd in the country, that is 23rd out of 25,000 high schools, in AP or IB participation rates. It is a gem, in a school district that has all four of its high schools on the Newsweek list, another rare and important feat.

Alexandria, VA: Sitting down with a principal for 30 minutes is a nice goal, but doesn't seem practical. Where does an administrator find this time for 25, 30 or 50 families? And 25, 30 or 50 may be conservative IF your new guide is accorded the influence that your Challenge Index has earned. Should we accept meeting with a vice principal or some other alternative?

Jay Mathews: i love this message, since i have gotten many like it and wrote a reply that i liked so much i have saved it and plan to use it in a column. Let's see if i can paste it in here. then scroll down for my answer to the second part of your good question. (and if you email me at mathewsj@washpost.com on what you think of my answer to the 30 minute question, you will earn my gratitude for helping me write the column)
I have thought about this a great deal and although I suspect most principals would agree with you, I think you are wrong.
Most parents are not going to bother to sit down with the principal for that long, and so the scenario you suggest is not very likely. But let’s say, as a thought experiment, that it DOES happen. A principal spends two full weeks doing nothing but talking to parents. I challenge you to tell me what ELSE she might be doing with those 100 hours that would be more useful in helping more of her students learn more of what they need to know.
She has established bonds with all those parents, so they understand the mission of the school and will be much more likely to support whatever it is she wants to do. At the same time, she now has a sense of each of those families that can be conveyed to her teachers and thus enrich their approaches to each of those children.
I think a principal who was so fortunate to have that many parents want to spend 30 minutes with her need only spend the two weeks in meetings, and then sit back , put her feet on her desk, and wait for the committee to arrive with her Principal of the Year award. In those two weeks she has improved the environment for learning at her school enormously, with benefits that will keep coming for all the years thoses kids are there.
I said parents should beware a principal who does not have 30 minutes for them because such a principal does not appreciate this dynamic and has not thought clearly about the importance of parents in making her school work. Such a school is not likely to be as good as a school run by a principal who has time for them.
I do know one principal, Miriam Hughey-Guy at Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington, who tries to meet with the parents of every new student, is delighted to see parents interested in the school, and tries to fill her calendar with even more parent meetings than that. She has received many awards, and is recognized as one of the best in the region, with test scores WAY above what you would expect in a school where 64 percent of the students are from low-income families.
Thanks again for your great message. I was thinking about this but had not written it, so I am going to save this message to you and maybe use it in a future column. If you would allow me to name and quote you, I would be very grateful. The dialogue would help many readers and if you have a response to the above, I would love to use that too---although only with your permission. ----jay

i think meeting with the vice principal is a big risky, particularly if the principal is new and the school is in flux. if you are assured by a parent at the school that the vice principal and the principal are in agreement on all important issues, then i guess it would be okay, but as i say above i don't think this is the great burden on the principal that it might seem at first thought.

Alexandria, VA: Why do so many residents of Alexandria City proper send their children to private schools when T.C. Williams provides a top-notch education, coupled with what private schools lack--real life experiences and interaction with a populace that is not exclusively white. Note that there are 4+ private schools in Alexandria and only one public.

Jay Mathews: the last time i looked at the numbers for Alexandria, a couple of years ago, the percentage of school age children not in public schools was 13 percent. That is about 2 percentage points above the national average, so not all that unusual. I embrace your view of T.C., and i would be a very happy T.C. parent if i lived in the city, but keep in mind that T.C. is not suffering from a lack of middle-class, college-oriented parents. in my experience, Alexandria is one of the very few cities of such diversity in the country that has kept a significant portion of such families in its public schools. it is one of the reasons why the city is so special. And as you see in point one of my list of how to pick a school, if people are uncomfortable with what they have at T.C., I recommend they go elsewhere. it is a much better school for having all the parents pulling on their oars in the same direction.

Washington DC: As the parent of a 20 month old who lives in DC, I am trying to learn more about school options. Many thanks to the Post for this resource -- I particularly like that you can do true side-by-side comparisons of charters and regular public schools. I understand the legal reasons why the DCPS site can't do this, but it makes it enormously hard for parents just to track down all the relevant data, much less analyze it.

Please keep this resource updated -- I know many parents will use it.

Jay Mathews: thanks for the kind words. but could you explain these legal reasons to me? i don't understand why they can't publish data for all schools, regular and charter, in the same way. they have the data. they could do us all a favor. the only reason i think they don't do it is that it is risky---their regular schools might look bad---and it is expensive to collect and present all those numbers in an intelligent way.

Washington, DC: Hi Jay,

Thanks for taking our questions on this rainy Wednesday.

My family lives East of the Anacostia River near Branch and Alabama Avenue. My husband and I would like send our child to a public school, but we wonder what it would be like for our child to be the only white student in a school reporting 100% black enrollement.

What are your thoughts on this? And I'm wondering if there's a guide for area private schools - especially elementary schools.

Thank you.

Jay Mathews: We are thinking of doing a private school guide, but the private schools are VERY reluctant to release the kind of testing and teacher quality information that we would want. email me at mathewsj@washpost.com and i can steer you in some useful directions.
the question of what it would be like for your child to be part of a very small minority is not one that anyone but you can answer. it depends on you and the child, and the quality of the school. There are some elementary schools in SE that give an excellent education---the Friendship Edison school at Chamberlain is one, and when you get to middle school, there is the fabulous KIPP DC/Key Academy on M St. SE.

Washington DC: Do you have a child in school, and if so which jurisdiction and at what level?

Jay Mathews: My daughter Katie, 18, is a senior at Sidwell Friends Schools in northwest Washington, about to go off to Pomona College. I voted to put her in a public school in Bethesda, where we live. She and my wife voted for Sidwell, which she loved. She has gotten a fine education there, but I am quite sure she would not have missed anything, academically, if she had gone to Pyle Middle School, and then Whitman High, as I had wanted.

Arlington: How were you able to come up with the information on 8th grade algebra completion? (My first question.) Were you relying on SOL information? One of my children did poorly on his 8th grade algebra at one of the middle schools the Post lists as low performing in this area, despite being GT in Math and passing the Algebra SOL. He has essentially wasted his 9th grade Math classes on retaking Algebra I due to poor teaching at the Middle School level. (His Math teacher was "let go" at the end of the year, but at the time the kids were blamed for their poor performances rather than the teacher.) My child now has to retake the SOL in High School, despite having passed this already! He got a D in Middle School, but has an A for the same course in High School. Why are schools so defensive about their teachers, and so unwilling to get rid of the dead wood? This seems to be a particular problem in Math and foreign language teaching in Arlington County.

washingtonpost.com: Schools submitted their 8th grade algebra completion numbers on the Washington Post Survey.

Jay Mathews: As this helpful note from my dotcom colleague says, we collected the data from individual schools, with the principals generally putting it together for us. that sort of defensiveness is VERY common, for all the standard bureaucratic reasons, but it is much less common in Northern Va. than other places. No. Va. has the best public schools in any region I have ever looked closely at, so i would be very grateful if you could email me at mathewsj@washpost.com and tell me which middle school dropped the ball. i promise not to reveal your name or anything, but it helps me to know these things. I am sorry what happened to your son. Algebra is extremely important and i would be livid if that happened to my kid.

Palookaville: Jay -

As a homeowner in Falls Church City, I love the Challenge Index and the added value it gives my house. As a parent, however, I've thought it was a little one-dimensional. The IB program in Falls Church is great on paper, but what do they actually learn? That's why I've thought it would be useful to include, as a secondary component, actual pass rates on the IB and AP exams. While I don't see that data on the new school guide that you've put together, I do see lots of other data that, if I were doing it over again, I would liked to have had when my wife and I were deciding where to settle to raise kids. So, well done, but I'd still like to see pass rates.

Jay Mathews: Ah, a good question, one that I can understand coming from someone in an educational nirvana like Falls Church. The reason I vehemently reject using pass rates is because almost all the other school districts are the opposite of Falls Church. Instead of opening up their AP and IB courses to all, they only let the A students take them (thus artificially inflating their pass rates). Instead of making sure every student in an IB or AP courses takes the tests, they discourage all but the best students in those courses to take the tests (again, artificially inflating the pass rate). And they have other tricks, too numerous to mention here. When the vast majority of districts embrace the Falls Church way, then you will have an excellent argument. Until then, it just encourages educational malpractice, the insane practice on the part of most schools to bar from AP and IB those B and C students who have the most to gain from the experience in getting ready for college.

Gaithersburg, MD:: I have a son, currently homeschooled, who would like to attend High School (either public or private). He also wants to play sports (his main reason for returning to school). Any suggestions as to how we look for a school? What resources are there to help us even know what options are out there for us?

Thanks!!

Jay Mathews: You should take a look at our new School Guide. We have excellent data for the Montgomery County schools, and you should find it very useful. You can always email me if you have specific questions. But the fact that you are in Mont. County is about 90 percent of the battle. That is a district with very high standards and exceptional principals. I have been in most of the high schools in the Gaithersburg area and I would be happy to have my child in any of them. Let me know how it goes. mathewsj@washpost.com

Alexandria, VA: Jay,
I saw Alexandria did not participate in the survey. In your opinion how are Alexandria schools compared to Fairfax Co. or other school districts in the metro area?

Jay Mathews: Heh. Heh. they have gotten a lot of complaints about their lack of participation and I think the new superintendent is much more understanding of what we are trying to do. I think the Alexandria schools are excellent, and when compared to other school systems with that high a percentage of low-income kids, exceptional. A college bound kid at T.C. will get everything she would get in a Fairfax County school, plus a real connection with the different cultures of the new century that she might not see so much of at Langley or McLean Highs. And if she likes crew, it is heaven.

Burtonsville, Maryland: The school report has been very helpful, however I'd like to know how to go about assessing private schools. I have always been a firm believer in public schools but have found our neighborhood schools lacking. After starting my daughter at the local school and being unhappy - we were able to get her into a gifted and talented magnet program - great program but the logistics of getting her there have become too difficult. If we stay living where we're at, we want to look into private - but how do you know whether it's really any better? What scores do you look for? or is there a profile somewhere of private schools?

Jay Mathews: The private schools insist that you have to visit and soak up their aura to make a good decision, and unfortunately they are right because they refuse to release a lot of the useful data that you will find for public schools on our school guide. Some of my 10 rules still apply. Talk to the principal. Talk to a couple of parents who already have kids there. And be assured that if you are as conscientious about where your child goes to school as your message reveals, it doesn't really matter what elementary school you choose (as long as it is safe). The fact that you are the parent means that the kid is going to get all the enrichment he needs. Only when he gets to middle school, do you have to start worrying about the school's characteristics.

Silver Spring: Jay, my son is in 7th grade in a private parochial school in Montgomery County. We were exploring the IB program for him for 9th grade. How hard is it to get into the IB program? What can he do -- also can we do -- to prepare him for the IB program admission process?

Jay Mathews: It depends on which high school he goes to. The IB program at Richard Montgomery is a very competitive magnet program that requires top middle school grades and test scores. The IB programs at BCC and Springbrook are open to any motivated student. Just make sure he does his homework, fill the house full of books, read to him---all those things you are already doing are preparation enough.

Washington, DC: Is there a way to compare the academic performance of DC and Montgomery County elementary schools? I guess all we have to go on is test scores but the tests are different. We live in Shepard Park and wonder how that elementary school (in your top 25) compares with those just across the border - like North Chevy Chase (in your top 25), Rock Creek Forest's spanish program or Rosemary Hills. Montgomery County does allow out of state students if you pay tuition and can get a space. Our daughter will enter pre-K next year.

Jay Mathews: If you are in the Shepherd Elementary School area and Katherine James is still the principal, don't bother to look at Mont. County. She is one of the best principals I have ever seen, and an exceptional talent in selecting the best teachers. Other schools keep trying to steal her staff. As for other DC elementary schools, you should look at our guide and then talk to the principals. I am certain there is NO difference in the academic quality of DC schools of any level west of Rock Creek Park and those in Mont County, and many east of the park, like Shepherd, are also excellent, but you should check with me at mathewsj@washpost.com for individual cases.

Frederick, MD: In an era of budget cuts and increasing class sizes, how do you deal with the fact that reported test scores, etc., often don't reflect the current reality of a school or even a district?

Jay Mathews: Actually, I think they most often do, although there are some exceptions. Do you have a particular school in mind that defies that sorry truth? It is certainly true that a middle class kid can do fine in a low performing school because of his family situation, and the fact that even low performing schools have some good teachers, but the data shows a low income kid does better in a high performing school than in a low performing one on average.

McLean, VA: Why did you leave out Thomas Jefferson High School in your rankings? How does it compare with other magnet schools in the nation?

Jay Mathews: It is probably the highest performing high school in the country. i left it out, and other schools that admit students that way, because the list is designed to show which schools have done the best job challenging average students, and it doesn't work if the school, like Jefferson, has no average students.

Arlington, VA: Dear Jay - Thanks for all your work re: schools. This resource is the best!

That said, sometimes personal experience cannot be predicted ("your results may vary. . .").

We moved last summer from one Arlington neighborhood to another. I naively thought the elementary schools of the two neighborhoos were comparable (as, indeed, both have equally high test scores and are similar in other quality measures), and had no qualms over moving our child. However, he has been miserable at his new school, to the extent that we are transfering him back to his old school next year. Although his grades are fine, the differences between the schools are subtle, and the new school was just not the right fit for him. We finally realized that no amount of conferences, etc., was going to change his situation, and I am grateful to both principals and the county that transfering back is an option.

Jay Mathews: What an interesting story, and not so uncommon. Each child is different. If you feel like it, please email me at mathewsj@washpost.com with the details. i promise not to report them, but it would help me to know them.

Washington DC: re. DCPS publishing charter and regular data

I think they don't publish the data side by side because DCPS is not supposed to "run" the charters and hence want to keep things separate. Believe me I am NOT an apologist for DCPS but at least for elementary schools, on the Post's top performer list they did better than the charters. Only Capital City made the "best" list in a couple categories.

Thanks again.

Jay Mathews: excellent point. but the charters are so different it is important to see the scores from each. KIPP, my favorite charter, has the highest fifth grade scores in the city, even though it also has among the poorest students.

Washington, DC: The guide is a great idea. I was wondering whether SAT scores were on there anywhere, and if not, was there a reason for excluding them? It just seems like there isn't much test score data up there for the Maryland and DC high schools, and SAT scores seem like a logical place to start.

washingtonpost.com: SAT scores weren't included in this version of the guide but will be considered for future updates.

Maryland has little test score data in this guide because, as a result of the problems with scoring the tests last year, we used older MSPAP scores. We will included new Maryland State Assesment scores when they become available.

Jay Mathews: I don't like the SAT because a school that does the right thing---gets all kids to take the test in order to give them a shot at college---will have lower average scores than a school that just has its middle class kids take the test. but it is a number that people look for, so i hope we add it.

Kingstowne, VA: My son is a first-grader at Franconia (Fairfax County) so naturally my husband and I looked up the data and I was surprised that so much of it was incomplete. For example, I know there are art and music teachers yet it says "n/a". The school also has a Web site yet the URL doesn't appear.

There is also no explanation of what it means to rank low/average/high on any of these indices. Average based on what? How much confidence can I put in these results?

washingtonpost.com: Many of the "n/a"s across the board appear because that school either did not respond to those questions or it wasn't part of the survey because it hadn't opened yet or was not considered part of the main circulation area at the time. The rankings were divided into quartiles based on their scores. Low or high means the school ranked in the bottom 25 percent of schools, high in the top 25 percent, and average in the middle 50 percent.

Jay Mathews: Your good comments will help us improve the Guide, especially for that school. thank you.

Arlington, VA: I tried to look up HB Woodlawn middle and high school in Arlington in your new guide yesterday, but find the listing lacking all relevant assessment data. Did Woodlawn not participate in your survey, or is it a data error?

washingtonpost.com: Because HB Woodlawn is considered a program instead of a regular school, their test scores are allocated to the students' home schools. The US Department of Education does not collect information on HB Woodlawn for their Common Core Data set, which includes school demographic information.

There was also a problem on our with coding this school. It will be corrected.

Jay Mathews: Another good point that we will address. But here is my little stat---Woodlawn will be number 9 in the country on the Newsweek list of top schools, measured by
AP and IB participation.

Columbia Heights: So my school has a bunch of N/A's in your list. What does this mean? Are they a bunch of slackers?

washingtonpost.com: The school either did not answer those questions if they came from the Post Survey, or they were not surveyed because they hadn't opened yet or were not considered part of our survey area (Frederick County, Spotsylvania County and Fredericksburg city).

Jay Mathews: The fact that you are asking means we gain motivation and leverage to fill those holes.

WDC: Do you take it as given that students at private schools (Maret, Sidwell, NCS, G'Town Prep, etc.) in the area recieve a better education?

I ask, because I don't see any profiles on the website ?

Jay Mathews: I do NOT accept that premise at all, as you see from my answer to the personal question above about my kid. I cannot think of a single school system in Northern Va., DC west of the park or Montgomery County that does not match the private schools in terms of quality. The privates are good schools, very consistent, and very good for kids with some special needs, but they generally do not give a better education, and for those who worship the Ivies, your kid will have a better chance getting into Harvard if she does NOT attend a private school. She will stand out in the public school in a way that she will not in a private.

PG County: I am considering a move to PG county, and was wondering what the state of the schools, particularly middle schools, are. I know that is broad, but I'm looking in the Langley Park to Lanham (495 exits 29-20). Are the schools safe? Is there a lot of violence in the schools? Are the teachers able to handle their students well and able to teach them effectively? Are the teachers supportive of each other so if problems do arize, they can work together to solve them? Thanks so much!

Jay Mathews: There are lots of good schools in PG, but you have to be careful because it is a system still struggling with many issues and some of the schools are below par. As far as safety goes, they are fine, with the same problems as all suburban schools, but nothing much to worry about. Your other questions are best answered by looking at the guide, and then talking to parents of kids at schools that look good to you, as well as talking to the principal and checking with me.

Falls Church, VA: When my husband and I were looking to buy a house, we found that we were also using the % of students receiving free or reduced lunches as a quality factor. Our thought process was that a school with a high percentage translated into a student population whose parents might on average be focused on other needs in the home, and not be as dedicated to their children's education. This in turn would result in students who did not perform as well, and not provide a challenging environment for our child. What are your thoughts? Before anyone calls me a snob, I'll state for the record that I did start off getting free and reduced priced lunches in elementary school, and while my parents cared about school, many others did not.

Jay Mathews: this is an excellent question which many people ask---so many that i have written a magazine article to answer it. to find it, go to our website's main page, click on the education bar on the left, then click on the K to 12 bar on that ed page's left. Scroll down to a prompt that says: "Is your school good enough?" It tells the story of a family just like yours, as well as some of my personal experiences in this area. In short, percentage of free and reduced is less important than we think it is.

washingtonpost.com: or, here's a shortcut to that link: "Is Your Public School Good Enough?"

Arlington, VA: As someone with no kids yet, but looking for a good place to raise them, can you point out some specific criteria that might be the least likely to change over the next several years, or perhaps include schools that have performed consistently well over the past several years. thanks!

Jay Mathews: Sadly, this is an easy question to answer. If you don't want to work at it too hard, just move to the area with the most expensive houses, and you can be assured the schools will be excellent. But even that rule can be wrong in the case of badly chosen principal, or a teacher that loses her edge. So you have to look at each case, thus our guide.

Alexandria: What do you think of Alexandria's 9th grade only school (Minnie Howard)? Do studies show that it makes a difference educationally and socially (test scores, pregnancy rates, drop out rates, etc.)? Since I've moved here I've never really heard a strong case for it.

Jay Mathews: The strongest case for it has been that its principal until recently, Margee Walsh, was one of the smartest people in American education. Margee is now superivising secondary education for the whole city, and I don't know her successor well, but I bet whoever it is is very good, since Margee had to sign off on the hiring. I like the idea of keeping ninth graders separate. it is a difficult year, and the results from that school have been very good.

Bethesda MD: Jay:
What about the students in advanced classes who are truly able to proceed at a greater pace and deal with complex material without much explanation, whose needs are not being met due to the increasing numbers of students in advanced classes who are not yet capable of handling the material? Don't advanced classes lose all meaning if everyone, regardless of ability can take them?

My son is at Whitman and I'm surprised at how easy many of his "advanced" and "honor" classes are, and what minimal effort on his part is required to get all "A's". I can't help but think that the advanced & honors classes have been reduced in rigor lest too many students fail.

Jay Mathews: Nope. That is sometimes the impression parents have when their kids are as bright as yours obviously is, and it MAY be the case with some honors courses, that do not have an external measure. But the AP and IB courses are protected against undetected dilution by the fact that they are assessed through tests that the teacher and the school cannot control. I would be delighted to check on your son's specific observations if you will share them with me---name of teacher, title of course, etc. I am at mathewsj@washpost.com. But I bet you $10 that there will be no sign of any dilution. And I am astonished at how few complaints I have had from even bright kids and their parents, like you, about courses being dumbed down. Yours is the first to reach me in two years. Teachers in this area have kept those courses humming, to the benefit of both their fastest and their slowest students.

Fairfax, VA: This is really not a question, but a suggestion for parents of shy children entering our large high schools in Fairfax County. It would be a good idea to get the child involved in a specific activity/club(drama, music, language, etc.) so that he/she could fit into the activities of the school and feel a certain level of acceptance in his peer group. This has been such a success for my child who is about to enter his senior year in September.

Jay Mathews: A fabulously smart suggestion.

Palookaville: Let me take a second crack at this. When reporting Challenge Index pass rates, don't make the rate equal the number of exams passed divided by the number of exams taken. Instead, make it the number of exams passed divided by the number of seniors in the class. Voila, the schools can't cheat in the way you've described! You can call it the Sucessfully Met Challenge Index!

Jay Mathews: That would be better, but if I don't count the tests that did NOT get passing grades, then i am ignoring the most important research on this question ever done. Clifford Adelman's 1999 U.S. Ed. dept study showed that the best predictor of college completion is not good high school grades or test scores, but how many challenging courses you took in high school. This was particularly true for minorities. So a kid who takes AP government and struggles and gets a 2 is still MUCH better prepared for college than if he had not taken the test and the course. He has gone one on one against the academic equivalent of Michael Jordan, and MJ has won, but the kid now has a visceral appreciation of what he has to do in college to play at that level. If I don't count his 2 in my system, I am turning my back on this essential point.

Prince George's County: Are PG county schools getting any better these days? How are they in terms of school safety and teaching effectiveness, overall? Thanks!

Jay Mathews: Marginally, on the average, they seem a little better. But the jury is still out. We are talking averages here. They are going to be lower performing because they have a higher than usual percentage of low income kids. But some of their individual schools are terrific. Eleanor Roosevelt High is in the top 2 percent nationally in participation in AP or IB.

Silver Spring, MD: The search function does not work on the school guide. Can you guys please fix it? Everytime I try searching for schools in a particular jurisdiction with any criteria, nothing comes up.

washingtonpost.com: Some combinations of quality measure searches can result in no schools falling in the top 25 percent in all the measures.

That said, if you believe there to be an error, email the problem to schoolguide@washingtonpost.com and I will take a look. Please include information about your search.

I will check to make sure the searches are working.

Jay Mathews: thanks for helping us debug our system.

Washington, DC: So sorry to ask the obvious but where is this great guide? (If it came in the paper this morning, I'll look forward to seeing it when I get home.) I'm particuarly interested your thoughts about Wilson High School, since I tutor a student who will be attending the school next year as a 10th grader.

washingtonpost.com: The guide is online, not in the paper. It can be found here. To search, click on the "all school profiles" link under the main header.

Jay Mathews: A great public high school with tons of AP courses, fine teachers and the kind of ethnic diversity many of the parents who wrote to me say they crave.

Falls Church: In your School Guide entry for George Mason High School in Falls Church, you show only 29.63% of students earning a high school diploma! This is clearly incorrect, and appears to have been derived by dividing the number of graduates by the total number of students in all 4 years of the high school. I think you should change this methodology to reflect the percentage of students in a CLASS graduating. (Or if this was a misinterpretation by FCCPS staff, ask them for correct numbers.)

Thanks!

washingtonpost.com: I will look into this. It is most likely an error and will be corrected.

Jay Mathews: Pretty funny. That school is number 6 on the national Newsweek list. We will kill the gremlin that is producing such a wierd number.

Springfield, VA: Jay,

I have been looking at the index, and I'm very disappointed to see all of the "n/a" (for Fairfax couty elementary schools). Do you expect update shortly? Do the school systems realize this is a valuable tool for parents?

Jay Mathews: We hope that your interest in the list will motivate more schools to give us more information. We are working to fill those gaps.

Virginia: Is the consistently high rating of Falls Church City schools justified? What sets it apart from other school districts?

Jay Mathews: Two things, one usual, one very unusual:

1. (usual) a very well educated and affluent group of parents.
2. (unusual) a very smart staff who long ago realized that an IB system in the high school open to all would produce an unusually lively academic environment. Stop by in the spring sometime and watch kids defend their internal assessments---long papers. some are better than stuff i heard read in my graduate school seminars.

Falls Church, VA: Jay,

I know you usually deal with high schools, but I was wondering what your opinions are of preschool. Do you think Washington-area parents are obsessed with letting their kids get ahead of the game attending "academic" preschools? What, in your opinion, is the ideal preschool experience for a child in this area?

Thank you!

Jay Mathews: I don't think a college educated, middle class parent needs to worry about pre-school. All the research shows that the fact that they are the parent means the kid is going to be all set academically when he or she reaches kindergarten, and beyond. Pre-school is vital, the research shows, for kids whose parents don't have those advantages.

Silver Spring, MD: Do you have any more detailed information about Woodlin Elementary in SS? I haven't fully digested the school guide yet, but we already like a lot of things about Woodlin.

My biggest concern is the ratio of new teaches, which is something we noted when we went to the kindergarten orientation. Woodlin rates low in that category too. How important is this factor and what are the implications on our child's education? Won't we be better able to judge the impact when we know which teacher our child will get?

Jay Mathews: It depends. If I had a kid going to a school with a lot of new teachers, i would ask for a briefing on the background of the specific teacher my kid was going to get, and maybe even have a conversation with her.

Arlington, Va: Jay, I agree with the sad answer that the easiest way to find a good school is to move into an expensive neighborhood. My own poor parents struggled with that, constantly moving from school district to another in an attempt to chase the good and better public schools. We rented and lived in crazy places and I ended up attending 10 schools by the time I graduated high school.

Jay Mathews: What a story! If you have time, message me privately at mathewsj@washpost.com and tell me more. I haven't heard that one before.

Annandale, VA: Jay, whatever happened to "Vo Tech" in high schools? I remember that W.T. Woodson used to have a very robust program ... and the facility now housed FCPS offices. Do we HAVE to have all our kids getting academic degrees or is there still a market for a mixed degree? I visited the Minuteman School in Boston a few years ago -- a great mix of academic and vocational programs.

Jay Mathews: Votech has suffered, deservedly, for being used for so long as a dumping ground for kids whose parents did not attend college, and were thus figured not to be college material. it still lives on in our schools, particularly in this very affluent area which can afford both strong academic programs and some voc ed. But i strongly believe that the academic side should be emphasized for all kids, and the vocational hook used just as a way to entice kids who like it to stay in school and get their reading and math skills up.

Washington: Jay, a good stat you have on the site is % of blding used capacity. I notcied some top schools overcapicty, like Barcroft: Building Capacity Used: 138.52.

How much does this affect quality of education?

Jay Mathews: It can, but if you are talking about Barcroft Elementary in Arlington, that school is a gem no matter how many kids it has, because of its staff and its principal.

Re: You!!!: You have nothing bad to say about anything, except perhaps private schools. Even violence in the schools earns a pass ("not more than in any suburban school"--huh?). Even Consumer Reports will tell you which car not to buy on a dare. Are you willing to say, "Stay away from this or that school system?"

Jay Mathews: There are some school systems that i would warn everyone away from, but none in this area. I resolved 20 years ago to stop looking at schools as systems, and spend my time in classrooms. That has taught be that even the worst seeming school has some good teachers, and produces some fine students. And indeed, I don't know of a school anywhere in the country than it not a safer place to be than the neighborhood it is located in.

The free/reduced lunch issue: For the people concerned about percentages of low-income families at a school: I think the suggestion you mentioned in your article of looking for a school with _enough_ students from academically oriented families to provide a peer group was spot on. I taught at an inner-city Houston high school with 3400 students, of which 350 were in a magnet program. Having those 350 academically focused kids made it possible for working hard at school to be socially acceptable -- even for non-magnet kids. I'll never forget listening to one baseball player scold another about not doing his homework -- not something you'd expect if you just looked at the percentage of kids from low-income/low education homes.

Jay Mathews: absolutely right. that long mag piece of mine i recommended tries to make this point, but you did it better than i did.

Washington, DC: In general, what would you consider to be the pros and cons of the good public schools versus a private school. If the good public schools are really equal, why is it that so many parents are shelling out 20k per year to send their kids to the private schools.

Jay Mathews: Because they have bought into the myth that the private schools give you an advantage when it comes time to get susie and josh into a selective college. they DO provide good educations, but no better than most of the public schools in our very blessed region. And Paul Attewell of CUNY showed, based on 1,000,000 student records studied in 1997, that the private school kid will have a tougher time getting into yale than a public school kid with the same SAT score because the public school kid will have less competition at his school getting Yale's attention.

Gaithersburg, MD: It seems fair enough that you exclude schools like Thomas Jefferson from your rankings, but what Montgomery about Blair, Richard Montgomery and other schools with significant-but-still-less-than-half magnet populations? How can you rank them next to schools without similar populations?

Jay Mathews: Because they have lots of average students, many of whom get lured into the very strong AP courses created for their magnet kids. That is exactly the dynamic that the index is designed to measure, and to reward.

Ashburn, VA: My kids are just entering school age and I am curious about school systems you think are trending up?

Jay Mathews: oh dear. I am not sure what trending up means. Getting better? Loudoun is certainly in that group. it has always been good, but it has gotten much better in the last few years, particularly in the level of challenge at its high schools. It is VERY hard to find a bad school system in this area, although DC and PG have their problems.

Arlington, VA: I note the Arlington schools with higher minority populations have lower SOL scores. Should a parent be concerned about this, when evaluating the quality of the school?

Also, HB Woodlawn middle school - I was confused on your answer; the students test results are included with their neighborhood schools?? If so, that doesn't seem very accurate, as HB is quite different in teaching style.

Jay Mathews: In Arlington, one of the best run systems in the country, you do NOT have to worry much about the iron rule of lower schools in schools with more poor kids. ALL of those schools have great teachers, and your kids will go to one of four high schools that all the selective college recruiters are in love with.

Honolulu Hawii: What's your opinion of Atholton High Columbia MD?

Jay Mathews: And to answer that question about HB-Woodlawn in the previous question, it occupies this odd niche---a program that is really a school, but for some bureaucratic reason, since it accepts kids from all parts of the county, they maintain a loose connection to their neighborhood high school. (I suddenly realize that it may be in part for sports participation. Help me, Arlington parents.) Anyway, their numbers often get messed up with their home schools' numbers, annoyingly.
As for Atholton, I have not looked at it closely and have never visited. I do know it has a disappointly low level of AP participation for a school where only 5 percent of the students qualify for free and reduced lunches. Many Howard county schools are in that same situation. The administration there is not as enthusiastic about AP as the districts in No. Va. and Mont. County, and I think they are wrong not to give college level courses more emphasis.

Alexandria, VA: Would you consider giving Alexandria a second chance to respond?

washingtonpost.com: All public schools in our area will be asked to participate in future surveys, including those in Alexandria, Frederick County, Md., Spotsylvania County, Va. and Fredericksburg, Va. Whether they do participate.....

Jay Mathews: I sense Alexandria will be an enthusiastic participant next time. It is a great school district and just got sidetracked briefly by bad information about what we were doing. They thought our survey would take too much time and that we would use the results to sell real estate ads. Send their public information spokeswoman, the brilliant barbara hunter, an email at bhunter@acps.k12.va.us, and tell her you want them to help us out.

washingtonpost.com: Thanks for joining us today, Jay Mathews.

Jay Mathews: Thanks for all the good questions. If you have more detailed questions about what you see as flaws in the guide, please email our data base editor, Hal Straus, at hal.straus@wpni.com. Have a nice long weekend. ----jay

washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

To continue the discussion about area schools, visit our message boards on What to Look for in a Good School as well as Do You Have A Choice?

Keep up with the best Live Online has to offer and special breaking news discussions. Sign up for the Live Online e-mail newsletter.

Automatically Update Page    |   Get New Responses   |   Submit Question