There is something about local elections in Alexandria that causes candidates, particularly challengers, to make outrageous claims about Alexandria public schools. One of the latest examples is a letter to the editors of local news organizations by city council candidate Phil Cefaratti, an independent who ran unsuccessfully in a previous election. Cefaratti is a realtor by trade, and he states in the letter that many of his clients with young […]
Last weekend a large group of parents were protesting the opening of a gun store just steps away from an elementary school in McLean, Va. This weekend, after nine college students were gunned down in Roseburg, Ore., the 45th school shooting this year, parents once again hugged their children a little tighter and a grim-faced President once again called on Americans to “find the courage to change.” While Obama alone […]
School board candidates report that they are fielding many questions from anxious voters about redistricting. Parents are concerned that school buildings this year are more crowded than ever and are wondering about the redistricting process and timetable. Some of them believe that the process is much further along than it really is. The major action that the school board has taken to date is retaining J.R. Reingold & Associates Inc., […]
On Sunday, October 4, from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Westminster Presbyterian Church will be hosting a Dessert & Dialogue program on mental health. The guest speaker will be Dr. Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health. All Alexandria community members are welcome, and parents of school-age children are especially invited to attend. Dr. Insel’s presentation in the church’s Fellowship Hall will focus on “The State of […]
There’s good news to report about the 2014-2015 Standards of Learning (SOL) test scores. Pass rates were up significantly and fairly consistently across core subjects, both in Alexandria and statewide. Changes to the SOLs over the preceding several years to make them more difficult had resulted in lower scores across the state, including Alexandria. But scores are improving now that the tests are no longer being revised, and teachers have […]
Some exciting new developments this summer are noteworthy harbingers of future improvements in our city’s aquatics facilities: Thanks to Mayor Euille’s bright idea, and through the combined efforts of Advocates for Alexandria Aquatics (AAA), the city of Alexandria and the DASH bus system, families in the neighborhoods affected by this summer’s closure of Warwick Pool can ride DASH buses on the AT10 route for free to the Old Town Pool […]
Last month, the School Board finalized the budget for the 2015-2016 school year. Compared with the Board’s proposed plan, the operating budget was cut by $2.2 million and the capital improvement budget was cut by $3.3 million to reflect the smaller-than-requested contribution from the city. Even though the City Council voted to increase funding to ACPS by $1.0 million over the City Manager’s proposed budget, that still left sizable shortfalls […]
Regular readers of the Port City Notebook know that I have been frustrated for many years by the coverage of our public schools in the local news media and the extent to which it often falls short of the standards of responsible journalism. A recent article in the Alexandria Gazette, Getting To Know T.C. Williams High School’s New Principal, is a perfect example. Before Dr. Jesse Dingle has even landed […]
In The Smartest Kids in the World (Simon & Schuster, 2013), Time magazine writer Amanda Ripley sets out to answer a puzzling question: How are a few countries able to educate all of their kids to succeed at high levels, while the U.S., which spends more per student than most countries, cannot? Ripley uses the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and […]
A new Virginia Board of Education policy requires schools to obtain parental permission in advance in order to allow students to retake an SOL before the end of the school year. In the past, students in courses required for graduation (other than writing) whose SOL scores were just shy of the 400 needed to pass were offered expedited retakes about three weeks after the initial exam. To qualify for the […]
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