In 2001, Time Magazine named Stonewall Jackson High School ” School of the Year.” Everyone on this end of town crowed and preened themselves over the recognition. How far they fall in a decade. Today, Stonewall Jackson HS barely ranked in the Washington Post High School Challenge. SJHS came in at a 92 rank of all area high schools in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. Osbourn Park ranked the highest of any of the Prince William County high schools. It came in at 45.
Osbourn and Manassas Park High Schools sure didn’t set the world on fire either. However, neither of these schools has the maneuverability that county schools have. As PW residents we should be asking why our top ranking high school comes in 45th behind other area schools. That doesn’t sound very world class to me. Loudoun County, Arlington, and Fairfax counties all had schools ranking much higher than Prince William County.
We have to start asking ourselves why this is. I say it is because Prince William County always wants to go on the CHEAP. It always wants to appear to have the lowest taxes. Are other jurisdictions putting more money into the school system so they can attract high quality teachers and keep class sizes low? PWC has the least competitive pay for teachers and also spends the least money per pupil than any other school system in Northern Virginia.
Those facts alone can place your best school at position 45. PWC Schools need to offer competitive salaries and they need to pour some money into per pupil spending. Our kids need to be able to compete with all the other schools in Northern Virginia for college entrance. Yes it does count, even if everyone says it doesn’t.
I hate to start kicking county schools. I have a great deal of personal investment on many levels in Prince William County. However, year after year I have sat and watched this CHEAP board of supervisors ignore the teachers who came week after week to tell them something. The supervisors refused to listen. They sat right there and set that tax rate at bare-bones, once again, despite the pleadings of PWEA president Jim Livingston and PWEA executive director Bonnie Klakowicz, and many others, year after year after year.
Supervisors, there is no free lunch. Why was real estate twice and three times as much in the area around Langley High School (in Fairfax County) for decades? It was a top high school in the area. Kids who went to Langley and who graduated with good grades could choose their college. Is there a PWC school that we can say that about? No.
The budget is set and the schools know what they must deal with. The supervisors all think they are out of the woods. They pretty much are for another year. Or are they? Where will Prince William County schools fall next year on the school challenge test? Will we see a trend? Will anyone even notice? Will the teachers make their annual pilgrimage to beg for bread crumbs again next year?
We have great kids and great teachers. But…and this is a big BUT….will professional people with motivated kids continue to move to Prince William County once the word gets out? Will businesses want to relocate here if their employees’ kids can’t get into top rated schools? Will Prince William County get the first pick of the brightest and best teachers or will they have to pick up whoever is left over? Will they even be able to replace teachers who move or resign mid-year? These things do matter after a time.
Mrs. Caddigan knows this. She needs to tell the others and stop nodding in agreement with those who don’t know. She needs to work with the school board to start selling the idea that world class education doesn’t come for free. It takes money. She needs to strong arm her buds on the board and get them to part with the bucks to do things right. No more school system on the cheap and yes, I will continue to call out PWC. I am not calling out the school system for not doing its job. I am calling out the county board of supervisors for not putting enough money in the pot. It is more important to “appeal to your base” than it is to set that tax rate where it can adequately fund the school system.
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May 2001
WINNER Stonewall Jackson High School/Manassas, Va. Moms and dads need to lend a hand because the curriculum at this school is not for wimps
The City of Manassas is wringing its hands and having special meetings, trying to improve their school system. What is Prince William County doing? Do they even care?
Good for the City. Bad on the county.
How much is enough money per student? Why is that the important metric? Are you accounting for capital costs?
Enough to give raises and to lower class size for starters.
As for what you said to watching, people live in areas like this because of JOBS. People like sidewalks, decent schools, ammenities. You can go live in rural areas if you want but you won’t have the JOBS.
Wow, great thread Moon.
“penny wise, pound short”
What an embarrassment!
At an information session on military academy appointments, Gerry Connelly said that the 11th District was number one in the United States last year for number of students that were appointed and accepted to the service academies. The 10th District (Loudoun County) was a close second. Presumably our students compete well for the other top universities as well, so I am not sure that the metrics used for the high school challenge are all that relevant.
Kelly, I expect a lot different (yet no less important) criteria is considered for military appointments.
“Enough to give raises and to lower class size for starters.”
How does a salary for an adult worker aid a student? Assuming we have to pay more into education — where and why? Where are we deficient? Where do we get the largest bang for the buck?
How much is enough spending per pupil? What’s the mystical number that will satisfy the critics?
@Kelly, part of PWC is also the 10th. I certainly don’t think the metric for the challenge is the only answer. I would agree. But, it does show some things and we are not out leading the pack.
I am not sure how well we do compete. Northern VA kids are all jockeying for the same seats. How do we stack up against the rest of NoVA?
marin, school systems are always hiring new people. The various school systems are all competing for the same gene pool of teachers. You have Fairfax, Loudoun, PW, Alexandria, Falls Church, etc etc all trying to grab up the same teachers. Some of these teachers are in critical shortage areas like speech therapy, math, science, foreign language, some social studies classes, etc.
Who are these teachers going to go with? The person who pays the most and who gives raises. If you are the low baller always, you are not going to attract the brightest and the best. the shortage folks will go with the $$.
In PWC, I have known teachers not to even be replaced for a half year. Substitutes were used. No, I am not kidding.
As for class size, that is just a math problem. Again, you need to hire enough teachers to keep those class sizes low.
I know the article is dated but the premise is still valid.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/17/AR2006051700035.html
“Who are these teachers going to go with? The person who pays the most and who gives raises. If you are the low baller always, you are not going to attract the brightest and the best. the shortage folks will go with the $$.”
Maybe the best and brightest can’t afford to live in FFX or isn’t interested in a commute? Maybe they like living in KG County and don’t mind a commute to PWC? There are many more factors than just salary alone. Offering a bigger nut won’t neccessarily get us better teachers. However when we DO find a good teacher offering them incentives to stay is something I do support.
In a pool this size, yes, more money does get you the best. Everyone wants to make money. The jurisdictions are all trying to get those with the best credentials.
The best and brightest can afford to live in Fairfax County if they are paid a decent salary. Yes, there are more factors than salary.however, generally speaking, when you are hiring NEW teachers, whether inexperienced or experienced, pay and benefits are going to be your best magnet.
No one wants to commute, btw. Some folks are willing to do it but usually only for the counties that pay well.
You have to look at beginning pay differently than people who are already in the system with other things holding them there.
This problem boils down to economic development. Prince William County remains the bedroom of Northern Virginia and is failing dismally at attracting high-wage employers. Nonetheless, our Board of County Supervisors continues to approve virtually every residential development that comes its way.
Residential development does not pay its way in taxes for the services, education and anything else, it demands. Balanced economic development occurs when a community attracts good employers who pay more in taxes than they consume in services. The businesses subsidize residents as part of locating in a prosperous area.
Keep in mind also that retail and “mixed-use” development are barely revenue positive. Retail does little, if anything, to improve our tax base. “Mixed-use” is usually an excuse for developers to build more residential, but with some retail and office uses thrown in for the sake of appearance. None of this improves our tax base in any significant way.
When the pace of residential development outstrips commercial, taxes must go up or the quality of services must go down. The Board of County Supervisors has done well, as they will tell everyone, at holding down the inflation-adjusted amount of per capita County spending. They have opted for degradation of the quality of our services, including schools, as Moon points out.
The alternatives to maintain quality in our schools are (1) raising taxes or (2) putting the brakes on residential development until the commercial sector can catch up (along with roads, schools, etc. and every other type of public infrastructure). Given the huge dependence of many of our elected supervisors on campaign money from developers, and no one’s desire to pay higher taxes, my guess is that the Board sticks with option (3), which is to continue the unbridled residential development that the big campaign donors want while neither demanding adequate proffers from the developers to fund the needs their projects create nor raising the revenue to maintain the quality of education we had in the past.
Every time a supervisor votes for more residential development, without tax revenue-positive commercial coming first, they are adding to the burden on taxpayers regardless of how loudly they shout that they are fiscally conservative.
PWC has always been a bedroom community, or it has since I have lived here.
There were remedies that the BOCS chose to ignore. They could have added a few more cents to the tax rate.
I refuse to allow long range plans to be used as an excuse for what happened this spring. The real problem is that many of them are CHEAP. They want to look good to their base and they think it will stop once the budget is approved. Well, not this time.
It needs to be fixed. How large does that class size need to get?
Supervisors, call the personnel office and ask them what its like to try to get last minute staffing in July and August. Ask them to define dregs.
PWC will be picking up last….because they pay less.
@Moon-howler
“In a pool this size, yes, more money does get you the best.”
Not always. What if Teacher A has a sick child that would be covered under a PWC health policy but not a FFX health policy? FFX may pay more but it may not offset the now out of pocket health care expense and commute costs.
“The best and brightest can afford to live in Fairfax County if they are paid a decent salary.”
How many FFX cops and police live in PWC and commute north? How many people are paid a good salary in DC but live in PWC? Making a good salary doesn’t mean you want to live there.
“You have to look at beginning pay differently than people who are already in the system with other things holding them there.”
New teachers are generally happy to be employed out of college let alone get the big $$$ that you’d like to offer.. Job market is still very tight. It’s the economy!!
“This problem boils down to economic development.”
I agree. PWC isn’t about innovation or technology parks. We’re not about a destination outlet or vast tourist attractions. We’re the county everyone lives in to commute to jobs elsewhere because we don’t have any here.
Marin, your mistake is viewing this like a generic business problem. It isn’t. I expect the likelihood of FFx having less of a medical package that PWC is real remote. FFX has primo pay, primo benefits.
I don’t know about cops. Talking teachers here. Cops and teachers are different in this respect. For starters, teachers have all sorts of certification issues that have to be factored in when hiring. Cops you can send to the academy.
You make the mistake of assuming that NoVA is hurting for kids. There is no work shortage for teachers that I am aware of. There are critical shortage areas where it is almost impossible to find teachers with the right certification in certain subjects. New teachers want the most money. It is the human condition. Transferring teachers know to ask about other things…raises, retirement packages, work conditions.
PWC hasn’t really changed all that much in decades other than it is no longer a front runner with the salaries and benefits. It has become a laggard. It is the 2nd largest jurisdiction but salary and benefits haven’t kept pace.
“I expect the likelihood of FFx having less of a medical package that PWC is real remote. FFX has primo pay, primo benefits.”
Okay, I’ll bite. Show me. Your position is that FFX has better pay, better benefits and that anyone that works in PWC vice FFX is a fool. That’s obviously not the case because we have teachers here in PWC, so.. show me how the pay and benefits are better in FFX over PWC and then explain why we still have teachers here.
“I don’t know about cops. Talking teachers here. Cops and teachers are different in this respect. For starters, teachers have all sorts of certification issues that have to be factored in when hiring. Cops you can send to the academy.”
I would hope that cops recertify every year with their firearms and get remedial training on new laws and tactics.. But the point isn’t about the training but rather that just because pay may be better somewhere else doesn’t mean someone wants to live there OR can even afford to.
“New teachers want the most money. It is the human condition. Transferring teachers know to ask about other things…raises, retirement packages, work conditions.”
You are no where near the points I’ve made. Your focus is on teacher salaries and benefits. Mine is on actual education. I want kids to get a good education but I don’t see raising salaries (generally) as the way to get a better education for those kids.
It’s because you don’t think I have a point so you aren’t listening.
There are many components to a good education. i am focusing on just 2 of those components that become critical in an area like this one. Now, if you go down to southwest VA, you get to look at other issues.
I am looking at salaries and class size. If PWC is beaten out by other juridictions for foreign language teachers and science teachers, then there is a good chance you might have to put uncertified teachers in those slots. There are only so many of those kinds of teachers floating around. It really is supply and demand. Class size has everything to do with having enough teachers. You would hope that you had gotten the brightest and the best? All employers want the brightest and the best.
Basically, there is no free lunch. You can go on the cheap if you want. It can be done. I don’t see a real estate boom happening around say, Battlefield. It wasn’t even #1 in the county. It was beaten out by OP. Remember, OP was 45. That really isn’t much to crow about.
M-H, Remember OPHS and Stonewall being built with “open classrooms”
and then having to be remodeled, at a large cost, when that idea soon proved
to be a major mistake?
How about double sessions in many schools, mostly in the eastern end of PWC?
According to the archives of our local papers, public schools have always been
an “issue” for one reason or another.
“There are many components to a good education. i am focusing on just 2 of those components that become critical in an area like this one.”
What are the other components and why are these more critical than others? For sake of debate if we pay them all $5K more will that equal 10 more SAT points? 15? 20? What is the return on that investment.
Or, lets say class sizes. If we have class sizes of 20 versus 25 does that mean we’ll get a 2% increase in passes on the SOLs? 4%? What is the return?
I’m listening. I just want to find out if I’m being asked to invest more as a taxpayer what the expected return will be. If you say you need $50M more to get a global education when can I expect that global #1 ranking and what do I get for that?
Also, what are the rankings based on?
@Steve Randolph
Yes and Garfield is the same way also.
I don’t remember how many sessions in the eastern schools. I just remembered the 45-15. you attended 45 days and then had off 15. Then they started color coding and people’s kids didnt all have off at the same time. It was a mess according to the people I know who taught it.
Allow me to offer a very recent perspective on county choice for employment in public education. I lived in Centreville when I was job searching, after graduating with a masters in school counseling. I chose Fairfax to be a counselor, not just because the base pay was clearly higher, but because their schools had a high quality reputation. Call it whatever you want, but THAT’S the reality. I communted to the edge of Fairfax County, almost Alexndria, as opposed to heading west into PWC.
Extoling the virtues of being known for spending the LEAST per student is NOT what I would call a positive “selling” point.
The utter disrespect that educators accross this country have endured in recent years is beyond ANYTHING I have ever seen. Are all teachers perfect, um no, neither are all police officers, public officials, engineers, doctors, nurses, etc etc etc!
I sent my kids to a Montessori School for all of their education, next year they will both be in public.
They spend substantially less per pupil, yes, but, they also are not REQUIRED to accomodate every child, they can turn kids away, the classrooms are not overcrowded, they are not beholden to NCLB or SOL’s.
Once cannot critique the cost of public schools without measuring the reality that every child must be admitted, no matter what their special needs. That IS the beauty of our public school system!
@marin, I just lost my entire reponse post to you. grrrrr
This was an informal position, not formal. I would say 20 vs 25 isn’t nearly as critical as 25 v 30 or even worse, 30 vs 35. Then you run in to space issues also.
You are trying to get a linear answer out of something that just doesn’t lend itself to linear answers. You also need to think about trends and not break things up by years. You want specific data and I don’t think that is the best way to look at much of this.
I am making the point that the jurisdiction that pays the most generally gets its first pick of teachers. That is pretty standard. Everyone. No, of course not. but as a general answer, yes. If you pay the least, you move on down the line.
Class size is a little less obvious. The best way to reduce class size is more teachers. You gotta hire em to throw them in there. Here is where per pupil spending kicks in. Then there is special ed and ESOL. Most of those kids are in the regular classroom. What is the ratio there? An ESOL and Sped kid are going to need more of your time as a teacher. How many ways can you divide yourself? Will there be esol and sped teachers coming to the classrooom?
Complex answers, complex questions.
I can’t answer for other areas. I would have to know more before I could answer.
marin, back to what I lost. You need to give teachers a raise if you want to attract new teachers. Back in the 60s, 70s, PWC was the most rapidly growing county in the United States. There are still some folks around from that era. but what happens when they all retire or drop dead in the classroom?
They have to be replaced. Who will fill their shoes? What folks are going to want to come to an area that hasn’t given a raise in 3 years and says there won’t be one for 3 more years? Now if everyone had that situation, maybe. But it doesn’t. Highly qualified people aren’t going to put up with that nonsense if someone else is offering regular raises.
“You are trying to get a linear answer out of something that just doesn’t lend itself to linear answers. You also need to think about trends and not break things up by years. You want specific data and I don’t think that is the best way to look at much of this.”
..and that’s the nightmare of being on a School Board. A person will need to deal with jerks like me that want justification for more money. We may want a World Class Education but are only willing to fund a Great Education. It’s the complexity of managing resources in a republic. 🙂
“I am making the point that the jurisdiction that pays the most generally gets its first pick of teachers. That is pretty standard. Everyone. No, of course not. but as a general answer, yes. If you pay the least, you move on down the line.”
Agreed. And Elena’s answer fits right in line with that.
If we have shortages in some areas (Sped or ESOL) maybe those are the areas we concentrate limited monies at. Maybe we have too many English teachers and not enough ESOL. Maybe we get rid of some english teachers and offer higher salaries or bonuses for the ESOL teachers..
I think that most people think like I do – we’re ok that the lions share of taxes go to education but we want to make sure it’s being spent wisely. So if someone says we need more money I think we as taxpayers should get a good explanation on why the money is needed, what we’ll see from that outlay and when we’ll see those expected results.
“Who will fill their shoes?”
Lots of places haven’t given raises for a number of years. County and State governments. The federales. Private business. So, I don’t think the “I’m not going to take a job where they haven’t given a raise in 3 years will fly” when a lot of people are just thankful that they are employed.
Not so much in this area. Pw seems to be the only jurisdiction stuck in no raiseville.
The teacher situations is very much supply and demand. You need more sped teachers because 1. there are more sped kids. 2. The sped classes allow fewer students 3. There aren’t as many sped teachers to start with.
I am really enjoying this “conversation” by the way.
marinm,
Have you ever seen Kahn Academy?
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Check it out, its fascinating! Bill Gates is sponsoring now I believe.
I think technology, properly leveraged, can do amazing things to bring about education for the masses.
It’s also why I love libraries so much and dislike the idea of cutting them. They bring (self-service) education to the masses. Regardless of socio-economic status you can walk into a library and given enough time and inclincation — learn. You can walk out a better person.
Agreed. Even if I don’t go for a long time, I know I can go. Libraries are just a monument to literacy.
Agree Marinm! LOVE libraries 🙂
A friend and I were having a similar conversation about what the Dept. of Ed. *should* be doing. Establish some baseline body of knowledge that constitutes a baccalaureate and put it online, for free, so kids can go through an entire 4-year curriculum using nothing but an iPad.
Something like this but with current material: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm (careful with that link you can get lost in there for days on end)
@Cato, if costs keep rising, perhaps it will come to that. Surely Bill Gates’s self made education is nothing to sneeze at, nor is Abe Lincolns or George Washingtons.
College life really is a blight on society in many respects and it costs a fortune.
@Cato the Elder
I like the idea. It’d be nice to see a experimental pilot program administered by a Virginia Tech or UVA for Virginian’s only – see how well it works or where it isn’t as successful and needs tweaking and then roll it out as a fully accredited program at the State level.
We also really need to tackle our cyberwarrior issue. Information Assurance or whatever the field is called (it changes names every 2-3 years) is so full of paper pushers and less stocked up on true warriors. We ought to have a program in place to create the next crop of digital soldiers for the electronic battlefield. And, you know what? A person with that skill set could care less about The Great Gatsby or the parts and pieces of a frog. We need a good hardcore technology vocational education that is equivalent to the baccalaureate level without the fluff. Current NSA programs focus too much on making the next computer scientist where we need ninja’s.
I think the basics (first two years) could easily be taught online. In some fields more than that could be taught.
@marinm
I agree that we are falling woefully short in the tech fields and science in general.