Word: fairfaxes
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...grade grubbers go the spoils. And the grade grubbers in this case are rabble-rousing parents in Virginia's Fairfax County. Residents of the high-powered Washington suburb have been battling the school district's tough grading practices; chief among their complaints is that a score of 93% gets recorded as a lowly B+. After forming an official protest group called Fairgrade last year and goading the school board into voting on whether to ease the standards, parents marshaled 10,000 signatures online and on Jan. 22 gathered nearly 500 supporters to help plead their case. After two hours...
...most schools in the U.S., a score of 90 earns you an A, but in Fairfax County, getting the goods demands a full 94. Merely passing is tougher too, requiring a 64 rather than a 60. Nor do students get much help clearing those high bars if they take tougher courses. Compared with how many districts weight GPAs for Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses, Fairfax County's half-point boost is peanuts. The result, protesters say, is that Fairfax kids are at a disadvantage on multiple fronts: snagging good-driver insurance discounts (which often factor in a student...
...Fairfax was never considering anything that drastic, but in response to parents' complaints, the superintendent in April launched a study on how the district's grading system affects students. (Fairgrade, initially a co-sponsor of the study, jumped ship in December when its members disagreed with how the school board characterized the results.) Based on the findings released in early January - which showed that changing the scale would slightly boost GPAs but was inconclusive about whether it would help students get into better colleges - the school board on Jan. 22 agreed to start using a higher premium for tough courses...
...Democratic effort has, among other things, been sharpening its focus on fast-growing areas in Virginia such as Fairfax, Fredericksburg, Stafford, Charlottesville and the Richmond suburbs, Leopold says. "Often times new voters who move in to an area are more open-minded to Democratic messages," he says. The Obama-Biden ticket has made at least eight visits to the southwest and south side of Virginia, hoping to win support from traditional Republican areas. "Obama and Biden have focused on growing areas and areas that are traditionally not Democratic in order to send a message that this election is not about...
...Elections are almost entirely funded at the county level, which means money is scarce. "That is the problem," says Suleman of Fairfax County, Va. "The taxing authority that has the least flexibility and ability has the greatest responsibility...