Fairfax Schools Monitor

What is really being taught in our public schools?

What is being taught to our children in Virginia’s Fairfax County public schools?  Critical Race Theory?  Gender fluidity?  Pornography?  Is excellence in education being sidelined in favor of other goals?

The county’s school system has been in national as well as local headlines, with conflicting claims and denials about what is and isn’t being taught.  Rather than relying on sensational news reports, this blog will expose the truth about the policies and curriculum of the public school system.  What are teachers being instructed to teach, and what are the children actually being taught?  Has the focus remained on reading, writing, language, mathematics, science, history and civics, or has the school system shifted towards implanting controversial ideologies into young minds?

We will dig into the facts and will reveal official documents, including policy statements and curriculum outlines.  We will monitor the activities of the Fairfax County School Board.  We will solicit knowledgeable input from parents and mature students.

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Recent Posts

Has the TJ Experiment Been a Success?

By Mark Spooner | March 9, 2024

We are more than three years into the TJ experiment, but the Fairfax County School Board hasn’t yet addressed its successes and failures.  Whether an objective analysis will ever be conducted is questionable, for the program was adopted primarily for ideological reasons, and the Board may be reluctant to subject its ideological assumptions to scrutiny. …

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It’s a Sad Day: TJ Discriminatory Admissions Policy Is Allowed to Stand

By Mark Spooner | February 21, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court, in an order entered yesterday, declined to review the decision of a court of appeals in Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax County School Board that upheld a discriminatory admissions policy for the once-elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (“TJ”).  Two justices (Alito and Thomas) voted to take the…

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Sacred Texts — Part 2 — Rachna Sizemore Heizer

By Mark Spooner | January 10, 2024

A previous article on this site noted that a member of the Fairfax County School Board, Karl Frisch, took his oath of office in December on a stack of controversial, sex-themed books, thereby sending an in-your-face message to the community about his ideology and priorities.  See “Karl Frisch’s Sacred Texts.“ Mr. Frisch was not the only…

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Karl Frisch’s Sacred Texts

By Mark Spooner | December 14, 2023

On December 13 the recently elected members of the Fairfax County School Board were sworn into office.  The incoming Chair, Karl Frisch, is pictured above as he took his oath. What are the texts Frisch’s left hand rests on?  They don’t include the Bible, the Torah, the Koran or other sacred books commonly used when…

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FCPS Promises Transparency, But Hides the Ball

By Mark Spooner | October 27, 2023

Several prior posts on this site have reported on a lawsuit stemming from the failure of Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) to provide timely notice to high school students of commendations they had received from the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.  As reported earlier, the failure created intense controversy.  In response, the school Superintendent announced in…

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Controversial Issues Policy

FCPS Violates Its Policy on Political Advertising

By Mark Spooner | October 18, 2023

A Regulation of the Fairfax County School Board states that “Campaign literature supporting one or more candidates shall not be distributed within the schools or on school buses by students, teachers, or others; nor shall campaign posters be displayed at or within the schools ….”  (Regulation 4426.5).  School administrators are ignoring this policy at at…

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FCPS Spins the Decline in SAT Scores

By Mark Spooner | October 15, 2023

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) posted a misleading article last week entitled “Fairfax County Students Continue to Outperform SAT State and Global Averages.”  The school Superintendent, Michelle Reid, touted the same data at the October 12 meeting of the School Board, using a chart labeled “Fairfax seniors have consistently outperformed state and global SAT outcomes.” The…

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I Spoke Too Soon ….

By Mark Spooner | October 6, 2023

Six months ago, I posted an article praising an action of the Fairfax County School Board.  See “Fairfax School Board Acts to Streamline Its Meetings.”  As it turns out, I was too quick to find a silver lining in the Board’s pattern of making its meetings unfriendly to the public.  At its recent meeting on…

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Beware the Social Studies Curriculum — Part 2

By Mark Spooner | September 10, 2023

Documents obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act reveal a disturbing ideological bias in the social studies curricula of Fairfax County public high schools (FCPS). The first article on this subject, which is HERE, discloses that after the current School Board took office in 2020, the curricula were extensively revised to view history and government…

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Beware the Social Studies Curriculum! — Part I

By Mark Spooner | September 3, 2023

As a new academic year begins, Fairfax County citizens should be aware of what our children will be taught in the public schools. Particular attention should be given to the social studies curriculum.  It is not a straightforward education about history and government.  It is agenda-driven, emphasizing a viewpoint supported by “progressives” and race-theory advocates. …

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