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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]So teach tiny honors classes at first. Spend the dough[/b], build the challenge, attract IB kids and watch honors class sizes grow year on year.  It's not as though funding is the main problem, given that the city is prepared to sink 25-30 million to sink into the physical plant at JA.

Hints: 
Scores of rising 6th graders who live in the catchment area score 4s and 5s on the 5th grade PARCC.
Washington Latin admitted less than 20% of 5th grade applicants this year.  
BASIS is unlikely to clear its 5th grade WL for the first time this year. 
Ward 6 kids no longer have access to Deal.
Stuart Hobson, Hardy and Two Rivers have long 6th grade WLs.
DCI's 6th grade will soon fill up with students from its language immersion feeders.
Ward 6 families who can't access the above high SES friendly middle schools would take a chance on JA if DCPS were to meet them halfway by creating honors classes. [/quote]

It's not that simple.  Teachers are funded by the per pupil model and getting enough teachers for such small classrooms means making up the difference elsewhere.  Even if you're willing to make that well intentioned commitment it would need to be offered across the board and not  just JA. On a macro level it would deprive resources needed for other necessary broad goals like remediation for students below level.

I'd prefer a test in academy for 6th grade.  It levels the playing field by opening up city wide to eligible students and doesn't put an undue strain on neighborhood schools.[/quote]

Right, if it were simple, we wouldn't have two Ward 6 middle schools that are more than 2/3 empty, and one that's full but 80% OOB.

I'd prefer at test-in MS program myself (having attended one in another East Coast city). But it seems that we can't even discuss that option with DCPS.  The macro funding structures are madness. Renovate a building serving 300 kids (rather than the 900 it was built to accommodate) to the tune of $30 million but, oh dear, nothing left over to fund a single honors math class to accommodate students from the feeder (Brent) where 70% of the current students work at or above grade level in math.

So make the commitment DC, and make it across the board.  A thriving city is swimming in money for schools, and the federal government still throws money at DCPS. Get Grosso off the Council. Replace him with a Committee on Ed leader who makes the commitment.  Deal with the reality that that poor kids need middle-class classmates to grow up upwardly mobile as much as they need remediation.  I was a FARMs student who wouldn't so much have considered going to college if I hadn't many high SES classmates all the way from K-12. [/quote]

The days of the federal government 'throwing' money at DC are over. Have you reviewed the federal budget proposal? Massive decreases in things that DC has come to rely on (teacher development funds, at risk student funds, breakfast and lunch, social workers/psychologists. there is not going to be enough funds to start something new.
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