Reply to CHARTERS MAY MERGE AT WALTER REED (The DC International School, IB Diploma Programme)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][/quote]  An IBO program by definition does ability tracking, with the IB degree at the end - the highest level - so we're not particularly worried but happy there is a public middle/high school option that we can consider over private school.  We're not interested in Basis or Latin.

I had no idea the senior guidance counselor was from Holyoke!  I'll be just as happy if DC attends Amherst, Williams, Swathmore, etc. over the Ivies, DH and I attended... [/quote]

Latin does ability tracking in HS, not in MS, other than for algebra, which helps drive out most of the high-SES families somewhere between 6th and 9th grades.  Anybody who disputes this need only look at the percentage of white kids, over a third for MS and around 10% for HS, although the figure is rising.

The Ivies take 6-10% of applicants (other than Cornell, 18%, the only public-private school among them), the "Little Ivies" take around 15%, pretty much the same applicant pool.  Holyoke takes closer to 40%.  I interview Metro area applicants for my Little Ivy and hardly anybody gets in from DCPS, while PS kids from MoCo and Fairfax commonly do.  They usually come up through ES and MS G/T programs and have much higher AP and SAT test scores than even the best DCPS kids, including white kids.  A good third of them earn the full IB diploma, which is no longer remarkable.  Top schools now look at the total IB score more than the diploma and 40+ isn't uncommon.

If DCI really does offer several levels for each subject, terrific, but since no other MS in the city does, and the charter board has offered stiff resistance to any sort of selective admissions, even for a sensible, non-race or class-based reason (bilingualism), it's tough to argue with the skeptics.  Even Deal doesn't track much yet.

Why would the charter board allow extensive ability grouping but not selective admissions?  In that case, wouldn't the dreaded elitism and cherry-picking simply emerge within the school (with massive over-representation of high-SES families in upper echelon courses)?  That doesn't sound politically tenable, no matter how many high-SES families wind up enrolling.

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