Reply to Deal or Basis for DCs? Advice Needed.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] [b]Other subjects at Deal are not tracked,but were appropriately challenging (but not over the top); [/b]many Deal students go on to take at least one AP in 10th grade and 3, 4 or 5 APs each year in 11th and 12th grades at Wilson.[/quote]

OP again, grateful that my house doesn't look like one on Stanton Is. or the NJ Shore.  Thank you, pp, for confirming that Deal is not in fact tracking outside math classes.  Math instruction sounds very strong at both schools and, hence, appropriate for my kids.

I just checked the 2012 DC-CAS scores for reading by school and it seems that nearly 20% of Deal students did not test proficient or advanced.  With no humanities tracking, that means that around 1 kid in 5 in every class other than math must lack basic skills, correct?   How could classes indeed be appropriately challenging then when a sizeable minority of students in each is working below grade level?  Teachers surely need to focus on ensuring that low-performing kids will test proficient in the future, rather than pushing high-performing kids to work harder and achieve more.  Are most high-SES parents OK with the near universal tracking deficit?  Do parents expect tracking outside math to enter the picture in the forseeable future?  I ask in all seriousness, being new to the DC public schools middle school scene.  My kids have scored advanced in both reading and math on every DC-CAS they've taken thus far.

Last week, there was an interesting 40-post thread entitled "TAG testing and differentiation in DCPS" on which pps made the case for middle school tracking.  The lack of tracking at Deal, combined with social promotion, concerns me greatly, as do relatively thin sounding extra-curriculars and cramped facilities at a cash-strapped charter.  Gosh, $300 for robotics?  So poor kids can't participate?  Can't a franchise with roots on the opposite side of the country raise money to include all interested kids in every elective/club?

Thanks for advancing this somewhat sobering research project at any rate.

[/quote]

OP, I'll give you my perspective as the parent of an academically advanced 7th grader at Deal. Overall, my child's experience thus far has been overwhelmingly positive and fairly intellectually stimulating. What we have found at Deal is a school that supports our child in getting out of her education what she puts into it. Generally excellent teachers and a strong peer group meet her at her intellectual level. I have not found that there's an over-emphasis on struggling learners at the expense of other students. I imagine there are schools out there that would be more challenging for my child in a strictly academic sense, but we also value the personal growth that our child is gaining at Deal beyond academics. However, if you have a singular focus on academic acceleration and tracking in multiple subjects, you're not going to find it at Deal. [/quote]

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