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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Starting an application middle school looks a lot like tracking, which is legally suspect.

This is why DCPS doesn't want to do it before 9th grade:

http://usedulaw.com/333-hobson-v-hansen.html
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This lawsuit is about tracking using testing, the issue here is an application MS (no testing).  Not a good comparison.  And it still doesn't answer the question, why is an application HS OK but not an application MS.  Why is it acceptable to do at 9th grade and beyond but not 6th, 7th, and 8th?  Still no explanation.
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All the DC application high schools - OP's model - use tests as part of the admission criteria (either DC CAS or a special one, like SWW).

[b]What criteria would you establish for your application MS? How would you choose who gets to attend or not?

The problem with introducing tracking early is that they erect barriers that students can never get around. The student who get in a track at 6th are going to always be ahead of others who don't. Foreclosing options when a student is only halfway through his/her school career is the issue. [/quote]
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There are well-trodden paths to establishing the criteria, many models from around the country, particularly in the Bos-Wash corridor. Boston has several "exam" middle schools, New York has dozens of "application" middle schools, and MoCo has several "test-in magnet" middle schools." DC certainly wouldn't need to reinvent the wheel on the admissions or test prep front. Boston even offers free middle school exam test prep to all comers. In MoCo, kids who live close to the school are a given a little preferential treatment in admissions, there are set-asides for them, accounting for one quarter of test-in seats. What's problematic in this picture is how DCPS leaders and politicians still see value in shielding low-income kids from competition from affluent peers, which obviously isn't going to help the former in the long-run. The emphasis should be on identifying and nurturing talent from a young age.

I don't agree that a student who does not get into a track at 6th is necessarily always going to be behind. I wasn't on the gifted track in middle school, but got turned onto to a subject in high school by an excellent teacher, matured, belatedly put nose to the grindstone and went to an Ivy.

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