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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“Other institutions” should be DCPS.[/quote]

Absolutely. Why doesn't DCPS try to go after these students/parents that want a rigorous academic middle school experience? It could be an honors program within a standard middle school--that way you get the bigger size and attendant facilities/extra curriculars. Honestly, I am not a fan of charters, but when they do have success it is discouraging that DCPS lacks the flexibility to even try to compete. [/quote]

For some time now, the existence of charters like BASIS have actually disincentivized DCPS from providing more rigorous academic offerings for students. Because DCPS has to educate the large percentage of at risk kids in DC no matter what (charters rarely offer programming or services that will meet the needs of these kids), there has always been a conflict with also providing what high achieving kids need. It's very hard to do both. Charters like BASIS have alleviated that pressure by siphoning off high SES families (who are most likely to have high achieving kids because high achievement usually requires strong support from educated parents in the home), thus leaving DCPS to focus on at risk kids.

But as more high SES families have chosen to stay in the city past elementary, and as housing costs have pushed these families further east in the city, the charter options have not kept up with demand. DCPS has in some cases started to offer *some* programming to satisfy these families. Definitely at the elementary level, there are constantly more DCPS elementaries EOTP improving and offering something high SES families and those with high achieving kids want to buy into. But it gets harder in upper grades to balance the needs of at risk kids and high SES kids, because their prospects start to diverge rapidly around 5th/6th grade. There has been some small progress (like Stuart Hobson offering tracking for math) but overall it's just very, very hard to create a public education that serves the needs of low income and high income families.

One solution is more application schools, but this is really only a solution for HS. Application middles are dicy (all the same problems of fairness that HSs have except worse because you are talking about 11 year olds) and may not help because, again, 5th and 6th is when that divergence between at risk and high SES kids starts to really accelerate, which means there are actually a decent number of students who do well enough in elementary to gain admission to a more competitive program for middle, but who will then have issues and challenges in middle that require a kind of support high SES kids won't need, and you'll just wind up with the same resource issue).

There is not way to raise standards in DCPS that won't create essentially an underclass of kids who cannot, and will never, meet those standards but still need to be educated, and[b] in fact are in greater need of school (as a place to go and be exposed to responsible adults, rules, behavioral expectations) than all the high achieving kids, most of whom already have homes offering those things to them.[/b]

I just think people don't really get how challenging the mandate is for urban school districts with a lot of poverty and at risk kids. They are asked to do so much. DCPS does better than a lot of people on this board give it credit for, despite its many flaws. [/quote]

I also take issue with this. What about the students who have a ton of academic potential and actually could be leaders if taught properly? Is it really OK for DCPS to let them coast without challenge until they make it into one of the very few high schools that offer hard classes?[/quote]

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