Reply to When should we listen to those small, nagging doubts?

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[quote=Anonymous]There are no formal GT programs in DCPS.  What happens is that UMC families amalgamate around a dozen elementary schools in NW and on Capitol Hill, by buying or renting real estate to gain access. Parents fund raise so that PTAs can afford to extend school budgets, enabling these schools to get more instructors in classrooms than DCPS budgets provide for.  PTAs at schools primarily serving UMC students raise six figures annually, $750-$1,500 per student.  With extra hands in classrooms provided by teachers aides or "floater" teachers (who move from classroom to classroom across a grade), far more differentiation can be done than with the single classroom teacher provided by DCPS from 1st-5th grades.  Some of these schools offer advanced math up to two years above grade level in the upper grades.

Many UMC DCPS parents quietly privately hire tutors, or even band together to form neighborhood tutoring groups, and take advantage of all sorts of external enrichment to add challenge for advanced learners. For example, plenty of DCPS families pay for their children to attend 3-week-long Johns Hopkins CTY enrichment camps in the summer ($3,000).  Some DCPS families also pay to for their children to attend weekend immersion language programs, often up in MoCo MD or out in VA.

At the middle school level, only a handful of DCPS programs offer academic tracking (bona fide advanced classes) for math, Oyster, Deal, Hardy and Stuart Hobson.  Only Stuart Hobson offers a full menu of honors classes (for English, science and social studies), enrolling around 25% of students.  Without test-in GT programs at the middle school level, or academic tracking other than for math, UMC parents become highly motivated to band together certain schools to ensure that advanced learners are challenged.

UMC parents without a strong IB elementary school try to lottery into a dozen strong charters.  Those without a strong IB middle school try to lottery into a smaller number of charters (mainly two, Washington Latin and BASIS).  Those who fail often moved to the burbs.[/quote]

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