We have a new charter in our area that sounds very similar (kids grouped by ability, and heavy use of technology), but they struggled to get min. enrollment required, and now they are struggling to keep it afloat.
I just had to comment on the "20 nine- year- olds" in the original post. Ummm, in our school, it's 32 nine-year- olds. The teacher is so overworked I can't even get replies to emails that are really important, like asking if DD is falling asleep at school because of her medication. The school has mixed aged groupings and a lot of kids are accelerated, but otherwise it's very much like a factory. It has to be when one teacher has a class of 30+ kids. But then these districts keep quoting stats about how low class size doesn't raise achievement, so therefore it's not fiscally sound to lower class sizes. At some point, they will put 100 kids in an auditorium, and teach them college-lecture style.
