I want no more than 150 children, spanning grades 1 - 12, starting no earlier than 7 years old, in the same classroom. Said kids all get three free hours of instruction at state preschools, which bus them from daycare centers and integrate children from all backgrounds.

So they're all ready to start running at age seven.

All learning is leveled but children are encouraged to jump from group to group as their learning accelerates in certain areas. Teachers expect that little Johnny has good and hard years, and work hard to make sure that every child is in the advanced group in SOMETHING. There are no labels without a medical diagnosis, you just know on average what group your child is in, from the 1 - 5.

All students help take care of a school garden and tree nursery.

IT support shadow is on the rotation for tasks the children perform for the school, as is attendance bookkeeping, principal's assistance duty, nurse's assistance duty, and library helper duty.

And of course, trial by a jury of your peers (if necessary making sure that socio-economic and language is controlled for so that children are truly with peers).

All schools are within walking distance for populations with an urban or suburban density population. Obviously that is not realistic for many small school districts, many of which span hundreds of square miles particularly here in the west.

I would make the day shorter and more condensed, but keep after-school pick-up outsourced to a variety of non-profit and for-profits like chess clubs, drama clubs, sports clubs, art clubs, etc. (At our schools a kid can do a different activity each day of the week with parent pick-up at 5 p.m., and I like that a lot. My daughter is in two clubs and she loves them.)

Project based-homework and homework support, so parents and kids can come together on weekends or parents can drop kids off on weekends, to get projects done. Parents are encouraged to come learn the project-based homework with the kids, particularly if they are English-language learners.

Last edited by binip; 03/15/14 03:49 PM.