Glad I found this thread. I am at wit's end. DD attended public school in a strong school district in VA for 2nd - 5th grade...was admitted to a public school IB program and gifted magnet school for middle school, but we moved back to CA before 6th grade. Schools there did a decent job with clustering gifted kids, plus DD was in a math/science academy in her elem school. She is now in 7th grade in our small school district in SoCal (one HS, one middle, 2 elementary school). It is an extremely well funded district - $ is not an issue. High average state test scores. Highly educated parent base. School rated #1 MS in our very large county last year. District's mantra: 'We are just a high functioning district; our average is way above the standard, thus don't need advanced academic classes' is the standard response. These administrators have no idea what the real world holds. 7th grade here is less rigorous than 5th grade on the east coast, per my dd. Teachers routinely rely on high performing students to lead the science labs, for ex. The 'focused' kids are not able to work together in groups (the response 'well, there are always kids who carry the bulk of the work, and nothing would get done if some of these kids were left to their own devices'). My daughter is not PG;she is HG, which means there are plenty of kids like her in the school. That those kids don't get to be together in classes is a disservice to all of them. DD maintains a 100 average or above in every class, takes 0 period extra class and algebra, but nothing else is available in her school. Administration is unwilling to offer independent study for some classes (where she WILL end up being behind due to lack of rigor in classrooms - limited writing, poor implementation of common core standards, etc.). It is so frustrating. Most parents don't complain because 65% of the school gets straight A's, so, their kids aren't complaining, whereas my daughter is so tired of feeling like 'no one cares'. Our family's experience is clear: grouping together kids with similar desires/abilities to learn helped our kids thrive. I won't let my younger kids attend this MS. I am trying to move my daughter out for 8th grade but options are limited. I really didn't appreciate how good we had it in VA in a school district with 40% less funding per student compared to my current district where aside from special programs, advanced academics for LA, science, social studies were available at every middle school. End of rant.
