We are not in Seattle, or anywhere close, but our district is obsessed with "equity" and throws around terms like "white privilege". They are closing down very high performing schools and busing kids long distances simply because having those schools in existence is not "equitable" (i.e. they are "too white" I guess). Meanwhile they are continually cutting special ed, nurses, support staff like psychologists, etc and giving themselves in administration very large raises. Superintendent is paid over $200k per year. How is that for equity?
My kids have been in schools that do not track, and the whole class did the same work, and it's not a pretty picture. The district claims that everyone is working 1 year ahead in math and I'm sure it improves their overall scores, getting more kids into the "proficient" range, but that is still too simple for highly gifted students who are not going to show much progress from year to year if they start out high. In-class differentiation was an absolute joke. Teachers wanted so badly to believe that they were differentiating and make me believe it that they actually lied to me or withheld information about what my kids were doing. They seemed to resent the fact that I was asking for work for them at the correct level. One teacher even insisted that it wouldn't be fair to the other kids. Probably brainwashed by the administration about "equity". The simplest way for them to close the achievement gap is to bring the top kids down a few notches, especially White or Asian kids.
Anyway, this report was done by the Fordham Institute about high achievers and whether they stay high achievers. It looks at NWEA MAP data. I am not sure how unbiased this group is (politically very conservative) but some of the data is interesting.
https://www.nwea.org/research/innov...galleries/high-flyers-maintain-altitude/
