Been looking at this topic pretty hard lately for schools within our potential transportation scenarios. I guess that in some respects quality is more limited than what most pigg parents are facing. My comments apply to San Diego Unified , El Cajon and Jamul-Dulzura school districts. There may be some similarities to north county, but I think it’s more challenging here…especially since inter-district transfers are in play.
I agree that primary school is pulled towards teaching to the middle or being bogged down by students even lower than that. Teaching to the tests is often done crisis management style to the detriment of the entire school experience. We went through that and it’s scandalous. If your kids are in primary it’s a good time to be a helicopter parent. Many of the teachers try to satisfy the families and academically strong kids who take achievement seriously, but they have the whole assortment of kids in their classes to deal with. IN some cases gate students don’t even have a separate classroom. A lot of homework is coming home and the strong students/families get it done striving for quality and the weak don’t. A lot of people don’t like the homework , but it’s probably better than full on dumb them down. On the other hand, an alternative primary school would be worrisome to me also…not and easy place to be. Even alternative middle schools and high schools better convince me that students are very well grounded in math, science, and language. Some don’t.
No matter what the format for the public or public charter schools, there will not be a school full of “all the best and brightest”. They have a base of kids for whom the school is most convenient and then they have to take kids by lottery schemes of various sorts. Most schools want to grow or keep up the numbers anyway. Many parents opt for these schools because their child had problems at his ‘regular’ school. I am not saying it won’t be better if the fit is good for the child for some reason, science, technology, music.. athletics, whatever, but there is no public school nirvana. I don’t like the social environment of some of the schools that have the best offerings.
In middle school it is potentially less true about teaching down, lots of kids, so there are enough bright motivated children to fill challenging math and science classes and tech oriented electives, music classes as electives, and clubs, IF THE SCHOOL PROVIDES THEM. By high school there is AP ,and HOPEFULLY these other electives and clubs. Our local middle school is very small,only 60 kids per grade, great community, and has a good social environment and some respected teachers, but can’t offer much in electives and clubs , and in my opinion doesn’t try hard enough. So, we look around at alternatives and so do a lot of other parents.
While a “dream school” would be nice, I don’t think there is too much to worry about until high school as long a the parents stay involved enough for the kid to get there with strong math and language skills. Specific areas of interest can be worked on outside of school if need be.
