OK, I'm going to chime in here, because it's almost time for school to start and for the first time in 30 years I am not getting ready to go back. Stacie, I was a middle school language arts teacher and i worked as a special educator for many years before that. That said, I have some pretty strong feelings about what your local schools are trying to do. Middle schools should not have leveled classes for kids, except maybe in math. I feel strongly about this and have worked in 2 places where this really worked. There is no "AP" for middle school! Come on, our kids have enough stress as it is. The problem comes from the fact that it takes a very skilled teacher to meet the needs of all learners in a classroom. This is called differentiated instruction. As a former special educator, what seemed normal to me was not education as usual for a lot of my colleagues. You have to have the ability to diagnose, prepare, and plan different levels of activities for the things you are teaching. You also need a wider range of materials. This was easy in writing and reading, where the kids worked within their own level to begin with. No more 'whole class" novels, except maybe once a year. We did independent reading, along with lit. groups, which varied between being mixed ability or like ability. Writing is just writing. Everyone worked on the same type of writing (i.e. expository essay, creative, poetry), but some kids got more time or had more lessons. The "challenge" level was always offered for major assignments and projects and was required for the academically advanced kids, who btw, did not always want to do it.
So, if your school is moving toward this type of instruction, great. It CAN be done, but it requires hard work and a lot of professional development. I found that the expectations were raised for all of my kids and more than once I had a parent ask me if we were the "gifted" team... no, I just had high expectations for everyone.
Now, I know this doesn't help you in your particular situation. I appreciate the fact that you have chosen to stay in the city. But, as long as our schools are funded by property taxes, not much is going to change. I agree NCLB su***, and I hate the testing aspects of it. But, it has raised the bar in some areas. Keep supplementing your children's education with what you are doing. Let me tell you a personal story. When we moved back to Massachusetts from AZ we could not afford to live in one of the suburbs with really good schools. So we moved to a town that was quite average, more blue collar than white. My kids were very different from the others in terms of life experience and religion (they were almost 8 and 5). We became friends with the teachers and volunteered the best we could with our work schedules. We gave small amounts of $, like 25 or 50 dollars to help buy materials. We also did all of the stuff you are doing with your kids outside of school. They went to summer camp with kids from different towns, who were probably more like them. They also made friends at religious school. In fact, when we moved after 6 years, they didn't want to leave (but we couldn't wait). Both went on to do very well in a super competitive middle school and high school where 95% of the kids go to college.
It is hard for us as a society to face the fact that social class determines what kind of education you are going to get. You might have to send your kids to private school if you are determined on staying in the city. But in reality, all kids should have an "advanced' education.