BASIS Equitable Access Preference

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS has announced they're doing an equitable access preference. The email makes it sound like they will be admitting equitable access students in ALL GRADES (5-12): "We plan to reserve a certain number of spots for at-risk students entering grades 5-12."

I personally don't love this. Underperforming disruptive students are already a problem at BASIS. BASIS is successful because those students are weeded out. This seems like yet another school that will be ruined in the name of "equity."

It would be terrible if a school that operates with public money was actually forced to serve the public.

Charter school parents, especially basis parents, complain about funding inequalities between charters and dcps, but then want their school to only accept the easiest students.

This is a hollow phrase. Would you argue that Duke Ellington doesn't "serve the public" because it doesn't serve those without artistic inclination and ability? BASIS has a specific curriculum and approach. It isn't for everyone. Not everything has to be for everyone. People like you would have TJ and Bronx Science and Boston Latin lower standards in the name of...equity? No thanks.

Thankfully I think we've passed the point in DC where people like you were believed to speak for most parents.

You assume at-risk kids aren’t smart enough for BASIS. You don’t want your kids’ school to make even this minimal effort because they may actually admit poor kids.

No, no, NO!!!!! The opposite. I am arguing that they there are lots of at risk families in DC whose kids can and will succeed at BASIS without BASIS watering down the school and expectations. It is the performative SJW who (as always) equate EA with BASIS not supporting special ed and other academically challenged kids. I am arguing that the EA is going to attract at risk kids who could thrive within what BASIS does. Unlike the SJW keyboard warriors I believe equity means giving kids who want to excel succeed an opportunity to be in an environment of like minded kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will be great to see BASIS actually supporting and being inclusive of at-risk kids rather than avoiding them and kicking them out at the first opportunity. Who would oppose that in this city?

I oppose it. At risk kids have the same opportunity to lottery into BASIS that everyone else does.

+1
When the city transferred from individual school lotteries to the one central lottery, it happened because of equity. Equal chances. No one has more chance than others.
Now, the "equitable access" seats really means "I have more access than others" seats which are taking away from other families.
To be fair, I find the sibling preference seats wrong as well.

[Anonymous]

So who is going to annotate the town hall going on right now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS has announced they're doing an equitable access preference. The email makes it sound like they will be admitting equitable access students in ALL GRADES (5-12): "We plan to reserve a certain number of spots for at-risk students entering grades 5-12."

I personally don't love this. Underperforming disruptive students are already a problem at BASIS. BASIS is successful because those students are weeded out. This seems like yet another school that will be ruined in the name of "equity."

It would be terrible if a school that operates with public money was actually forced to serve the public.

Charter school parents, especially basis parents, complain about funding inequalities between charters and dcps, but then want their school to only accept the easiest students.

This is a hollow phrase. Would you argue that Duke Ellington doesn't "serve the public" because it doesn't serve those without artistic inclination and ability? BASIS has a specific curriculum and approach. It isn't for everyone. Not everything has to be for everyone. People like you would have TJ and Bronx Science and Boston Latin lower standards in the name of...equity? No thanks.

Thankfully I think we've passed the point in DC where people like you were believed to speak for most parents.

You assume at-risk kids aren’t smart enough for BASIS. You don’t want your kids’ school to make even this minimal effort because they may actually admit poor kids.

At-risk kids already have the same opportunity to attend basis as every other kid. The lottery is equality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


I oppose it. At risk kids have the same opportunity to lottery into BASIS that everyone else does.


+1
When the city transferred from individual school lotteries to the one central lottery, it happened because of equity. Equal chances. No one has more chance than others.
Now, the "equitable access" seats really means "I have more access than others" seats which are taking away from other families.
To be fair, I find the sibling preference seats wrong as well.

Unfairness abounds in the lottery. If you are a Ward 3 family (thus with access to the strongest general education high schools in the city) but you decide to lottery for Basis (or Latin), then you have a fall back option in your neighborhood school that is acceptable. Thus there is no risk to you in applying to Basis in the lottery and ranking it as your first choice. If, however, you live anyplace OTHER than Ward 3, and you cannot either (a) afford private or (b) afford to move to either Ward 3 or a suburban neighborhood with acceptable schools, then your lottery choices have to be much more strategic since you HAVE to get in somewhere that is better than your neighborhood school. The EA preference really screws over those families who aren't wealthy enough to have real options but aren't poor enough to be "at risk" because it takes seats off the board for those families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So who is going to annotate the town hall going on right now?

LOL. Let's play a drinking game. Take a shot every time someone misquotes or misrepresents what was actually said. Chug a chaser for each follow-on reply that assumes it as fact and runs with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So who is going to annotate the town hall going on right now?

No one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, holy sh*t. This is bizarre. "A fighting chance"? "No chance in the world"? "Play make believe"? "Truly and deeeeeeeply desires"? "REALLY number one choice"?

Right. What they mean is a fair number of their applicants are fleeing the poor blacks.

I mean, we are and we aren't. On the one hand, we signed up for Basis because it's a school in which our kids can learn at academically advanced levels, and the race and income levels of their classmates are irrelevant. On the other hand, as anyone who hasn't had their head in the sand for the past 200 years knows, race and income are hugely correlated with academic achievement, so there's no way in which race and income are not relevant to this discussion. But when Basis has an at-risk rate of only 9 percent, there's certainly room for more disadvantaged but ambitious kids. That letter is bad, but at least it doesn't sugar-coat the fact that helping kids who need more support means more work for the school. I read it as saying that they will support motivated but underprepared kids, but not totally unmotivated kids.

BASIS has 9% at-risk. Some schools have even lower rates. Let those schools pick up their numbers before criticizing BASIS and it's poor performance meeting the needs of at-risk students. Remember, anyone at-risk student in DC can attend BASIS, unlike some schools that exclude at-risk students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


I oppose it. At risk kids have the same opportunity to lottery into BASIS that everyone else does.


+1
When the city transferred from individual school lotteries to the one central lottery, it happened because of equity. Equal chances. No one has more chance than others.
Now, the "equitable access" seats really means "I have more access than others" seats which are taking away from other families.
To be fair, I find the sibling preference seats wrong as well.

Unfairness abounds in the lottery. If you are a Ward 3 family (thus with access to the strongest general education high schools in the city) but you decide to lottery for Basis (or Latin), then you have a fall back option in your neighborhood school that is acceptable. Thus there is no risk to you in applying to Basis in the lottery and ranking it as your first choice. If, however, you live anyplace OTHER than Ward 3, and you cannot either (a) afford private or (b) afford to move to either Ward 3 or a suburban neighborhood with acceptable schools, then your lottery choices have to be much more strategic since you HAVE to get in somewhere that is better than your neighborhood school. The EA preference really screws over those families who aren't wealthy enough to have real options but aren't poor enough to be "at risk" because it takes seats off the board for those families.

So a big f u to the middle class. Great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


I oppose it. At risk kids have the same opportunity to lottery into BASIS that everyone else does.


+1
When the city transferred from individual school lotteries to the one central lottery, it happened because of equity. Equal chances. No one has more chance than others.
Now, the "equitable access" seats really means "I have more access than others" seats which are taking away from other families.
To be fair, I find the sibling preference seats wrong as well.

Unfairness abounds in the lottery. If you are a Ward 3 family (thus with access to the strongest general education high schools in the city) but you decide to lottery for Basis (or Latin), then you have a fall back option in your neighborhood school that is acceptable. Thus there is no risk to you in applying to Basis in the lottery and ranking it as your first choice. If, however, you live anyplace OTHER than Ward 3, and you cannot either (a) afford private or (b) afford to move to either Ward 3 or a suburban neighborhood with acceptable schools, then your lottery choices have to be much more strategic since you HAVE to get in somewhere that is better than your neighborhood school. The EA preference really screws over those families who aren't wealthy enough to have real options but aren't poor enough to be "at risk" because it takes seats off the board for those families.

So a big f u to the middle class. Great.

Yep. But “equity!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It reads like "Don't worry, we'll make sure it's only a few more poors, and we'll make sure they're super desperate to be here!"

Imagine how different this letter would be if they actually wanted to do this. Of course, if they wanted to, they would have done it already.

That's my takeaway as well. They are clear that "this new preference will impact our opening grade level seat size by less than 8% of total seat offers -- meaning a marginal impact to new families submitting applications." They never say the exact number of equitable access seats they will offer -- it could be in the single digits and this is more performative than anything else. Based on the 8% quoted in the email, it's probably around 12.

If it is only 9 seats should they not do it all? Seems like if those 9 kids get a chance they otherwise wouldn't get then it makes a difference to those kids. In a thread filled with dumb takes yours may be the dumbest. Your objection is that they didn't tell you right now how many seats? And also you don't think the number of seats they didn't tell you they would offer is enough seats? The only thing performative here is people like you.

Reading is fundamental -- perhaps you should have gone to a BASIS school or perhaps you are just overly emotional. In any case, I don't object - even if it is performative. I just don't see that 12 kids (or less or even a bit more) are going to ruin the BASIS education as is being said by others throughout this thread.

If that's all it takes to ruin it, it wasn't very good.

You spend a lot of time focusing on something you don't think is very good and didn't want anyway. You are like a kid who doesn't get picked to play on a team and spends the rest of his life claiming he hated baseball anyway and didn't care. To prove this you review the box scores and post commentary about the baseball team and how little you care. It's very strange.

There are multiple people posting on this thread, you know. It's not just me who thinks BASIS isn't very good.

And...? Your point is? You don't have to think it is good. You don't have to send a kid there and you don't have to leave a kid there. I understand people who are pissed that they couldn't access something they wanted. People like you confound me. Why would you spend a single second on something you don't think is good or worthwhile? It doesn't make sense.

Because I think a well-functioning school *system* is worthwhile and good, and I think BASIS is detrimental to the functioning of the system because of the many ways in which it coasts and shirks the harder work while claiming "results".

Couple things:

(1) Putting a word in quotes to impute sarcasm doesn't made facts disappear. BASIS's results are empirically excellent. You can argue self selection and number of other things are at play, but its results are great. Related to that...

(2) That's some Prime A BS you are slinging there bro. If you cared about the "system" you wouldn't be focused exclusively on one of the few schools that gets results; you'd spend your energy on the systemic failures occurring throughout DCPS. Are you seriously arguing that BASIS is destabilizing all of DCPS? Nothing about what you post indicates a concern about the "system".

Your obsession makes no sense. You are very much that kid who spends all his time obsessing over something they pretend not to care about.

1) Those are not actually quotation marks, and they are there for emphasis, not sarcasm.

2) What makes you think I'm focused exclusively on BASIS? There are lots of schools I'm eager to discuss-- any school that I feel is under-performing its demographics, shirking the harder work of the school system, or just generally not as good as people think. No, I do not think BASIS is destabilizing all of DCPS FFS. I think that BASIS is not actually that great, people go there for lack of better options, and that its "results" are not "empirically excellent" relative to demographics. I think that all schools should do a fair share of the more challenging work of a school system, and to allow some to shirk means that other schools have to do disproportionately more. And for BASIS to avoid the difficult parts and then claim to have better results is just in terrible taste. I'm not pretending not to care, I care very much about this.

Well, no one really cares what you think, anonymous poster who has no connection to BASIS.

The fact is that BASIS has some of the best metrics and results of any public school in DC. That is what counts.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it will make a huge difference to middle school enrollment. It’s hardly impacted Latin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It reads like "Don't worry, we'll make sure it's only a few more poors, and we'll make sure they're super desperate to be here!"

Imagine how different this letter would be if they actually wanted to do this. Of course, if they wanted to, they would have done it already.

That's my takeaway as well. They are clear that "this new preference will impact our opening grade level seat size by less than 8% of total seat offers -- meaning a marginal impact to new families submitting applications." They never say the exact number of equitable access seats they will offer -- it could be in the single digits and this is more performative than anything else. Based on the 8% quoted in the email, it's probably around 12.

If it is only 9 seats should they not do it all? Seems like if those 9 kids get a chance they otherwise wouldn't get then it makes a difference to those kids. In a thread filled with dumb takes yours may be the dumbest. Your objection is that they didn't tell you right now how many seats? And also you don't think the number of seats they didn't tell you they would offer is enough seats? The only thing performative here is people like you.

Reading is fundamental -- perhaps you should have gone to a BASIS school or perhaps you are just overly emotional. In any case, I don't object - even if it is performative. I just don't see that 12 kids (or less or even a bit more) are going to ruin the BASIS education as is being said by others throughout this thread.

If that's all it takes to ruin it, it wasn't very good.

You spend a lot of time focusing on something you don't think is very good and didn't want anyway. You are like a kid who doesn't get picked to play on a team and spends the rest of his life claiming he hated baseball anyway and didn't care. To prove this you review the box scores and post commentary about the baseball team and how little you care. It's very strange.

There are multiple people posting on this thread, you know. It's not just me who thinks BASIS isn't very good.

And...? Your point is? You don't have to think it is good. You don't have to send a kid there and you don't have to leave a kid there. I understand people who are pissed that they couldn't access something they wanted. People like you confound me. Why would you spend a single second on something you don't think is good or worthwhile? It doesn't make sense.

Because I think a well-functioning school *system* is worthwhile and good, and I think BASIS is detrimental to the functioning of the system because of the many ways in which it coasts and shirks the harder work while claiming "results".

Couple things:

(1) Putting a word in quotes to impute sarcasm doesn't made facts disappear. BASIS's results are empirically excellent. You can argue self selection and number of other things are at play, but its results are great. Related to that...

(2) That's some Prime A BS you are slinging there bro. If you cared about the "system" you wouldn't be focused exclusively on one of the few schools that gets results; you'd spend your energy on the systemic failures occurring throughout DCPS. Are you seriously arguing that BASIS is destabilizing all of DCPS? Nothing about what you post indicates a concern about the "system".

Your obsession makes no sense. You are very much that kid who spends all his time obsessing over something they pretend not to care about.

1) Those are not actually quotation marks, and they are there for emphasis, not sarcasm.

2) What makes you think I'm focused exclusively on BASIS? There are lots of schools I'm eager to discuss-- any school that I feel is under-performing its demographics, shirking the harder work of the school system, or just generally not as good as people think. No, I do not think BASIS is destabilizing all of DCPS FFS. I think that BASIS is not actually that great, people go there for lack of better options, and that its "results" are not "empirically excellent" relative to demographics. I think that all schools should do a fair share of the more challenging work of a school system, and to allow some to shirk means that other schools have to do disproportionately more. And for BASIS to avoid the difficult parts and then claim to have better results is just in terrible taste. I'm not pretending not to care, I care very much about this.

Well, no one really cares what you think, anonymous poster who has no connection to BASIS.

The fact is that BASIS has some of the best metrics and results of any public school in DC. That is what counts.

I guess it just depends what you think is "best". And what are "results".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think it will make a huge difference to middle school enrollment. It’s hardly impacted Latin.

Latin already has mediocre academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS has announced they're doing an equitable access preference. The email makes it sound like they will be admitting equitable access students in ALL GRADES (5-12): "We plan to reserve a certain number of spots for at-risk students entering grades 5-12."

I personally don't love this. Underperforming disruptive students are already a problem at BASIS. BASIS is successful because those students are weeded out. This seems like yet another school that will be ruined in the name of "equity."

It would be terrible if a school that operates with public money was actually forced to serve the public.

Charter school parents, especially basis parents, complain about funding inequalities between charters and dcps, but then want their school to only accept the easiest students.

This is a hollow phrase. Would you argue that Duke Ellington doesn't "serve the public" because it doesn't serve those without artistic inclination and ability? BASIS has a specific curriculum and approach. It isn't for everyone. Not everything has to be for everyone. People like you would have TJ and Bronx Science and Boston Latin lower standards in the name of...equity? No thanks.

Thankfully I think we've passed the point in DC where people like you were believed to speak for most parents.

Ellington is part of dcps. As an LEA, dcps does serve everyone. Basis (like almost all charter schools) has chosen to be its own LEA. That comes with advantages, but also responsibilities.