“Basis DC: Want the Peer Group, But Not the Boot Camp?”

[Anonymous]

its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

FWIW, I have a 5th grader and he has straight A's and very rarely brings home homework. He says he can finish it at the end of each class or in study hall. He hasn't dropped any activities (and does one at BASIS after school).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

Lots of 5th-7th graders at Basis do their homework at school and take nothing home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Agree with above. We're not taking our 5th grade spot after talking to admins, who didn't impress us.

We're staying at our charter immersion elementary for 5th grade, come what may, even though our kid is among the best in his cohort at math.

Nothing at BASIS seems worth it to us. We ran through the list. The awful building. The unserious extra curriculars. The ban on language instruction until 8th grade (with only beginning language courses offered in 8th for no good reason). The high teacher turnover. The superficial sounding forced math acceleration.

The "ban" on language instruction?!?!? I am laughing out loud. Just because a school doesn't offer a course, that is not a "ban". Is DCPS "banning" Russian language instruction then? Are all schools "banning" fencing? You are ridiculous.

NP. Semantics and I’m not PP above. But I could have written the exact same thing about my child last year who was in 4th at the time. 98% testing in math and high performer at an immersion charter and we also did not play the lottery for Basis due to similar reasons above. I’ll also add the HOS seems awful based on our interaction. Child is heading to DCI in the fall.

CAPE scores for DCI for 8th grade (after kids have been at the school for a couple of years) are terrible.

More than half the class is below grade level in English and over 90 percent is below grade level in math.

Enjoy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. Agree with above. We're not taking our 5th grade spot after talking to admins, who didn't impress us.

We're staying at our charter immersion elementary for 5th grade, come what may, even though our kid is among the best in his cohort at math.

Nothing at BASIS seems worth it to us. We ran through the list. The awful building. The unserious extra curriculars. The ban on language instruction until 8th grade (with only beginning language courses offered in 8th for no good reason). The high teacher turnover. The superficial sounding forced math acceleration.

The "ban" on language instruction?!?!? I am laughing out loud. Just because a school doesn't offer a course, that is not a "ban". Is DCPS "banning" Russian language instruction then? Are all schools "banning" fencing? You are ridiculous.

NP. Semantics and I’m not PP above. But I could have written the exact same thing about my child last year who was in 4th at the time. 98% testing in math and high performer at an immersion charter and we also did not play the lottery for Basis due to similar reasons above. I’ll also add the HOS seems awful based on our interaction. Child is heading to DCI in the fall.

CAPE scores for DCI for 8th grade (after kids have been at the school for a couple of years) are terrible.

More than half the class is below grade level in English and over 90 percent is below grade level in math.

Enjoy!

IB math is integrated and not a clear cut division like traditional curriculum paths with algebra, geometry, etc... It’s difficult to assess because kids might not learn a certain topic until later.

I’m not saying their scores can’t be improved but CAPE test scores don’t really give you the total picture with IB

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

Lots of 5th-7th graders at Basis do their homework at school and take nothing home.

This was our experience. The BASIS middle school program isn't all that demanding for the brightest kids. It's certainly not a GT program. This is a strong test prep program where kids don't have to worry about character training/ethics, physical activity, cultural or language studies, much in the way of creativity, volunteerism/community service or enrichment, the things that made a school great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that their acceleration is sort of crazy. They also invite 5th graders to take pre-algebra over the summer and then get on a hyper-accelerated path that has them taking algebra/geo/algebra 2 in 6th and 7th, pre-calc in 8th, AB calc in 9th and BC Calc in 10th. and then things like multivariable calc and statistics in 11th and 12th.

I'm fighting against every instinct in my body that is in favor of taking every opportunity to say no to this. This is not necessary, right?

Can any experienced BASIS parents tell me if this is worth doing?

I think you need to follow your kid's lead. Do they like math/are good at it? Give it a shot! If not, no, don't do the extra acceleration. I can tell you that my kid really likes math and is very good at it. No genius, but very good. Took calc BC in 10th grade and really didn't have to work very hard to get an A. (Again, not a genius, so took some effort - but not a whole lot of sweat as far as I could tell).

I agree. Think about your kid. My child is finishing BASIS with all As for all of high school. But, the kid isn't a math whiz. Not a dummy, but it just isn't the biggest strength. The kid tested on the border for the advanced class, and we said no way. I haven't regretted it a bit. This is a kid that has chosen AP classes for every elective, very self-motivated, but math isn't the biggest strength, so why push it?

Perhaps people are pushing it for SAT and better outcome in college admissions?

And that is fine. It is not a high priority for us. I’m certain my child will get into a good school, and fit is way more important than prestige for undergrad in my opinion. I feel differently about grad school.

[Anonymous]

PP here. Pressed send too soon. The more advanced math will do absolutely nothing for the SAT. The higher concepts are not touched in the slightest. I’m a former Math SAT teacher married to a math professor. I can assure you there is no calc BC on the SAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here. Pressed send too soon. The more advanced math will do absolutely nothing for the SAT. The higher concepts are not touched in the slightest. I’m a former Math SAT teacher married to a math professor. I can assure you there is no calc BC on the SAT.

Second this. I'm also a former SAT/GRE teacher and BASIS parent and SAT math concepts go through arithmetic/proportions/algebra/geometry/probability and occasionally coordinate geometry. Absolutely no pre calc or calc topics on the SATs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. Pressed send too soon. The more advanced math will do absolutely nothing for the SAT. The higher concepts are not touched in the slightest. I’m a former Math SAT teacher married to a math professor. I can assure you there is no calc BC on the SAT.

Second this. I'm also a former SAT/GRE teacher and BASIS parent and SAT math concepts go through arithmetic/proportions/algebra/geometry/probability and occasionally coordinate geometry. Absolutely no pre calc or calc topics on the SATs.

ha - this is amusingly accurate. My current calc BC sophomore ("A"s every grading period) did very well (approaching national merit scores) on the 10th grade PSAT .. . but her math score was lower than her English score, I think b/c she is a bit too removed from algebra/more basic concepts! She doesn't care for English, so it was bizarre that she had practically a perfect English/language arts score and a surprisingly lower math score (again - a great score - just lower than English). I will have to get her to practice algebra, etc. before the 11th grade PSAT!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. Pressed send too soon. The more advanced math will do absolutely nothing for the SAT. The higher concepts are not touched in the slightest. I’m a former Math SAT teacher married to a math professor. I can assure you there is no calc BC on the SAT.

Second this. I'm also a former SAT/GRE teacher and BASIS parent and SAT math concepts go through arithmetic/proportions/algebra/geometry/probability and occasionally coordinate geometry. Absolutely no pre calc or calc topics on the SATs.

ha - this is amusingly accurate. My current calc BC sophomore ("A"s every grading period) did very well (approaching national merit scores) on the 10th grade PSAT .. . but her math score was lower than her English score, I think b/c she is a bit too removed from algebra/more basic concepts! She doesn't care for English, so it was bizarre that she had practically a perfect English/language arts score and a surprisingly lower math score (again - a great score - just lower than English). I will have to get her to practice algebra, etc. before the 11th grade PSAT!

PP here -- I can see that happening! I'll definitely help my kid relearn algebra/geometry before he has to take the PSAT/SAT, since BASIS teaches it so early. Fortunately that's one thing I'm actually professionally trained to do (had to reteach this to many adults, it can be done in about 3 weeks!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP here. Pressed send too soon. The more advanced math will do absolutely nothing for the SAT. The higher concepts are not touched in the slightest. I’m a former Math SAT teacher married to a math professor. I can assure you there is no calc BC on the SAT.

Second this. I'm also a former SAT/GRE teacher and BASIS parent and SAT math concepts go through arithmetic/proportions/algebra/geometry/probability and occasionally coordinate geometry. Absolutely no pre calc or calc topics on the SATs.

ha - this is amusingly accurate. My current calc BC sophomore ("A"s every grading period) did very well (approaching national merit scores) on the 10th grade PSAT .. . but her math score was lower than her English score, I think b/c she is a bit too removed from algebra/more basic concepts! She doesn't care for English, so it was bizarre that she had practically a perfect English/language arts score and a surprisingly lower math score (again - a great score - just lower than English). I will have to get her to practice algebra, etc. before the 11th grade PSAT!

PP here -- I can see that happening! I'll definitely help my kid relearn algebra/geometry before he has to take the PSAT/SAT, since BASIS teaches it so early. Fortunately that's one thing I'm actually professionally trained to do (had to reteach this to many adults, it can be done in about 3 weeks!)

Chuckling reading this as I remember cramming 8th grade math for the GRE, a solid 15 years after 8th grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

FWIW, I have a 5th grader and he has straight A's and very rarely brings home homework. He says he can finish it at the end of each class or in study hall. He hasn't dropped any activities (and does one at BASIS after school).

5th grade is not real BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

Lots of 5th-7th graders at Basis do their homework at school and take nothing home.

This was our experience. The BASIS middle school program isn't all that demanding for the brightest kids. It's certainly not a GT program. This is a strong test prep program where kids don't have to worry about character training/ethics, physical activity, cultural or language studies, much in the way of creativity, volunteerism/community service or enrichment, the things that made a school great.

My 5th graders has learned all the capitals of all the countries in the world. I think BASIS is like catholic school but for free. It seems to me that there is plenty of character building and emphasis on "don't be a jerk". I personally don't subscribe to the community service hours for graduation fad that is going on with this generation. Half the kids make them up anyway.
It sounds to me you don't want a school, but a summer camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:its not just math. they put out materials saying expect 90-120 minutes homework each night. i know middle school students who go there who say its not actually that much. but as a prospective parent, the idea that the administration might somewhat expect and not be highly sympathetic towards a 5th-7th grader who was consistently doing 90+ minutes of teacher-assigned homework per night was a not insignificant reason to stay dcps knowing the homework load is such that my child can easily continue with her various out of school activities.

Lots of 5th-7th graders at Basis do their homework at school and take nothing home.

This was our experience. The BASIS middle school program isn't all that demanding for the brightest kids. It's certainly not a GT program. This is a strong test prep program where kids don't have to worry about character training/ethics, physical activity, cultural or language studies, much in the way of creativity, volunteerism/community service or enrichment, the things that made a school great.

Your conclusion doesn’t follow your premise.

More fact- and data-free Basis hating.

Get treatment.

Your kid washed out of Basis years ago but the school still lives on in your head rent free.