How's basis going so far?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You realize this makes you sound like a complete and total prick, right? The more you know.

Why? Did you have a safety school when you applied to colleges (if you even attended college)?

Why I you upset because for some AAs Howard is a safety school?

Get your head our of the sand.

Of course I had a safety school when I applied to colleges. I honestly really don't care if some people consider Howard a safety school.

I should have been more specific. When you write things like "poppycock and nonsense" and brag about your 4th generation Harvard colleagues, it makes you sound like an elitist ass. And then when you make digs like "if you even attended college," implying that people who did not go to college are somehow less than people who did, it makes you seem like even more of a stuck up jerk. Got it?

[Anonymous]

Of course I had a safety school when I applied to colleges. I honestly really don't care if some people consider Howard a safety school.

I should have been more specific. When you write things like "poppycock and nonsense" and brag about your 4th generation Harvard colleagues, it makes you sound like an elitist ass. And then when you make digs like "if you even attended college," implying that people who did not go to college are somehow less than people who did, it makes you seem like even more of a stuck up jerk. Got it?

Since I did not make any of your alleged assertions these are clearly of your own making and hallucinations. I have no control over your own insecurities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Basically, you are still suggesting that it's strictly about race, and that is indeed ugly.

Utter nonsense, read the PP's post again, the part about upper-middle-class blacks having abandoned DC public schools en masse long ago. Ain't that the truth. You're looking hard for ugly and finding it. Bully for you.

[Anonymous]

Wow - From the poster who walked the walk. I don't know where the poster who started all this about "safety" schools is from but I hope you do not come to Basis because I wouldn't want any of your inferiority ideas rubbing off on my DS.

No, the HBCU was not my safety school. I assumed based on my PSAT and SAT scores that I could attend any school to which I applied. My mother still has the full huge file box of all the recruitment letters I received. Brainflash - testing, at least for me, was learned in the early formative years when I was in an all Black and majority Black environment.

However, my decision to go to an HBCU for graduate school was very purposeful (only place I applied). I knew I would run into people with attitudes like the insecure poster, although I did not think they would be AA. I knew these people would assume that the reason I was successful was because of the graduate school I attended and they would dismiss the HBCU as having input to my success. In fact, the reason I am successful is due to the experiences I had at the HBCU. The extremely driven students from very poor backgrounds at HBCU's are very high motivators for students from a privileged background. Also once you attend an HBCU you know you have the tools required to be successful - administration issues, professors that push you to recognize that you can do more, etc. In my household attending an HBCU was a source of pride, not something that was looked down on.

[Anonymous]

Wow - From the poster who walked the walk. I don't know where the poster who started all this about "safety" schools is from but I hope you do not come to Basis because I wouldn't want any of your inferiority ideas rubbing off on my DS.

No, the HBCU was not my safety school. I assumed based on my PSAT and SAT scores that I could attend any school to which I applied. My mother still has the full huge file box of all the recruitment letters I received. Brainflash - testing, at least for me, was learned in the early formative years when I was in an all Black and majority Black environment. However, my decision to go to an HBCU for graduate school was very purposeful (only place I applied). I knew I would run into people with attitudes like the insecure poster, although I did not think they would be AA. I knew these people would assume that the reason I was successful was because of the graduate school I attended and they would dismiss the HBCU as having input to my success. In fact, the reason I am successful is due to the experiences I had at the HBCU. The extremely driven students from very poor backgrounds at HBCU's are very high motivators for students from a privileged background. Also once you attend an HBCU you know you have the tools required to be successful - administration issues, professors that push you to recognize that you can do more, etc. In my household attending an HBCU was a source of pride, not something that was looked down on.

The point here is most kids in elite private schools got a trunk full of recruiting letters -- many from schools they had never even heard of. This is a function of blackening appropriate spots on the PSAT and SAT scantron test sheets key areas pertaining to race and ethnicity. It's interesting your mother saved these telemarketing letters. Many of us certainly did not. Was Howard University the one and only college you applied to? What made it your first choice school?

Let me make it perfectly clear I have nothing against Howard. I have brilliant and successfull colleagues from Howard and went to school with dunces and failures who went Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Sure, kids in elite private schools get tons of recruiting letters from all kinds of schools... because they want rich benefactors - MONEY. Laughing my butt off here.

[Anonymous]

That's precisely the point. The poster bellyaching about the all Black pre-K and K experience as her rock and solid educational foundation before her misguided parents sent her to elite private middle and high schools garners all these recruiting letters that a kept in a safety deposit box for posterity. The poster fails to realise everyone got those letters!

[Anonymous]

I'm not going to go into the types of letters I received other than to say that a significant number were not telemarketing. I am not going to detail my other high school achievements - this discussion about my decisions are a red herring. My mother saved these letters because she wants to spring them on her grandchildren - I don't know what points she wants to make - I'll wait and see.

I got into every school that I applied and was offered full scholarship to a few that I never I applied to - but this is not about me. This is about our DC.

I am agreement with the last paragragh - 9/24/2012 12:00. I don't want my DC to write off or make assumptions about people to include the quality of their intellect or habits based on their color, SES or school attended. I do not wear rose-colored glasses - but it is more important to me that he does not miss out on befriending those that are struggling and working hard to attain an education that he may take for granted. I want him to base his judgments on qualities - include in your friends those with qualities to which you aspire. Assuming superiority over others based on background is not one of the qualities I wish for him to attain.

Signing off - my intent in my original post was to let DCUM know that the poster did not speak for me or my circle of friends in contrast to the broad swath of AA parents she alluded to in her post. This has been accomplished.

[Anonymous]

We all get to choose (at least we try) the educational environments that are the best fit for our tempament, skills, aptitude, ability, interests, goals and pocket book. These choices are highly variable regardless of colour, race, ethnicity and religion. This represents my own experience and observation.

[Anonymous]

That assumes that parents will choose to stay in a school with a shrinking enrollment and shrinking opportunities at the higher grades. So far, charter schools haven't been able to clear that hurdle. The DCI might, but only because its a consortium of 4 schools. Success remains to be seen, but BASIS is lacking in a lot of expectations parents have of an HS experience. Middle school maybe, but HS? The only successful small schools are also exclusive (i.e., Maret) and Basis isn't offering the Maret experience.

I wouldn't get my hopes up about DCI - the feeder school populations aren't large, and the founders are talking about having more than half the students lottery in. Couple open lottery admissions with traditional resistance to much middle school tracking and the results will almost certainly be predictable: high-SES attrition between 8th and 9th grades, as at Latin.

It sounds like charter board must become more flexible on the admissions front in the coming years for sake of political survival.

Shrinking enrollment at Basis would only be a by-product of the middle-school-lottery-only admission system. Basis could be compelled to admit high school students who tested in to counter shrinking enrollment in the higher grades. PPs argue, oh no, that wouldn't fly, not when Basis is teaching fantastically advanced math and sciences in middle school! Nonsense, very advanced math and sciences in middle school can be come by outside of Basis, e.g. at Johns Hopkins CTY camps, independent schools, suburban middle school magnet programs, and on-line programs like Saxon Math.

The crux of the admissions problem is political, not academic: high-SES/white kids would, by and large, be the ones testing in, not low-SES AA kids. But the political calculus may be changing enough for the admissions tide to turn within 5-10 years.

[Anonymous]

+1. Yup, not a logical admissions system, or the best use of taxpayers money, to promote Latin level attrition of affluent families w/out the modus operandi to replace weak students dropping out with top students coming in.

But, hey, we've got 8 years to go before the first crop of surviving 5th graders graduates, so plenty of time for a politically wimpy DCPSCB to avoid reality!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone have kids with ASD or ADHD attending? Are accomodations [sic] being met? How is special Ed coordinator? Very responsive, not very? I know Basis does not have recess (I'm gathering this is case in many MS) but do kids have any non structured breaks besides lunch? How many kids per class 5th grade)? Does anyone know when next parent info session is? I sent basis email with no response.

Wow, lotta questions.
Don't know about special Ed.
There is no recess as far as I know but there is P.E. and lunch is fairly unstructured and not short.
Probably 26 kids per class (element). I'm hearing there are chronically disruptive kids, no surprise there. Some teachers can command the class, others can't. I hope the founders can apply some of their wisdom to the problem.
There was a parent info session last Friday but it was clearly for current parents. Notification was through the Basis DC Boosters [http://basisdcboosters.net/]

[Anonymous]

PP, what grade is your child in?

[Anonymous]

Seventh.

[Anonymous]

What are they doing with the chronically disruptive?