Why are kids dropping out of BASIS DC starting in 7/8th grade?

[Anonymous]

I can't wait either. BASIS hasn't hired a college counselor. They're going to use a chem teacher without a college advising background this coming school year. They seem sure that AZ college admissions success will be replicated in the much tougher DC applicant pool, without strong extra-curriculars, including STEM research & science competition successes, in the mix. Better than Latin, maybe, better than Wilson and Walls, I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't wait either. BASIS hasn't hired a college counselor. They're going to use a chem teacher without a college advising background this coming school year. They seem sure that AZ college admissions success will be replicated in the much tougher DC applicant pool, without strong extra-curriculars, including STEM research & science competition successes, in the mix. Better than Latin, maybe, better than Wilson and Walls, I doubt it.

Depends which pool of students you are looking at from Wilson -- they aren't all academic rock stars.

[Anonymous]

BASIS has a business model that pretty much depends on pushing/kicking out students. They dump kids during the school year and keep the per pupil fees. Then they dump kids every year (and never replace them with new ones) so they only graduate a minority of students that start in the schools. This makes their graduation/outcome data look extra impressive, even though the model fails most of the students that start in it.

[Anonymous]

If BASIS works for you, it does and that's great. If doesn't, there are other options. The only person I know of who went there went for middle. The person transferred to a private high school for a more traditional experience and has done well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BASIS has a business model that pretty much depends on pushing/kicking out students. They dump kids during the school year and keep the per pupil fees. Then they dump kids every year (and never replace them with new ones) so they only graduate a minority of students that start in the schools. This makes their graduation/outcome data look extra impressive, even though the model fails most of the students that start in it.

You guys seem clueless.

My next door neighbor's kid, a very hard working young man whom I have known for many years attended DC BASIS since its inception.
The first year, he was a very happy 8th grader.

Year two was alright, except for the end of the year when one teacher decided to fail him without giving any prior notice for supposed plagiarism on a final exam. When hid parents asked for proof which could not be provided, the story changed; they were told that the "F" was the result of his final exam not reflecting his writing style. During a meeting, the principal promised he would retake the exam, but after postponing the test several times, he was told point blank it would not happen. As for this year, he showed me his "CJ" notebook where his end of year grade was a 93 in that English. A couple weeks later, the grade was lower by 20% in the report card.

This young man and another classmate are totally convinced that the report cards and even the AP exams are being manipulated by BASIS data person who has the ultimate control over students' grades. This is a case of the truth being stranger than fiction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why ask this question "Why are kids dropping out of BASIS DC?" of DCUM. Why don't you ask your friends who supposedly had kids enrolled there?

Because the op is a troll with an agenda

[Anonymous]

What happens when you put BASIS boosters and BASIS bashers in the same room?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What happens when you put BASIS boosters and BASIS bashers in the same room?

Maybe this should be the final round question at next DC Science Bowl competition. Let the kids of Basis, Latin, Hardy fight it out.

[Anonymous]

The way the Boosters defend BASIS to the hilt, although it's in an unhealthy building for kids, has a new head every year, isn't doing a good job of prepping students to play the elite college admissions game and actively turfs out half its middle schoolers (without taking responsibility for doing this) says to me that plenty of DC parents are desperate for a halfway decent middle/high school providing real rigor.

That's all that's going on here.

Sure, maybe 1/ 4 of the BASIS families love the place, not even 100 families. But out here in the great beyond, the rest of us a struggling to stay in the communities we love because we can't afford privates year in and year out. Lots of kids drop out because BASIS isn't so hot. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way the Boosters defend BASIS to the hilt, although it's in an unhealthy building for kids, has a new head every year, isn't doing a good job of prepping students to play the elite college admissions game and actively turfs out half its middle schoolers (without taking responsibility for doing this) says to me that plenty of DC parents are desperate for a halfway decent middle/high school providing real rigor.

That's all that's going on here.

Sure, maybe 1/ 4 of the BASIS families love the place, not even 100 families. But out here in the great beyond, the rest of us a struggling to stay in the communities we love because we can't afford privates year in and year out. Lots of kids drop out because BASIS isn't so hot. Period.

What does this even mean?

[Anonymous]

God, why do I still read this forum? The hidden agendas are not so hidden. Basis works for some and not for others. As someone with a second child starting there in the fall, it feels quite insulting to suggest that I'm doing something to harm my kids. My daughter is happy and well adjusted. I have no idea if she will stay for high school, but she has gained remarkable skills that will serve her well. Please just do what is right for your kid and allow options in our beloved city to flourish. Have a lovely August.

[Anonymous]

Hidden agendas? How about public middle school rigor in this city outside the Deal District without having to run to a strange, Hobbesian middle school without halfway decent facilities? I give BASIS credit for providing a service that works well for a small number of families. But the crux of the problem remains. Not sure why I read this forum either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG OP, we couldn't ALL get into Latin like your DC! And for whatever anyone says about the obnoxious BASIS booster and basher parents, I'm up.to.here with the smugness of the Latin families. Please, please write more about balancing the whole child.

Whether or not we stay at BASIS through high school, I cannot wait to compare where the first graduating seniors will be accepted in comparison to Latin.

Leave Latin out of this!!! How do you know the OP is a Latin booster, and even if she is, this has nothing to do with Latin. They are two entirely different schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG OP, we couldn't ALL get into Latin like your DC! And for whatever anyone says about the obnoxious BASIS booster and basher parents, I'm up.to.here with the smugness of the Latin families. Please, please write more about balancing the whole child.

Whether or not we stay at BASIS through high school, I cannot wait to compare where the first graduating seniors will be accepted in comparison to Latin.

Leave Latin out of this!!! How do you know the OP is a Latin booster, and even if she is, this has nothing to do with Latin. They are two entirely different schools.

Two entirely different schools, that are the only charters college-educated middle-high-SES families would consider for their children ages 10 and up.

It's obvious OP is a Latin parent -- no other parents give a hoot about BASIS.

[Anonymous]

If you look at the "top rated" BASIS schools in AZ, they tend to graduate at most 50 students - 25 after 11th who go straight to college, and 25 who stay for a senior year where only the first trimester is academic (class - based). The kids then go on to do senior projects which interest them that are pass fail. Sounds like senior paradise to me.

But they expect at least a 40% attrition between 8th and 9th (called the "year of decision") for kids who want more or different opportunities than BASIS schools can offer.

The most resounding endorsements we have gotten on this board so far come from BASIS DC kids who have gotten into top privates after doing well in BASIS DC MS. To be able to save that money, to know that your kid if he does well will be admitted to a private school at an admission point where they are only looking for kids who will up their college admission stats, in a place with very little public middle school choice, I would say that in and of itself is an absurd kind of bragging right. We prepare your kids so well for private schools that they are willing to admit them with (usually) a substantial amount of financial aid. We also prepare kids to get admitted to Walls and come ready for Wilson even if they were not zoned for Deal. No little thing. And in two years of DC CAS, we went from being #3 (behind Washington Latin) to beating them and starting to close the gap with Deal by scoring 2nd to them - in our two years of our existence.

Plus it offers accelerated math and science earlier than anywhere else in this city.

If that is all they do in this city - give kids another middle school option, which prepares them for high school the way other MS's do not - I would say they will have done us a service.