Basis PCS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade is really late to start Spanish, French or Chinese in 2015. And what are they going to do with kids who come in speaking, reading and writing these languages pretty well (e.g. Oyster or Yu Ying graduates), or even at the near native speaker level from being raised bilingual? There are a couple of BASIS 6th graders who speak good Mandarin. Shove the kids into introductory 7th grade language classes? Let me guess, they'd deserve this treatment for knowing more than Olga permits. Strong humanities program my foot.

You don't know what you're talking about.
Waste your time somewhere else

Unfortunately, I do given that continuity in elementary-to-middle school language instruction is a problem in both DCPS and DCPC. Say your kid attends weekly language classes in a DCPS public school for many years (e.g. Spanish at Brent, or French at Janney, or Mandarin at Maury) then heads to BASIS for 5th, where s/he can't study any modern language during the school day before 7th grade. Or your kid arrives having already attained high proficiency in one of the languages BASIS teaches, but is encouraged to pick a new language to study in 7th grade for lack of an appropriate public school class at BASIS or elsewhere, and higher level language class scheduling issues. It's not unusual for families to wind up providing private instruction in foreign languages outside school to keep kids on track in languages they studied in elementary school, or learned at home.

Language instruction continuity at the MS and HS levels is a sore point for some of us, and a weakness system wide. Maybe the new HOS will think outside the box on accomodating bilingual kids and others with substantial language background from the get go. Waste your time knee jerk boosting off this board.

I still think you (and us) would be better off wasting your time somewhere else. Your emphasis on foreign languages is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a few charters, BASIS DC and the BASIS Arizona schools. BASIS DC must reassure current parents to keep growing and buy the next building and (for those same parents) graduate two or three classes with surprisingly good admissions of non-minority students.

Minority student admissions will be explained away by DC and national union critics in the usual (rather racist) way as they have been at Latin and some of our private schools. Strong admit rates to great colleges for minority students are good (and life changing) but won't awaken the few fairly good charters, DCPS and PCSB to what's happening at BASIS.

BASIS also needs to do a better job of not being cowed by critics. Lead.

have you just left this thread after your cryptic, racist, classist, comment?

respond please. explain please.

Not sure we have more than one or two white kids in the first, second, or third graduating classes, and I think those white kids will go where their parents advise them based on merit scholarships. Can't we just say they got into P-ton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:7th grade is really late to start Spanish, French or Chinese in 2015. And what are they going to do with kids who come in speaking, reading and writing these languages pretty well (e.g. Oyster or Yu Ying graduates), or even at the near native speaker level from being raised bilingual? There are a couple of BASIS 6th graders who speak good Mandarin. Shove the kids into introductory 7th grade language classes? Let me guess, they'd deserve this treatment for knowing more than Olga permits. Strong humanities program my foot.

You don't know what you're talking about.
Waste your time somewhere else

Unfortunately, I do given that continuity in elementary-to-middle school language instruction is a problem in both DCPS and DCPC. Say your kid attends weekly language classes in a DCPS public school for many years (e.g. Spanish at Brent, or French at Janney, or Mandarin at Maury) then heads to BASIS for 5th, where s/he can't study any modern language during the school day before 7th grade. Or your kid arrives having already attained high proficiency in one of the languages BASIS teaches, but is encouraged to pick a new language to study in 7th grade for lack of an appropriate public school class at BASIS or elsewhere, and higher level language class scheduling issues. It's not unusual for families to wind up providing private instruction in foreign languages outside school to keep kids on track in languages they studied in elementary school, or learned at home.

Language instruction continuity at the MS and HS levels is a sore point for some of us, and a weakness system wide. Maybe the new HOS will think outside the box on accomodating bilingual kids and others with substantial language background from the get go. Waste your time knee jerk boosting off this board.

I still think you (and us) would be better off wasting your time somewhere else. Your emphasis on foreign languages is ridiculous.

Possibly, but you're the one arguing that BASIS offers a terrific "classical liberal arts" education, including foreign language instruction. BASIS does a fine job teaching math, science, geography to 5th graders, world history and a few more subjects, but the rest of the curriculum, and instruction, leaves a lot to be desired. If BASIS sticks to Latin in 5th and 6th grades, with no modern language study options, before long they're going to be admitting students who spent many years taking mandatory weekly DCPS ES language classes. with nowhere to go in building on their language foundations at BASIS until 7th grade. This is too little too late. DCPS recently made the study of global languages compulsory in ES from K, while Arizona hasn't done this. BASIS DC might want to pay attention.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know when students at Washington Latin can begin taking a modern language? I think it is 7th grade.

[Anonymous]

Pp, you're ridiculous. Do you really think the kids coming from dcps have a foundation in any language? My kid was a product of Brent's weekly mandarin classes. She learned next to nothing in those years. The quality of instruction was lacking, to say the least. We're very happy that Basis requires Latin for two years, and they do a great job of it..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp, you're ridiculous. Do you really think the kids coming from dcps have a foundation in any language? My kid was a product of Brent's weekly mandarin classes. She learned next to nothing in those years. The quality of instruction was lacking, to say the least. We're very happy that Basis requires Latin for two years, and they do a great job of it..

Same with my daughter who took Spanish once a week at a HRCS for years. She knows how to count, say some basic greetings, and knows the names of fruits and vegetables. That's about it. If I really wanted her to keep up with their Spanish for a couple years while she takes BASIS Latin, she can do Duolingo every once in a while and be just fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pp, you're ridiculous. Do you really think the kids coming from dcps have a foundation in any language? My kid was a product of Brent's weekly mandarin classes. She learned next to nothing in those years. The quality of instruction was lacking, to say the least. We're very happy that Basis requires Latin for two years, and they do a great job of it..

Don't get why BASIS requires Latin. What would be wrong with making Latin optional, while teaching Spanish, Chinese, maybe French to families who would prefer kids to learn those languages from 5th grade, particularly those who come in with serious background for whatever reasons? Sure, kids aren't coming in from DCPS with strong language foundations en masse, now. But if a kid starts weekly Spanish in PreK3 (as at Brent this year) and continues through 5th grade, they're likely to learn a certain amount of Spanish, particularly if families supplement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp, you're ridiculous. Do you really think the kids coming from dcps have a foundation in any language? My kid was a product of Brent's weekly mandarin classes. She learned next to nothing in those years. The quality of instruction was lacking, to say the least. We're very happy that Basis requires Latin for two years, and they do a great job of it..

Don't get why BASIS requires Latin. What would be wrong with making Latin optional, while teaching Spanish, Chinese, maybe French to families who would prefer kids to learn those languages from 5th grade, particularly those who come in with serious background for whatever reasons? Sure, kids aren't coming in from DCPS with strong language foundations en masse, now. But if a kid starts weekly Spanish in PreK3 (as at Brent this year) and continues through 5th grade, they're likely to learn a certain amount of Spanish, particularly if families supplement.



As in any school where Latin is required, learning Latin helps with English vocabulary and grammar, the instruction of which is pretty poor at DCPS in my opinion. DCPS is worried about literacy, period, in the average elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp, you're ridiculous. Do you really think the kids coming from dcps have a foundation in any language? My kid was a product of Brent's weekly mandarin classes. She learned next to nothing in those years. The quality of instruction was lacking, to say the least. We're very happy that Basis requires Latin for two years, and they do a great job of it..

Don't get why BASIS requires Latin. What would be wrong with making Latin optional, while teaching Spanish, Chinese, maybe French to families who would prefer kids to learn those languages from 5th grade, particularly those who come in with serious background for whatever reasons? Sure, kids aren't coming in from DCPS with strong language foundations en masse, now. But if a kid starts weekly Spanish in PreK3 (as at Brent this year) and continues through 5th grade, they're likely to learn a certain amount of Spanish, particularly if families supplement.

Latin should not be optional because, as the Latin teacher explained, knowing the roots, suffixes and prefixes allows you to guess the meaning of a lot of words - on the SAT for example. At Washington Latin the Latin teacher was very clear about using it as a way to sneak in English grammar that is not taught anymore. BASIS teaches English grammar, which is also useful for foreign languages (if you work with your kids, be prepared to learn predicates and indirect objects all over again).

There has been for a while a class for kids who come from native or almost native french speaking families I think (we had two kids in MS place #4 and #6 in the nation in some competition last year) but honestly if you have really learned a language, not studying it for two years will not do untold damage. What I hope for eventually (but we would have to get our Latino population up there) is a Spanish class for native speakers who can already speak the language but don't know how to read and write it and what is slang and what is not......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:P

Latin should not be optional because, as the Latin teacher explained, knowing the roots, suffixes and prefixes allows you to guess the meaning of a lot of words - on the SAT for example.

I never understood and believed this explanation. By the same token, students should study Greek which is equally as common in roots, suffixes and prefixes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:P

Latin should not be optional because, as the Latin teacher explained, knowing the roots, suffixes and prefixes allows you to guess the meaning of a lot of words - on the SAT for example.

I never understood and believed this explanation. By the same token, students should study Greek which is equally as common in roots, suffixes and prefixes.

well you only get a shot at one................

And I guess my position is one is better than neither

exogenous skeleton
endogenous skeleton
indigenous people

[Anonymous]

I never studied Latin, nor did my siblings. We did learn some roots. We were all book worms, and National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists or Finalists who scored 750+ on the SAT verbal and math sections. Imposing Latin on every 5th and 6th grader at BASIS sounds much better than it is. I'd much rather have my my children focus on building skills in my native Chinese. The job of learning to write and recognize the 3,000 characters one needs to attain basic literacy is much larger than BASIS seems to understand. But then parents views aren't terribly relevant at charter schools. We don't have acceptable neighborhood middle schools in most of the city, so we do what were told by a decent charter school to stay in our neighborhoods if we can't afford privates. And that's the name of that tune folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never studied Latin, nor did my siblings. We did learn some roots. We were all book worms, and National Merit Scholarship Semifinalists or Finalists who scored 750+ on the SAT verbal and math sections. Imposing Latin on every 5th and 6th grader at BASIS sounds much better than it is. I'd much rather have my my children focus on building skills in my native Chinese. The job of learning to write and recognize the 3,000 characters one needs to attain basic literacy is much larger than BASIS seems to understand. But then parents views aren't terribly relevant at charter schools. We don't have acceptable neighborhood middle schools in most of the city, so we do what were told by a decent charter school to stay in our neighborhoods if we can't afford privates. And that's the name of that tune folks.

How much support for Chinese instruction is there in DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Hardly any. Wilson is the only DC public HS teaching Chinese, and they've only been teaching it for a few years. To my knowledge, nobody's taken the AP Chinese exam there yet.

BASIS seems to content for kids to score high on a single AP language test, not very hard to do, at least not if a student started studying the language young. Some of us plan to switch to International Baccalaureate Diploma granting high schools (suburban, private, possibly DCI). Knowing that IB Diploma language studies take students a long way past a decent score on a single AP language exam, we supplement in MS, which is a bit tough on the kids (with all the school work they already have).

AP Chinese is so approachable that more than 80% of test takers earn a 5, the highest percentage of any AP test. IB Diploma Chinese at the Higher Level is another story altogether. We're aiming to score high on IB HL Chinese eventually, helping explain our annoyance with mandatory Latin here in the century of the rising China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hardly any. Wilson is the only DC public HS teaching Chinese, and they've only been teaching it for a few years. To my knowledge, nobody's taken the AP Chinese exam there yet.

BASIS seems to content for kids to score high on a single AP language test, not very hard to do, at least not if a student started studying the language young. Some of us plan to switch to International Baccalaureate Diploma granting high schools (suburban, private, possibly DCI). Knowing that IB Diploma language studies take students a long way past a decent score on a single AP language exam, we supplement in MS, which is a bit tough on the kids (with all the school work they already have).

AP Chinese is so approachable that more than 80% of test takers earn a 5, the highest percentage of any AP test. IB Diploma Chinese at the Higher Level is another story altogether. We're aiming to score high on IB HL Chinese eventually, helping explain our annoyance with mandatory Latin here in the century of the rising China.

SWW HS offers Chinese but probably not the level of instruction you are seeking. http://www.swwhs.org/academics/world-languages/