basis math levels
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Anonymous
| huh? my 10th grader took ap precalc this year with most of his friend group & will take calc next year. |
Anonymous
BASIS is not an elite STEM high school like the list of schools you provided. A kid destined for the Ivies or MIT is not going to be stopped because they took the AB the BC calculus sequence at BASIS. Come back and complain / criticize once BASIS becomes a top test in HS. Till then, please stop criticizing it. |
Anonymous
The thing people are missing is that the schools which go from pre-calc straight into Calc BC will teach a lot of the "Calc A" material in their pre-calc class. For example, in FCPS, Honors Algebra II includes trig. Honors Pre-calc includes the 'Calc A' stuff. Then, kids skip straight to Calc BC. At schools like Basis and the other ones using an AB and then BC sequence, Algebra II does not include the trig. Pre-calc has the trig, but not the 'Calc A' content. So, kids need to take Calc AB next. Then, Calc BC has not just the 'Calc C', but also some extensions. It's more a matter of nomenclature than it is actual pacing or content. The normal public school smart-kid path of Honors Algebra in 7th, Honors Geometry in 8th, Honors Algebra II in 9th, Honors PreCalc in 10th, and AP Calc BC in 11th basically covers the same content at the same pacing as the Basis path, assuming Calc AB in 10th and BC in 11th. They just name the classes differently. |
Anonymous
This is not true across the board. Some schools teach Calc ABC in Calc BC. |
Anonymous
I'll criticize what I like; you do the same. The sequence is a waste of time for the most advanced math students who could readily learn AB content in BC calc. That's how calc has generally been taught in the strongest high schools around the country for two generations. We had students in the BASIS middle school, so we know how their admins preaches the gospel of the franchise running elite STEM programs, to its to try to entice the most capable students to stay for HS. We also know how BASIS favors one-size-fits-all academic options that have a way of bogging down their most advanced students in elite college admissions. BASIS could aim higher for a particularly math savvy subset of high school students, but doesn't bother. |
Anonymous
Your comments are nothing but clutter. Basis isn’t TJ or Bronx Science. It has never claimed to be. And nothing in DC ever could be. DC is far too small. (Seriously. The total high school population of DC is only 10x the size of TJ.) And DC is far too close to TJ. People who feel as you do about the need for ultra-extreme math acceleration have long since moved to Virginia. |
Anonymous
Nope. DC has around 47,000 high school students. TJ has about 2000 students. |
Anonymous
| Why does anyone care? What school around DC does math sequencing properly according to all of you armchair experts? |
Anonymous
My friend, you may want to check your math. There were just over 13k HIGH SCHOOL students in SY 22/23. https://dcps.dc.gov/page/dcps-glance-enrollment |
Anonymous
And another 7000 HIGH SCHOOL charter students (SY 21/22). https://dcpcsb.org/student-enrollment |
Anonymous
Not the PP you're responding you sound like just another apologist for BASIS DC's boneheaded inflexibility and embarrassing high-handedness. Come on, admins start touting their fantastically accelerated math and MIT, Caltech and Ivy acceptances with the parents of 5th graders. I know this because I was one of them, recently. BASIS peddles "ultra-extreme" math acceleration options to families, not the other way around. The inconvenient truth is that pointing out that it just isn't necessary for the most capable math students to take the AB-BC calculus sequence is eminently reasonable. That the problem is self-created by BASIS is a no-brainer. |
Anonymous
The most advanced BASIS kids, like mine, take Calc AB in 8th and Calc BC in 9th. Yes, he could have easily learned all of the BC material in 8th. We don't mind, though. Very few other schools would have allowed that level of acceleration, even if the kid is entirely capable. To some extent, we accept that BASIS is a one-size-fits-all school with relatively little flexibility. The school is too small to be anything else. If you want a lot of flexibility, course offerings, extracurriculars, etc., then a large public school would be a better fit. |
Anonymous
This thread started with a bunch of posters claiming no kids take Calc in 8th grade. But you said your kid did. So why is it so crazy for people to think some of these very accelerated kids didn’t pass the AP exam? (Not claiming your kid didn’t, just think posters here claim they know exactly what happens with every kid at Basis are wrong). |
Anonymous
PP here. A very small handful of kids are allowed to accelerate to that extent. Maybe 1 kid every 3 or so years. The kids are well vetted before jumping ahead two levels. There's no way that they would be allowed to remain on that track or take the AP exam if they weren't going to pass it pretty easily. The other poster suggested that 3 different Basis kids self-reported to them that they all had been accelerated into Calc in 8th grade, and all failed the AP exam. That's implausible on so many levels. |
Anonymous
I bought this line, until we switched to a strong DC parochial school with a high school that's even smaller. Surprise. We've found far more flexibility, more robust course offerings and better extra curriculars at this school. The lack of flexibility is obviously more a function of weak, inexperienced admins running BASIS than size. Funding is also an issue, but the BASIS doesn't permit PTAs to fundraise and allocate funds. They permit a booster club to hand money raised over to admins. Total BS. |