Anonymous wrote:I view ITS’s policy of not adding kids after Count Day much differently than any school that simply does not allow new students after initial grades. I agree both are bad in a public school— and charters ARE publics, even though they sometimes like to pretend they aren’t. But this ITS policy isn’t nearly as egregious to me. I get the rationale (it really can be tough on classrooms to add new students after the kids have finally settled in, as I know well as a DCPS parent). It’s a reality of school, but it’s tough on everyone.
But schools like BASIS or Latin refusing to backfill in subsequent years is really craven. Even private schools take kids mid-MS or mid-HS! A good school would not struggle to incorporate them. It really looks like an obvious grab for higher test scores. It’s gross. The ITS thing is annoying but doesn’t offend me in the same way.
We have been through this before, people. BASIS is unique in DC because it does not do social promotion. Kids don't have to leave, but they will be required to repeat a grade if they do not pass the comprehensive exam. No exceptions. BASIS wanted to accept kids after 5th. They do at other BASIS schools. But DCPCSB won't allow them to administer a test to put the kids in the proper grade level (without regard to age). It would make no sense to have a school that tells kids that are not meeting the standard they have to repeat a grade but let new kids enter into that higher grade even if they can't show mastery of the material.
You can disagree with whether BASIS should socially promote. But that's the argument/policy disagreement. "Backfilling" is a red herring to avoid talking about BASIS's social promotion policy.
Neighborhood schools have to take kids who are below grade. Even those who speak literally no English at all. They have to suck it up and deal with it as best they can. But wah, BASIS couldn't possibly cope without an entrance test. Even though other schools have to.
The idea with backfilling is that we don't want to create a system where if your 5th grade lottery number is bad, you have no hope for getting into a good school. What would the school system be like if every school allowed itself to do what BASIS is doing? Do we want to live like that? BASIS is free-riding on other schools' willingness to handle the tougher kids and do the hardest educational work. But feel free to pat yourself on the back for those great test scores!
Your response is all over the map and internally inconsistent. At one point you ask, what would it be like if every school stopped social promotion and required kids to actual master material before moving to the next grade - PERISH THE THOUGHT and clutching my pearls. You aren't even making the case you think you are. If BASIS was allowed to administer the test and put kids in appropriate grades they'd take backfills and then there would be hope of getting in after 5th - problem solved! Neighborhood schools have to take kids who enroll and are forced by DC policies to put them in their grade level by age, regardless of whet they actually know. And then DC makes it impossible to hold a kid back so they get moved along and graduate with a useless degree.
BASIS has higher standards than all other schools. I'm ok with that .
Because people don't want over-age kids in their classes! Do you want your 5th grader to be with 15 and 16 year olds who aren't doing well? Come on. Think about what you are saying. And because repeating grades doesn't actually solve anything. If the kid was going to learn the material in a regular classroom setting, they would have learned it the first time.
"Higher standards" my foot, they're just running off the kids who are harder to educate.
And because in a system without social promotion kids would simply drop out. They would grow up into uneducated adults. See, this is a school *system*. The goal isn't just to operate one school and pat yourself on the back for great test scores without any caring for the kids who start but don't finish. The idea is to educate the residents of the jurisdiction, thinking of *all of them* including those who drop out. And all schools should be good citizens of the school system and take a fair share of the more difficult educational work. If BASIS's attitude towards its strugging students is basically "f*ck'em", then yes, people are not going to think well of your school despite its cherry-picked test scores.
Two things:
1. The test scores aren't "cherry picked". We just have a ton of highly qualified kids who take the test. You seem not to understand what "cherry picked" means.
2. The vast majority of BASIS families don't care what you think. Too busy helping our kids with advanced work to worry about your jealousy.
The cherry picking is in creating a school that's poorly suited to serve any struggling student, and intentionally refusing social promotion because it's a way of getting rid of them. Yes, most of the kids do sit for the PARCC, the cherry picking happens before that.
I'm not at all jealous, my kids are doing great, thanks.
That's not "cherry picking" scores. Again, you don't understand what the term means. Everyone there takes the test and the published scores are for all kids. The kids who repeat also take the PARCC test and their scores count ,too.
A world gone mad where you speak about "intentionally refusing social promotion" like that's something to be embarrassed about.
If you are so happy and not at all jealous, why are you more interested and invested in what is happening at BASIS than most BASIS families? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Because I think it's selfish and poor citizenship to operate a school that shirks the harder work of educating the students of DC. It's in really poor taste to talk about how great your school is, how happy you are with it, when it comes at this kind of cost to others. I don't believe for a second that BASIS is actually against social promotion for principled reasons. I think they know perfectly well it's a way of getting rid of the kids who struggle.
Try to put yourself in the shoes of a parent of a child who struggled academically. Would you want them to repeat and repeat and repeat, growing older and more embarrassed and friendless? Or would you want them to have services and an age-appropriate setting? If BASIS didn't work out, would you want them to be shut out of other schools because it's 5th grade or never?
Try to think about the functioning of the school system as a whole, including for kids who aren't academically gifted or who don't speak good English yet. Try to think beyond your own family.
DCPS is hostile to the idea of providing an appropriate education to kids who are above grade level. There are many schools where if you are not academically gifted, you will have a peer group and a level of instruction which are appropriate for you. For advanced kids, it's bleak outside of a few schools where you have to be lucky or rich to get to attend. Having one charter that's committed to this group is a good thing. It would be better if they could test kids as part of the admissions process and suggest that the school won't be a good fit. But obviously they're not allowed to do that.
Is that why JR, Hardy, Deal, and other schools have various actual honors classes, despite their "honors for all" BS?
LOL. You named the NW rich DCPS schools as evidence of "one system"???!!!! People who can't afford to live IB for those schools don't have access to those things. Performative nonsense, as usual.
I'm not sure how you could say DCPS is hostile to it when they are currently doing it at some schools. I know it mostly sucks EOTP, but it's more complicated.
If BASIS had a great track record with at-risk kids your arguments would be stronger, but it doesn't. Pretty much a high income school.
High income in DC doesn't mean you can afford to live in boundary for Deal or Hardy. Basis is providing an option for a lot of kids DC has zero interest in providing an appropriate education for in their neighborhood schools. And that they currently cannot kill tracking everywhere does not mean they're not hostile to it. Honors for all and the movement away from even the minimal use of test scores for selective admissions high schools shows that. The direction DCPS is moving is toward less differentiation, not more.
+1. Honors for all is basically de-tracking. Subjective and non-transparent admissions selections to test in schools and the dissolution of any objective academic knowledge criteria such as test scores supports de-tracking due to watering down the academic preparedness/abilities of the cohort.
Both strategies above will continue to siphon off the high performing kids the most as families go charter, private, move, etc…. It’s inevitable for families with options when stakes are so high in MS and HS. The overall academic peer group performance in DCPS will decline more than it has in the past as above measures increases the rate of families leaving.
The voracious anti-BASIS posters who are offended by the idea of a school that won't socially promote might want to consider what it says about the state of DCPS and demand for academic excellence that there are @600 kids who are willing to endure a small building with no fields or other amenities in order to get that rigor. Those posters (who live IB for Deal/JR) and have friends and neighbors who can afford to pay for elite private schools like to look down their noses at families trying to get the best possible education for their kids. Their general tenor seems to be, "If you aren't rich enough to pay $50k/yr for private or live IB for Deal/JR then you need to send your kids to schools where 3/4 of kids are at least a year behind grade level because...?"
Yes! BASIS is not the school I'd come up with if I were describing an ideal school for my kids. The building, the commute, the pressure. But it will be high on our list next year because DCPS has no middle schools that I can afford to live in the neighborhood for which will provide instruction at a level that's appropriate for my kid. (And we're already seeing this issue in elementary school.)
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
Are you suggesting everyone who wants a good school should move WOTP? That seems impractical and isn't fair. People should have access to good schools no matter where they live. Charters serve that purpose since DCPS has historically failed to do so.
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
Do you know how much apartments cost to rent? And do you know that there are basically no apartments larger than 2 bedrooms? Of all takes, this is the dumbest. Obviously many Hill parents can uproot their lives and move. Nobody is pretending that they can't. But the whole point is that we think that it's crazy that DCPS forces this.
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
Are you suggesting everyone who wants a good school should move WOTP? That seems impractical and isn't fair. People should have access to good schools no matter where they live. Charters serve that purpose since DCPS has historically failed to do so.
I'm thinking they're saying that a HHI of $150k with $200k in home equity is the same as a HHI of $300k, with a couple millions stashed in ways I don't understand; that if you have a HHO of $150k and own a home, you should take in a refugee family, go to your IB through HS and pay $35 a class for all after-school activities to cover the 3/4 of families at your IB that can't afford food, much less after-school activities.
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
Are you suggesting everyone who wants a good school should move WOTP? That seems impractical and isn't fair. People should have access to good schools no matter where they live. Charters serve that purpose since DCPS has historically failed to do so.
I'm thinking they're saying that a HHI of $150k with $200k in home equity is the same as a HHI of $300k, with a couple millions stashed in ways I don't understand; that if you have a HHO of $150k and own a home, you should take in a refugee family, go to your IB through HS and pay $35 a class for all after-school activities to cover the 3/4 of families at your IB that can't afford food, much less after-school activities.
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
I own a condo on the Hill. We have one 13 year old car and one of us commutes east of the city for work. We absolutely cannot afford to rent an apartment IB for Deal, for a variety of reasons. The idea that if I want my kid to go to a MS that teaches *on grade level*, I should move to the other side of the city for the one DCPS MS that does this is painfully laughable.
We are not really even sure we can afford to move to the suburbs for MS in the current rental market, which will make it hard for us to sell our condo. So if we strike out on the lottery for charters, we will be in a bind.
But sure, go on assuming that everyone is rich if it makes it easier for you to gloss over the fact that DCPS fails children past the elementary level. That way you don't have to actually do something or care about anyone but yourself.
Deal and JR are going down hill. Honors for all is a disaster. Except for math, no tracking in other subjects. Teaching in most subjects is only mediocre and on grade level at best. The overcrowding is a huge issue that affects everything.
Why even move WOTP or rent an apartment there? If I had no options with a kid on or above grade level, I would sell and move to the burbs. You get bus service, tracking in all subjects, hosts of extracurriculars and sports, larger house, yard, etc..
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
I don't live on the Hill. Renting an apartment would be more than my mortgage. We'd move away before we'd do that, just like many other parents do. But yes, the DCPS attitude is similar to yours.
Anonymous wrote:I really wish families that own homes on the Hill would stop pretending they “can’t afford” to rent an apartment IB for Deal.
I don't live on the Hill. Renting an apartment would be more than my mortgage. We'd move away before we'd do that, just like many other parents do. But yes, the DCPS attitude is similar to yours.
Please enjoy the irony that this started with people taking issue with the BASIS "no social promotion" policy and arguing that it isn't fair to the rest of DCPS. Of course, when push comes to shove what they mean is, "We don't need that at Deal/JR. You should just move here if you want what we have." Their principles extend as far as their computer keyboards.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}