BASIS DC to open in 2012-2013

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm just confused that even with selective admissions and a brutal work schedule, the students of our two 'big' magnets aren't performing better

Performing better than....

Help me to understand what metric you're using. Are you using the SAT or AP as your guide? What is success?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm just confused that even with selective admissions and a brutal work schedule, the students of our two 'big' magnets aren't performing better

Performing better than....

Help me to understand what metric you're using. Are you using the SAT or AP as your guide? What is success?

For me, success would mean higher SAT scores than the national average (maybe 40 points?), and more than a 60% pass rate on AP tests taken.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't it be more cost effective for a school like Basis simply to select the kids who probably have the potential to handle half a dozen or more AP classes at the 5th grade or MS level? High attrition is expensive for the taxpayer. If a charter can't select kids, why not simply make Basis a DCPS school? Why not push the pols to establish a mechanism for DCPS franchise schools as well as charter? Basis can learn from Latin, where nearly 3/4 of the white kids are leaving before HS graduation, certainlly not the case with suburban magents.

As far as I can tell, DC's current magnets don't shine mainly because, for political reasons, DCPS is not willing to let them become more than half white in a city that is half black. Hence, the admissoins tests are easy and loads of kids who aren't well prepped or terribly academic glide in. Moreover, the quality of instruction is uneven, standards aren't all that high, and the best students are not pushed to take more than a few AP classes, enter INTEL competitions etc. I've had guidance counselors at SWW and Banneker tell me straight out that Ivy League admissions are not a priority for DCPS. The schools aren't bad, they're just OK, and that seems to be fine with almost all involved but the most ambitious and able kids. Excellence is not part of the calculus because the chorus of voices pushing for it isn't large enough yet. Also, arguably, DC's privates are the best in the country as a group, and they suck in the upper echelon of poor kids in a city with a voucher program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The way to raise the performance for charters is the way it's happening now. You develop a school that has such high expectations that it will encourage families to self select and discourage those who are struggling academically. That is what is happening with the likes of Latin, BASIS and now Sela.

In effect, creating private schools using public money.

No, charter schools that are rigorous help meet the needs of students who are advanced and those who are willing to work hard.

Unfortunately, most public schools do not meet the need of students who are advanced learners and who are willing to work hard Why is it ok to only meet the needs of struggling students or average students but not the others???

I disagree with you that schools are meeting the needs of struggling students. If they were, an average student in elementary would not be 2 or more years below grade level by the end of middle school.
In most public schools, textbooks are considered extras. They are rarely used at the elementary level. Yes, I understand the concept that the teacher is an enabler, a catalyst between the everchanging information and the student and all that hoopla. However, go to any private school and you see that the best and most innovatitve teacher still uses textbooks written by real experts. Teaching the building blocks of a subject does not mean cramming or killing creativity. In fact it's just the opposite.

[Anonymous]

From everything I've read, Looks like BASIS may not have start up trouble but may be angling for a bad case of 'founders syndrome.'

Choosing to send your child there will largely depend on your child's overall profile and needs.

So far though this is clearly not the right mix for me and my middle schooler. Too much of the discussion lacks any semblance of humanity.

While my child is 'Gifted' (Participates in CTY JHU programs etc, Stanford EPGY online courses) the kid also needs down time and especially to be with kind hearted people. I'm not sensing those possibilities from this thread.

So we will stick with the 'less uber human' school and continue to supplement at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't it be more cost effective for a school like Basis simply to select the kids who probably have the potential to handle half a dozen or more AP classes at the 5th grade or MS level? High attrition is expensive for the taxpayer. If a charter can't select kids, why not simply make Basis a DCPS school? Why not push the pols to establish a mechanism for DCPS franchise schools as well as charter? Basis can learn from Latin, where nearly 3/4 of the white kids are leaving before HS graduation, certainlly not the case with suburban magents.

As far as I can tell, DC's current magnets don't shine mainly because, for political reasons, DCPS is not willing to let them become more than half white in a city that is half black. Hence, the admissoins tests are easy and loads of kids who aren't well prepped or terribly academic glide in. Moreover, the quality of instruction is uneven, standards aren't all that high, and the best students are not pushed to take more than a few AP classes, enter INTEL competitions etc. I've had guidance counselors at SWW and Banneker tell me straight out that Ivy League admissions are not a priority for DCPS. The schools aren't bad, they're just OK, and that seems to be fine with almost all involved but the most ambitious and able kids. Excellence is not part of the calculus because the chorus of voices pushing for it isn't large enough yet. Also, arguably, DC's privates are the best in the country as a group, and they suck in the upper echelon of poor kids in a city with a voucher program.

why and where are they going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Hilarious. ANY school would be better off screening for aptitude and working with available talent. That's exactly why the private schools do it - because they can. But, a magnet charter? That is ground that DC will not cede willingly to the charters. Charter law does not allow it, and everyone knows that if they could cherry-pick, they would. So, if anyone is going to allowed to do it, it will be a DCPS middle school. Not Basis.

The following article argues that BASIS uses high attrition as a solution to the rigorous non-selective charter dilemma:

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/03/blog-post.html

While the data are a little dated, the spreadsheet presented in the article shows that of the 78 students in the 6th grade at BASIS Tucson during the 2004-2005 school year, only 27 were still there during the 2009-2010 school year as part of the 11th grade class. (BASIS offers its students the option of graduating in the 11th grade.) In other words, only 35% of the 2004-2005 6th grade class actually graduated from BASIS Tucson.

At first, the 35% graduation rate seems like a terrible indictment of the BASIS model. At least that's how the author of the article portrays it. However, it seems to me that the 35% graduation rate is a natural consequence of a non-selective admissions process for a school with a rigorous academic program.
Suppose your goal is to ensure that at least 35 students complete a rigorous 8-year academic program. You might choose to accomplish this goal in one of two ways:

Option A: Admit the 35 most promising from a pool of 100 applicants. (Actually, you might want to admit a couple more to guard against attrition.)

Option B: Admit all 100 applicants and allow them to self-select the 35 who graduate. (Actually, if you're lucky, more than 35 will make it.)

BASIS has chosen Option B. In fact, BASIS doesn't have a choice, as the DC charter law does not permit Option A. However, non-selective admissions is part of the BASIS philosophy, so it would likely have chosen Option B even if Option A were allowed.

Option B is more equitable than Option A. While Option A offers the rigorous academic program only to the 35 applicants who make the cut at the outset, Option B offers repeated opportunities over many years to all 100 applicants to make it into the 35 through hard work.

Based on national rankings of high schools, BASIS Tucson and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia are comparably ranked. BASIS Tucson has achieved this success through a high attrition rate, while Thomas Jefferson has achieved it through a high rejection rate. Only about 16% of the applicants were accepted during a recent admissions round.

To me it seems clear that the BASIS Tucson approach is more equitable, and I hope that the model is as successful in DC as it has been in Tucson.

The Arizona high attrition model won’t fly in DC for obvious reasons. Instead, Basis will come under heavy pressure from charter board to manufacture a creative solution to keep struggling students on board, e.g. Yu Ying’s non-immersion Mandarin track (where all the kids are black). The National Assessment for Educational Progress (think tank giving a small percent of students in every state and DC the same test in 4th and 8th grades) findings on the vast black-white achievement gap in DC, coupled with non-selective admissions, do not auger well for the school: more than a third of DC white kids currently score in NAEP’s “advanced” category for reading and math (vs. 14% of white in the highest scoring state, Massachusetts) and 1-2% of black kids. Politically, will Basis be in a good position to encourage a large percentage of the black kids to hit the road? The franchise surely won’t bite the hand that feeds it, risking having their charter revoked, by allowing anywhere near the attrition rates seen in AZ. No, standards will invariably be watered down instead, with victory declared in the number of AP tests taken per capita (easy to do when there’s no magic AP pass number, and scores of 2s and 3s out of 5 on AP tests are already the DCPS norm).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From everything I've read, Looks like BASIS may not have start up trouble but may be angling for a bad case of 'founders syndrome.'

Choosing to send your child there will largely depend on your child's overall profile and needs.

So far though this is clearly not the right mix for me and my middle schooler. Too much of the discussion lacks any semblance of humanity.

While my child is 'Gifted' (Participates in CTY JHU programs etc, Stanford EPGY online courses) the kid also needs down time and especially to be with kind hearted people. I'm not sensing those possibilities from this thread.

So we will stick with the 'less uber human' school and continue to supplement at home.

The kind hearted teacher is the one who makes lessons fun and meaningful for every and each student in the classroom. The kindhearted teacher is the one who does not think struggling students will always struggle and the bright students don't really need to be motivated. The kind hearted teacher does not think 10 or 11 year olds are already independent. It's not difficult to put on a fake smile and say "I really care for you or your child". Actions speak louder than words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't it be more cost effective for a school like Basis simply to select the kids who probably have the potential to handle half a dozen or more AP classes at the 5th grade or MS level? High attrition is expensive for the taxpayer. If a charter can't select kids, why not simply make Basis a DCPS school? Why not push the pols to establish a mechanism for DCPS franchise schools as well as charter? Basis can learn from Latin, where nearly 3/4 of the white kids are leaving before HS graduation, certainlly not the case with suburban magents.

I'm not sure how expensive high attrition is in reality, PP. The taxpayer has to foot the bill for four years of middle school and four years of high school for all children in DC -- unless, of course, they attend privates or drop out all together. In fact, those children who spend a few years at BASIS before returning to DCPS will cost the taxpayer less since DCPS spends more per pupil than it pays charters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The Arizona high attrition model won’t fly in DC for obvious reasons. Instead, Basis will come under heavy pressure from charter board to manufacture a creative solution to keep struggling students on board, e.g. Yu Ying’s non-immersion Mandarin track (where all the kids are black). The National Assessment for Educational Progress (think tank giving a small percent of students in every state and DC the same test in 4th and 8th grades) findings on the vast black-white achievement gap in DC, coupled with non-selective admissions, do not auger well for the school: more than a third of DC white kids currently score in NAEP’s “advanced” category for reading and math (vs. 14% of white in the highest scoring state, Massachusetts) and 1-2% of black kids. Politically, will Basis be in a good position to encourage a large percentage of the black kids to hit the road? The franchise surely won’t bite the hand that feeds it, risking having their charter revoked, by allowing anywhere near the attrition rates seen in AZ. No, standards will invariably be watered down instead, with victory declared in the number of AP tests taken per capita (easy to do when there’s no magic AP pass number, and scores of 2s and 3s out of 5 on AP tests are already the DCPS norm).

You raise several interesting points, PP.

I too have been concerned about the possible watering down of the BASIS curriculum over time as a "solution" to the high attrition rate. However, I suspect that if push came to shove, BASIS would abandon its charter in DC rather than water down its curriculum.

The BASIS mission statement is unequivocal:

"BASIS seeks to provide an accelerated liberal arts education at internationally competitive levels for all students. The rigorous college preparatory education at BASIS readies students for the competitive admissions process, helps them become eligible for scholarships, prepares them to prosper at top colleges, and enriches their lives."

Why would BASIS maintain a presence in DC if doing so required the curriculum to be watered down to the point that few of its DC graduates were prepared to attend top colleges? The small overhead the national organization receives per child in DC would hardly justify sacrificing the organization's mission or its reputation.

BASIS is not Latin. BASIS can leave DC and continue to expand in Arizona. Latin cannot.

Thus, the real issue, then, is whether the charter school board will drive BASIS out of DC due to the high attrition rate. I think it is highly unlikely that the charter school board will do so.

The board has adopted a system for assessing charter school performance known as the PMF. Under PMF, the re-enrollment rate contributes only 10 out of 100 points to the overall assessment. A five-year graduation rate of 35% suggests a re-enrollment rate of about 81% (.81 ^ 5 is about .349). Re-enrollment rates for DC charters range from about 55% to about 90%. Latin, with its re-enrollment rate of 87.9% received 9.41 of 10 points. Chavez, with its re-enrollment rate of 71.3% received 4.73 points.

On the other hand, year-to-year growth on the DC-CAS over time of individual students contributes 40 out of 100 points on the PMF (20 points for Reading and 20 points for Math), DC-CAS achievement contributes 25 points (12.5 reading, 12.5 math), and 8th grade proficiency on the DC-CAS math contributes 15 points. Attendance contributes the remaining 10 points.

The rigorous curriculum at BASIS combined with the comprehensive testing mean that the vast majority of students there will either make academic progress or choose to leave. Those that make progress will increase the BASIS PMF score significantly, while those who leave will reduce the score by only a small amount. Why would the charter board drive BASIS out of DC for poor re-enrollment results when re-enrollment is tied with attendance for last place in its assessment scheme?

[Anonymous]

OK then, so the charter probably won't be revoked regardless. But if Latin continues to struggle to attract whites/upper-middle-class kids to its high school, as I expect, and keep them to graduation, why would Basis be any different? It's easy, if not always a happy story, for affluent families to jump to the burbs and privates in this particular metropolitan area. Where is the Gold Medal US World and News Report HS school with a population that's amost entirely black and low-income? Look carefully at the list, note the percent of white and Asian kids in the top-tier public schools. Brookings, Cato, Heritage, Urban Institute and other education-minded think tanks have come to the conclusion that low-income minority kids need a critical mass of upper-middle-class classmates to crack Ivy League admissions as much as they need rigorous academics. So we can expect Basis to become a national outlier, achieving in DC against all odds?

One question I have about Basis is will the school replace kids dropping out? If yes, up to which grade, and how? Will kids coming in after 5th, if that's indeed permitted, have to show aptitude, or simply bring the usual lottery luck? As things stand, the language immersion schools won't take kids after 2nd or 3rd grade, even if they speak the foreign language of immersion well (to quote the Yu Ying principal, in reference to the Mandarin-speaking child of a friend who struck out on the lottery, replacing dropouts with ready-made Chinese speakers would be "terribly unfair to non-Chinese speakers!"). If the school indeed loses two-thirds of the kids along the way, as per the AZ model, how will it function as a high school with a few dozen kids in a senior class? How will funding work when a cash-strapped charter is down to a handful of kids in most of its AP classes? There are of course very small independents in the District, but a public school? How would allowing massive attrition, with a corresponding effort to draw in talent to compensate, constitute a cost-efffective approach to funding Basis, when the school could readily identify and include gifted kids to replace dropouts but for a charter school board/law/city council wedded to the concept of open lotteries at all costs?

Unlike the NYC MS and HS magnets, Basis won't be in a position to feed off elementary talented and gifted programs it probably needs to carry out its mission in serving low-income kids. To my knowledge, as things stand, "accelerated learning" programs are only being developed in a handful of DCPS schools (e.g. Brent on the Hill - look at the school profile page and see "accelerated programs" advertised) where increasingly well-endowed PTAs raise the money for "pullout" classes for 3rd to 5th grade. There seems to be no money for TAG programs elsewhere. Charters may or may not furnish the graduates who have what it takes at Basis partly because they're even less likely than DCPS schools to support formal TAG programs as yet. NYC may be going overboard in running a good many all-gifted K-5 schools (and perhaps Mo. Co., with its all-gifted grade 4-5 programs), to which kids test in at age 4 or 5, but it's still the city getting the highest percentage of its low and moderate-income kids into Ivies. I note that Ivies are the only US colleges where a student-loan-free education has recently become the norm for parents earning 4 or 5 figures...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The Arizona high attrition model won’t fly in DC for obvious reasons. Instead, Basis will come under heavy pressure from charter board to manufacture a creative solution to keep struggling students on board, e.g. Yu Ying’s non-immersion Mandarin track (where all the kids are black). The National Assessment for Educational Progress (think tank giving a small percent of students in every state and DC the same test in 4th and 8th grades) findings on the vast black-white achievement gap in DC, coupled with non-selective admissions, do not auger well for the school: more than a third of DC white kids currently score in NAEP’s “advanced” category for reading and math (vs. 14% of white in the highest scoring state, Massachusetts) and 1-2% of black kids. Politically, will Basis be in a good position to encourage a large percentage of the black kids to hit the road? The franchise surely won’t bite the hand that feeds it, risking having their charter revoked, by allowing anywhere near the attrition rates seen in AZ. No, standards will invariably be watered down instead, with victory declared in the number of AP tests taken per capita (easy to do when there’s no magic AP pass number, and scores of 2s and 3s out of 5 on AP tests are already the DCPS norm).

You raise several interesting points, PP.

I too have been concerned about the possible watering down of the BASIS curriculum over time as a "solution" to the high attrition rate. However, I suspect that if push came to shove, BASIS would abandon its charter in DC rather than water down its curriculum.

The BASIS mission statement is unequivocal:

"BASIS seeks to provide an accelerated liberal arts education at internationally competitive levels for all students. The rigorous college preparatory education at BASIS readies students for the competitive admissions process, helps them become eligible for scholarships, prepares them to prosper at top colleges, and enriches their lives."

Why would BASIS maintain a presence in DC if doing so required the curriculum to be watered down to the point that few of its DC graduates were prepared to attend top colleges? The small overhead the national organization receives per child in DC would hardly justify sacrificing the organization's mission or its reputation.

BASIS is not Latin. BASIS can leave DC and continue to expand in Arizona. Latin cannot.

Thus, the real issue, then, is whether the charter school board will drive BASIS out of DC due to the high attrition rate. I think it is highly unlikely that the charter school board will do so.

The board has adopted a system for assessing charter school performance known as the PMF. Under PMF, the re-enrollment rate contributes only 10 out of 100 points to the overall assessment. A five-year graduation rate of 35% suggests a re-enrollment rate of about 81% (.81 ^ 5 is about .349). Re-enrollment rates for DC charters range from about 55% to about 90%. Latin, with its re-enrollment rate of 87.9% received 9.41 of 10 points. Chavez, with its re-enrollment rate of 71.3% received 4.73 points.

On the other hand, year-to-year growth on the DC-CAS over time of individual students contributes 40 out of 100 points on the PMF (20 points for Reading and 20 points for Math), DC-CAS achievement contributes 25 points (12.5 reading, 12.5 math), and 8th grade proficiency on the DC-CAS math contributes 15 points. Attendance contributes the remaining 10 points.

The rigorous curriculum at BASIS combined with the comprehensive testing mean that the vast majority of students there will either make academic progress or choose to leave. Those that make progress will increase the BASIS PMF score significantly, while those who leave will reduce the score by only a small amount. Why would the charter board drive BASIS out of DC for poor re-enrollment results when re-enrollment is tied with attendance for last place in its assessment scheme?

The price for staying in DC will be providing an alternate path for the students who can't be in the regular program (a la Yu Ying). Yu Ying isn't allowed to counsel out the low-performing students, Basis won't be either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The price for staying in DC will be providing an alternate path for the students who can't be in the regular program (a la Yu Ying). Yu Ying isn't allowed to counsel out the low-performing students, Basis won't be either.

I don't think that BASIS counsels out students who performing poorly. On the contrary, the school has various programs in place to support those students.

However, BASIS does not engage in social promotion. Beginning in the 6th grade, all students must pass year-end comprehensive exams in all core subjects to advance to the next grade.

I suspect that students who fail the comprehensive exams choose to leave rather than repeat the year.

I suspect also that students who struggle to pass the comprehensive exams eventually choose to transfer to schools with less rigorous programs.

[Anonymous]

help me understand this: is there any prohibition on BASIS pulling in students from outside the DC area, who would PAY tuition? I had heard that other charters accepted out-of-staters with tuition...that might make up the numbers as attrition hits the upper grades

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:help me understand this: is there any prohibition on BASIS pulling in students from outside the DC area, who would PAY tuition? I had heard that other charters accepted out-of-staters with tuition...that might make up the numbers as attrition hits the upper grades

I don't think that new kids join BASIS after 6th grade. Beginning in 6th grade, BASIS students must pass comprehensive exams to advance to the next grade.

I suspect that the school will not admit kids into the 7th grade or higher unless they can demonstrate mastery of the material covered in the prior grade by passing the same comprehensive exams, and kids who are not able to pass the comprehensive exams are offered spots in the lower grades. Of course, by the 7th or 8th grade, due to the rigorous curriculum, the likelihood that a student transferring into BASIS can pass those exams approaches 0.

The enrollment data presented in the following article support my hypothesis:

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/03/blog-post.html

While enrollment occasionally increases from 5th to 6th grade, enrollment only decreases from that point on. In particular, enrollment decreases significantly from 8th to 9th grade, presumably due to large numbers of students choosing neighborhood high schools over BASIS.

I don't get the impression that BASIS cares much about keeping numbers up. They seem to be focused on the quality of the students they graduate, not the quantity.

In any case, they can keep enrollment up in the face of high attrition simply by admitting many more students in the lower grades. That is, if they want to maintain enrollment at about 500 students for a 8-year program, rather than admit 60 student in the 5th grade, they would admit about 100.

It appears that this the approach they've taken.