BASIS charter expansion is up for public comment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, what would your grounds for writing the BASIS elementary school off be? I have concerns about the way that Ward 6 relies on BASIS as a viable middle school more than any other ward. Awkward question, but if young Ward 6 families don't jump on the BASIS elementary school at K en masse, won't they largely be shut out of the middle school? Won't their exodus from Maury, Brent, LT, SWS etc. after PreK4 hurt the Capitol Hill elementary schools? I haven't seen any real discussion along these lines on this thread.

It's an interesting question.

Hard to say how the proposed 112 per grade would be distributed out from the individual schools. How much are people in high-performing elementaries thinking forward to middle school? How much do people in middling and low-performing elementaries want out?

In any case, 112 per grade is low enough that I think the high-performing elementaries would still easily fill seats with students from less desirable Hill elementaries. (Across all the Eastern feeders there were anywhere from 738 to 792 students enrolled in each grade K-4th last year. 5th grade had 575.)

My guess is the impact would be that all schools will lose neighborhood buy in. High-performing schools will fill seats from the lottery with little change to overall demographics. Middling and low-performing schools might still fill seats from the lottery or might lose enrollment, likely with a some degree of change to overall demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, what would your grounds for writing the BASIS elementary school off be? I have concerns about the way that Ward 6 relies on BASIS as a viable middle school more than any other ward. Awkward question, but if young Ward 6 families don't jump on the BASIS elementary school at K en masse, won't they largely be shut out of the middle school? Won't their exodus from Maury, Brent, LT, SWS etc. after PreK4 hurt the Capitol Hill elementary schools? I haven't seen any real discussion along these lines on this thread.

It's an interesting question.

Hard to say how the proposed 112 per grade would be distributed out from the individual schools. How much are people in high-performing elementaries thinking forward to middle school? How much do people in middling and low-performing elementaries want out?

In any case, 112 per grade is low enough that I think the high-performing elementaries would still easily fill seats with students from less desirable Hill elementaries. (Across all the Eastern feeders there were anywhere from 738 to 792 students enrolled in each grade K-4th last year. 5th grade had 575.)

My guess is the impact would be that all schools will lose neighborhood buy in. High-performing schools will fill seats from the lottery with little change to overall demographics. Middling and low-performing schools might still fill seats from the lottery or might lose enrollment, likely with a some degree of change to overall demographics.

I read through the report, and the survey results from current parents. The big takeaway I had was that current parents enjoyed their neighborhood DCPS experiences and don't see a need for a BASIS elementary for the area, and would rather that BASIS focus on solving the problems (teacher quality and retention) with the middle school before expanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

Of course. People with complaints couldn't possible have successful children at BASIS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

Of course. People with complaints couldn't possible have successful children at BASIS.

If you're the person that wrote: "...These guys promote a culture in which students aren't given enough scope to excel academically by building on singular talents and interests...", then it would seem that your student(s) aren't excelling academically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

Of course. People with complaints couldn't possible have successful children at BASIS.

If you're the person that wrote: "...These guys promote a culture in which students aren't given enough scope to excel academically by building on singular talents and interests...", then it would seem that your student(s) aren't excelling academically.

Actually, I didn't write that. You're talking to more than one person. I'm just a PP who is sick of boosters response being "your kid couldn't deal with the workload" to any criticism of BASIS. It's tired (and inaccurate).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

Of course. People with complaints couldn't possible have successful children at BASIS.

If you're the person that wrote: "...These guys promote a culture in which students aren't given enough scope to excel academically by building on singular talents and interests...", then it would seem that your student(s) aren't excelling academically.

Actually, I didn't write that. You're talking to more than one person. I'm just a PP who is sick of boosters response being "your kid couldn't deal with the workload" to any criticism of BASIS. It's tired (and inaccurate).

OK, fair enough. The school admin definitely has their faults and we were on the fence about leaving for Walls a few years ago. That being said, our graduating senior has had a generally good experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, what would your grounds for writing the BASIS elementary school off be? I have concerns about the way that Ward 6 relies on BASIS as a viable middle school more than any other ward. Awkward question, but if young Ward 6 families don't jump on the BASIS elementary school at K en masse, won't they largely be shut out of the middle school? Won't their exodus from Maury, Brent, LT, SWS etc. after PreK4 hurt the Capitol Hill elementary schools? I haven't seen any real discussion along these lines on this thread.

It's an interesting question.

Hard to say how the proposed 112 per grade would be distributed out from the individual schools. How much are people in high-performing elementaries thinking forward to middle school? How much do people in middling and low-performing elementaries want out?

In any case, 112 per grade is low enough that I think the high-performing elementaries would still easily fill seats with students from less desirable Hill elementaries. (Across all the Eastern feeders there were anywhere from 738 to 792 students enrolled in each grade K-4th last year. 5th grade had 575.)

My guess is the impact would be that all schools will lose neighborhood buy in. High-performing schools will fill seats from the lottery with little change to overall demographics. Middling and low-performing schools might still fill seats from the lottery or might lose enrollment, likely with a some degree of change to overall demographics.

I read through the report, and the survey results from current parents. The big takeaway I had was that current parents enjoyed their neighborhood DCPS experiences and don't see a need for a BASIS elementary for the area, and would rather that BASIS focus on solving the problems (teacher quality and retention) with the middle school before expanding.

Sure. But the question is how much will increased middle school uncertainty sway otherwise uninterested families toward BASIS elementary?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, what would your grounds for writing the BASIS elementary school off be? I have concerns about the way that Ward 6 relies on BASIS as a viable middle school more than any other ward. Awkward question, but if young Ward 6 families don't jump on the BASIS elementary school at K en masse, won't they largely be shut out of the middle school? Won't their exodus from Maury, Brent, LT, SWS etc. after PreK4 hurt the Capitol Hill elementary schools? I haven't seen any real discussion along these lines on this thread.

It's an interesting question.

Hard to say how the proposed 112 per grade would be distributed out from the individual schools. How much are people in high-performing elementaries thinking forward to middle school? How much do people in middling and low-performing elementaries want out?

In any case, 112 per grade is low enough that I think the high-performing elementaries would still easily fill seats with students from less desirable Hill elementaries. (Across all the Eastern feeders there were anywhere from 738 to 792 students enrolled in each grade K-4th last year. 5th grade had 575.)

My guess is the impact would be that all schools will lose neighborhood buy in. High-performing schools will fill seats from the lottery with little change to overall demographics. Middling and low-performing schools might still fill seats from the lottery or might lose enrollment, likely with a some degree of change to overall demographics.

I read through the report, and the survey results from current parents. The big takeaway I had was that current parents enjoyed their neighborhood DCPS experiences and don't see a need for a BASIS elementary for the area, and would rather that BASIS focus on solving the problems (teacher quality and retention) with the middle school before expanding.

Sure. But the question is how much will increased middle school uncertainty sway otherwise uninterested families toward BASIS elementary?

No, the question is why anyone would oppose additional options for DC residents who face poor in-bounds public school options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

Different PP here. My kid is a senior heading to a college admitting in the single digits in the fall.

You might be surprised to hear that I couldn't agree more that, with better support for students with unusual interests & backgrounds, greater scope for hands-on learning & more flexibility in the curriculum, BASIS DC could get even better college results without a bigger budget. Significantly better.

Frankly, half a dozen current seniors might have cracked Ivies if they'd been treated more intelligently by the franchise from start to finish (particularly re how senior year is used). It's no joke that BASIS wastes the strong language backgrounds of dozens of DC 5th graders by preventing them from studying languages they come in with at the advanced level prior to sophomore or junior year. BASIS does this because they can, not because it's smart. I say this as a former DCI feeder parent whose kid wasn't remotely challenged in language classes at BASIS.

We're glad to be at the finish line with a program that could and should aim higher. In a nutshell, BASIS is stuck in an earlier decade in its planning for elite college admissions, with parents like me picking up the slack by providing essential (and none too cheap) inputs for years before acceptance notices go out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. I’m the PP and I’ve lived on the Hill since the 90s. We’ve only stayed because grandparents offered to pay for a private. Otherwise, we’d have moved to VA by now. We turned down a BASIS spot after much deliberation.

So you're in the BASIS thread but your kid never went to BASIS?

This thread is about whether BASIS should be allowed to hoover up more taxpayer dollars for its shareholders by expanding its program. If we're going to trying to say who should and shouldn't be bothering with this, current BASIS parents should take a walk, because you're already there.

Current parents can love BASIS all they want, the question is do we want more of this profiteering in our public school system?

Some of us also have younger kids who might benefit from having a BASIS model elementary option, so, I’m not going to take a walk, thank you very much. The school model is absolutely wrong for many, probably most, kids, but it’s a huge help to some kids, and having it as an option for those kids is really great, which is exactly what the charter school system is designed to do. The for-profit corporation issue is important, but it doesn’t make sense to write off the school or potential elementary expansion because of that.

That's not what's going to happen though. If BASIS wanted to put together an ES that didn't feed to it's MS, I think it would be reasonably unpopular. You're right, there are some kids for whom it would be perfect and, for those kids, it would likely be reasomably easy to get into, because few parents would want to commute for a BASIS ES model. However, because MSes in DC suck, it will instead be quite popular & seen as the only chance to secure BASIS' MS, wreaking havoc on non-Deal-feeding ESes and populated largely by kids who would rather be at those ESes but are stuck at BASIS. This will benefit no one particularly. Maybe the 10 kids who should be going there for ES and happen to get in? Oh, and BASIS' corporate overlords.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: ...More would crack the most highly competitive colleges. A few of the most ambitious students wind up taking AP exams in subjects that BASIS doesn't teach at other schools..

BASIS kids this year (and in years past) have done very well in terms of college acceptance - especially when you consider the small class size.

Right, no room for improvement at BASIS. None.

Every school has room for improvement, but for a class of ~60, from a non-application, free high school, they have great results (Yale, Penn, UVA, JHU, McGill, Tufts, W&M, UCLA, UMD, VT, etc.)

You seem to have an axe to grind. Maybe your kid didn't like it, or couldn't deal with the workload. That's OK.

Different PP here. My kid is a senior heading to a college admitting in the single digits in the fall.

You might be surprised to hear that I couldn't agree more that, with better support for students with unusual interests & backgrounds, greater scope for hands-on learning & more flexibility in the curriculum, BASIS DC could get even better college results without a bigger budget. Significantly better.

Frankly, half a dozen current seniors might have cracked Ivies if they'd been treated more intelligently by the franchise from start to finish (particularly re how senior year is used). It's no joke that BASIS wastes the strong language backgrounds of dozens of DC 5th graders by preventing them from studying languages they come in with at the advanced level prior to sophomore or junior year. BASIS does this because they can, not because it's smart. I say this as a former DCI feeder parent whose kid wasn't remotely challenged in language classes at BASIS.

We're glad to be at the finish line with a program that could and should aim higher. In a nutshell, BASIS is stuck in an earlier decade in its planning for elite college admissions, with parents like me picking up the slack by providing essential (and none too cheap) inputs for years before acceptance notices go out.

There's no money to be made making it better...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, what would your grounds for writing the BASIS elementary school off be? I have concerns about the way that Ward 6 relies on BASIS as a viable middle school more than any other ward. Awkward question, but if young Ward 6 families don't jump on the BASIS elementary school at K en masse, won't they largely be shut out of the middle school? Won't their exodus from Maury, Brent, LT, SWS etc. after PreK4 hurt the Capitol Hill elementary schools? I haven't seen any real discussion along these lines on this thread.

It's an interesting question.

Hard to say how the proposed 112 per grade would be distributed out from the individual schools. How much are people in high-performing elementaries thinking forward to middle school? How much do people in middling and low-performing elementaries want out?

In any case, 112 per grade is low enough that I think the high-performing elementaries would still easily fill seats with students from less desirable Hill elementaries. (Across all the Eastern feeders there were anywhere from 738 to 792 students enrolled in each grade K-4th last year. 5th grade had 575.)

My guess is the impact would be that all schools will lose neighborhood buy in. High-performing schools will fill seats from the lottery with little change to overall demographics. Middling and low-performing schools might still fill seats from the lottery or might lose enrollment, likely with a some degree of change to overall demographics.

I read through the report, and the survey results from current parents. The big takeaway I had was that current parents enjoyed their neighborhood DCPS experiences and don't see a need for a BASIS elementary for the area, and would rather that BASIS focus on solving the problems (teacher quality and retention) with the middle school before expanding.

Sure. But the question is how much will increased middle school uncertainty sway otherwise uninterested families toward BASIS elementary?

No, the question is why anyone would oppose additional options for DC residents who face poor in-bounds public school options.

Because it's a predatory for-profit that for the majority of students is not a good option? And our tax dollars are being wasted. Spend the money on expanding the other non-profit charters that get everyone to graduation...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wrong. I’m the PP and I’ve lived on the Hill since the 90s. We’ve only stayed because grandparents offered to pay for a private. Otherwise, we’d have moved to VA by now. We turned down a BASIS spot after much deliberation.

So you're in the BASIS thread but your kid never went to BASIS?

This thread is about whether BASIS should be allowed to hoover up more taxpayer dollars for its shareholders by expanding its program. If we're going to trying to say who should and shouldn't be bothering with this, current BASIS parents should take a walk, because you're already there.

Current parents can love BASIS all they want, the question is do we want more of this profiteering in our public school system?

Some of us also have younger kids who might benefit from having a BASIS model elementary option, so, I’m not going to take a walk, thank you very much. The school model is absolutely wrong for many, probably most, kids, but it’s a huge help to some kids, and having it as an option for those kids is really great, which is exactly what the charter school system is designed to do. The for-profit corporation issue is important, but it doesn’t make sense to write off the school or potential elementary expansion because of that.

That's not what's going to happen though. If BASIS wanted to put together an ES that didn't feed to it's MS, I think it would be reasonably unpopular. You're right, there are some kids for whom it would be perfect and, for those kids, it would likely be reasomably easy to get into, because few parents would want to commute for a BASIS ES model. However, because MSes in DC suck, it will instead be quite popular & seen as the only chance to secure BASIS' MS, wreaking havoc on non-Deal-feeding ESes and populated largely by kids who would rather be at those ESes but are stuck at BASIS. This will benefit no one particularly. Maybe the 10 kids who should be going there for ES and happen to get in? Oh, and BASIS' corporate overlords.

But none of that is the fault of BASIS?