How's basis going so far?
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Anonymous
| And in 7th grade these kids take Critical Thinking! What a wonderful way to introduce the kind of skills that the writer of the Atlantic Monthly article shows. Right now they're looking at 'logical fallacies' which I heard about for the first time in graduate school!!! I too wish I could take these classes my son's taking, and I too 'hung out in the Hardee's parking lot' so to speak, and frittered away my best brain years because high school demanded so little of me. |
Anonymous
| I am "Hardee's parking lot" pp. get your point about wasted years - it's a shame that nobody was encouraging us more. But on the other hand, by the time I got to college , I was so thirsty for intellectual stimulation (and so done with beer!), that I really took off. I wasn't burnt out. It's so hard to know hats "right" because we've all lived only one experience! Probably there are pros and cons everywhere and our kids' innate natures (if not crushed or starved) will rule the day in the end. Ah, that middle way again! |
Anonymous
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New poster, with a 4th grader and a profoundly dead-ended MS feed, with a question for boosters, bashers and a group I'm going to term the "worried well" alike.
If you had to bet, roughly how many of the high-SES kids now enrolled (primarily white in the District, hoping we can all deal with that tired fact by now without anybody pitching yet another hissy fit) do you think will be left in the BASIS HS once it extends to 12th grade? It sounds like the middle school is around half high-SES. The boosters continually look to the Arizona experience for inspiration although the state doen't share DC's history of the middle-class largely steering clear of public middle and high schools in recent decades. If the school is going well so far, as one PP after another asserts, can we expect the sort of middle-class exodus all the other public middle and high schools in the city continue to experience? Yes or no? I'm not impressed with Latin MS and Deal failing to get most of their high-SES students to the high schools they feed into, and/or other public high schools, and I'm not prepared to send my kid to any school anywhere that's predominantly low-SES. The curriculum may be world-class, the teaching first-rate, the facilities stellar, the administration competent, but if most middle-class families leave before the end, I'd rather not start just the same. The potential for galloping middle-class attrition is what concerns me about Basis so far, not more. My kid is good at math and disciplined enough to excel at this and that (from karate to playing piano). Is anybody else concerned? |
Anonymous
OK but can you appreciate that there might be a difference between what they take (i.e., the brochure blurb) and what they actually get (i.e., the kid actually in the classroom)? Let's take 5th grade as an example. First consider the course load. 5th graders take 7/8th grade math, science, classics, geography, latin, and english, plus PE and Art and Music. That is a long day. Now, right off the bat, if any teacher is less than really good in any class (since the material is difficult and taught at a rapid pace) the kid is going to be seriously screwed because guess what, 6th grade builds upon 5th grade. Are BASIS teachers on average very good? yes. Have they hired teachers who are unorganized or seriously deficient or have nervous breakdowns and quit mid year? Absolutely. Next, consider what must be sacrificed in the 5th grade curriculum to pack in all that content. This last 6 days of instruction in Tucson for example my kid was "taught" Newton's laws of motion 1-3 and about gravity and friction. In reality, she basically had to memorize about 35 flashcards. No experiments, no enrichment activities. She and many of her classmates will survive by bombing the test, getting back to a B on the retake and then cramming in big end of year test prep phase (using teach to the test techniques) to pass the comp. None of this requires an ounce of understanding or deeper thinking about the wonders of science and is basically the formula used for all the other exceedingly academically demanding core classes. Finally, consider the opportunity cost of the curriculum. "Workaholic" is a term that has been bandied about and I think not without reason. High expectations are an important part of a successful school and a criminal lack in public school systems straining under incompetency and underfunding and all the rest of it. But in my opinion there is a lot more to the life of a 11-18 year old than nose to the textbook, test to test existence. If BASIS DC is not at that point yet it is due to unavoidable realities of a new school. But it is coming. Are there many pros to BASIS? Absolutely. Does BASIS attract dedicated teachers and awesome families? Yes. Is it the least worst alternative around? Quite possibly. But does the core vision of BASIS as articulated by the Blocks fundamentally disregard the psychological realities and emotional necessities of developing children and miss a great opportunity to set up kids for an optimal undergraduate experience? In my opinion, unfortunately, I think it does. High school is not college for a reason, and its not because 8th graders can't handle calculus. |
Anonymous
Thank you for asking this hard-hitting question, PP. With DC1 in 5th, my wife and I are certainly concerned. It doesn't sound like high-SES families evern abandoned the public school system in Arizona. With Chicago seriously considering opening a Basis branch shortly, perhaps those urban parents will be turning to us for answers a few years hence. As a strategy to keep high-SES families on board for high school, helping ensure success, BASIS would have been a lot better off being more patient, starting only with 5th and adding a grade at a time to 12th. Other charters have grown more slowly. As things stand, the likelihood that many high-SES parents will be scared off by seeing mostly low-SES kids in the high school appears high. The terrible battle to attract many high-SES families to DC public high schools as good as Banneker, Walls, Wilson and Latin seems to have been lost on a Basis operating on unfamiliar territory. What needs to be done, and what sort of conversations need to be had, to keep high-SES families to 12th grade is perhaps the most awkward of issues and, hence, the one most likely to be addressed only indirectly. We talk about curriculum and teaching and structure and rigor on DCUM without talking much about the social issues that are, frankly, as likely to drive out high-SES families as academic ones. There will always be an adventurous high-SES minority OK with majority low-SES schools. There will also be plenty of high-SES parents willing to err on the side of optimism in assuming that a rigorous curriculum, an orderly environment, decent facilities and solid teaching will be all that's needed to convince the majority that the waters are safe for their children. I worry that a silent majority will continue to vote with its feet just the same. ` |
Anonymous
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I'm the mom of a 5th grader who's with you, 22:31, in wondering about the longevity of the BASIS experiment for high-SES parents, whatever's happened in AZ.
Although things are going well enough so far (with rote learning more of a problem in AZ), I find myself thinking about how keeping high-SES families won't necessarily become a self-fullfilling prophecy even if the academic program remains strong. Our kids are still young enough that the element of self-selection at the school, coupled with good information about what to expect academically, largely trumps the achievement/social gap between most high and low-SES kids. A good many (most?) of the low-SES 5th graders face home lives that seem likely to derail them at BASIS eventually, or to result in the curriculum being watered down in the interests of keeping them. For example, my DC has become friendly with a boy who not only makes the commute from Ward 8 alone at age 11 but babysits for younger siblings after school. My kid reports that teachers seldom correct his friend's Eubonics grammar when they hear it, so he's taken it upon himself to flag double negatives in the interests of "helping" this boy. I've explained that his campaign, while well-intentioned is almost certainly going to offend and alienate. What I hear in talking to other middle-class parents about how long they think they'll stay sounds no different than what I heard at our Hill DCPS school, it's the same old "we're playing it by ear by-by-year approach." These are parents with what I suspect are private contingency plans that are very much alive- independents, Latin, MoCo, Fairfax, whatever. I'd like to hear from parents at various points on the stay or go (maybe) spectrum. We seem to concur that Basis is going well SO FAR but how confident do we feel that it will go well for almost 8 more years..?? As yet another family with life savings sunk into a row house, and communities ties in DC that we'd hate to sever, taking it year-by-year is getting old for us. |
Anonymous
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Okay this focus on high-SES retention is wheeling a bit out of control. As I understand it, Basis aims to teach all comers regardless of SES. If they are smart and hard-working, what the heck does high-SES matter? The best friend of my DC (high SES white) is low-SES aa. I could simply not be happier that he does not have the attitude that he wants to be surrounded by kids who are well-off.
If instead you are referring to a wholesale bolt in 9th grade, that happens throughout DCPS. Private high school is candy to those who can afford it, but if the school is successful in its mission to teach kids well, the SES ratio will not be the deciding factor. Remember too that if you compared two virtually identical high-SES seniors, one at private one at public, the kid at the public school will have an easier time getting into the top colleges. |
Anonymous
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we're on the fence as one of the few asian families. if the others go, we probably will. definitely yes, a strong social element to the high ses exodus in dc public that's seldom discussed. i'd like to see these ms charters do more to help promote tolerance and understand across class lines partly to retain high ses families. can't see that happening at basis. the administration clearly sees little point in looking beyond the az boiler plate because non-aa flight probably isn't an issue in a sw state. but going well so far, sure, kid is learning, happy, more organized than in the past.
school could use a directory of families, like janney and independents. |
Anonymous
7th grade parent, we are never leaving DC. What if it doesn't work out the way we hope? We are tigers about staying in touch with BFFs from Pre-K on up at all diff. schools which makes the decision to stay somewhere even when friends leave much easier. I hope to heaven we don't have to go private for good college preparation, tho we could afford it: the entitlement we experienced at private was unpleasant and at times sickening. |
Anonymous
The school itself can't do the directory. I'm one of the parents desp. trying to get folks to submit info to the Basis DC Boosters (PTA-like) so they can finally do this directory. PLEASE Basis parents please please go to www.basisdcboosters.org website, scroll down a bit and click on "Purple Information Forms". |
Anonymous
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A different 5th grade parent here. We, and DC, are very happy so far. We would love to be able to stay through 12th grade, both because we don't want DC to be in a ritzy private nor a weak or wild public.
The things that will make us leave? DC being crushed by workload (don't want basis to water this down, but will not put a life preserver on DC if it's really too much for DC personally) and discipline problems. I don't care whether the school is majority AA, so long as the students are there to learn and reverse racism, bullying, fighting, cheating (our last school was DCPS, can you tell?) are nipped in the bud and the chronic troublemakers are thrown out. |
Anonymous
I agreed with you PP before I enrolled by kid in 9th at Latin. The SES ratio is a deciding factor in retention regardless. We won't be back for 10th and neither will some of her high SES friends. The 10th grade DC-CAS scores that just came out (45% of AA kids not proficient) were an eye-opener. I assumed that at least 2/3 of the AA kids would test proficient. The kids who don't test proficient are not in honors classes with mine, but the classes aren't all that hot anyway. Poverty does tend to hurt the performance of even the most academic low SES kids, why they need special help to thrive. You can't get two virtually identifical high SES seniors, one at private and one at public in DC. The experiences are too different. What I've observed in interviewing DC applicants for a top New England liberal arts for nearly 20 years is that public school kids rarely do well enough academically to be in the running, particularly white kids. Yes, white kids. Low-income minorities tend to get a small break in admissions denied to others. Maybe Basis will change that, but I haven't observed the "easier time" for high SES kids. |
Anonymous
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9th graders on the lowest track will take Pre-calculus and the rest of the classes will be Honors classes. If a child from a low SES is able to do the work, why does it matter? If a child is able to do the work, most likely, the have support at home or they are self driven. I have a frined whos mom was a crackhead, but read to her every night, and made sure her homework was done. They were also on welfare, my friend now has a PH.D.
Another note.. Why do people think just because you have a high SES, means your child will make it to high school at basis. |
Anonymous
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I am not concerned about Basis students leaving for elsewhere in the upper grades since I believe that Basis will not water things down since Basis does not do social promotion. I think most students in other schools who leave, leave because of social promotion and the consequent watering down of curricula.
OTOH I am happy to see Basis offering a strong support and tutoring system for struggling students. |
Anonymous
Just reverse racism? So it would bother you to be in a school that racist? |