If not Basis or Latin, where?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many, perhaps most, white, Asian, Latino and upper-middle-class AA parents in this city simply won't send their kids to a majority AA high school. The same parents, who are often fine with a majority AA ES, worry about HS peer influences when most of the kids are from lower-middle-class or low-income families, as is the case with DCPC AA kids. ES GT and MS test-in programs could change the calculus, but none appear to be on the way. Concern about yet another majority AA HS without the right academic inputs lower down is an unspoken problem at Latin. A large and possibly insurmountable problem for the parents of most of the strongest high school students in the city. Walls and Wilson have the same problem.

I have to chime in here. How can this be anything other than baloney? This is Washington Latin's 2nd - 2nd folks! - graduating class and they have kids accepted to Bowdoin, Brown and Cornell along with someone with a full free ride to GW. Cleary these prestigious schools don't think the program lacks rigor. But in addition to rigor I want the nurturing environment that previous posters have mentioned and Latin has it in spades. I'm a sappy person, I admit, but the communication I receive from the school frequently brings tears to my eyes b/c it is so thoughtful and caring. As far as I can tell, decisions by school leaders are made with great integrity and it is that integrity they are hoping their students learn. This is more importiant to me than offering my DC math classes 5 levels above grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, not a par with Latin or Basis.

Latin's 12th grade is only around 5% high-SES. It all sort of falls apart eventually anyway.

Okay, so that would mean about a half of a kid (given that the 12th grade has about 40 kids). They are doing pretty good then that they got one kid into Cornell and another into Brown.

I don't see the school "falling apart." If anything the Upper School seems more attractive than the middle school. We had money set aside to go private for high school, but our child wanted to stay for the upper school. We think it is a good choice and look forward to seeing how DC grows. The upper school seems very nurturing as well as rigorous and I have been impressed with Latin's administrators. They all seem very knowledgeable about how to best educate kids.

No dear. 5% of 40 is 2 kids. So 2 out of the 40 are high SES. Where did you attend elementary school? DCPS? Hope you are not a teacher. Sad to see an adult unable to do simple percentages...

How do you come to the conclusion that there are 2 high SES in Latin 8th grade? Sorry, just trying to follow.

[Anonymous]

NP here... I'm not sure what the actual demographics at BASIS are, but from what I've seen it's probably 40some percent white, 40some percent AA and the remainder Asian, Latino etc. I won't gamble on guessing SES but I know there are quite a few high-SES families there along with some FARMS and many in-between (like us). Seems to be a nicely diverse mix at BASIS. As for the PP who suggested there's no technology at BASIS, that's not right. DC is in robotics and has submitted many papers written on the computer, they have an "e-backpack" system and other infrastructure for electronic submittals - and you can tell the kids who are used to doing everything on the calculator vs. the ones who are strong at math facts, mental math and doing calculations longhand - the ones used to calculators are the ones struggling. You have to get the fundamentals down first before leaping to calculators - it's pretty obvious that some of the other schools have not done a good job there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, not a par with Latin or Basis.

Latin's 12th grade is only around 5% high-SES. It all sort of falls apart eventually anyway.

Okay, so that would mean about a half of a kid (given that the 12th grade has about 40 kids). They are doing pretty good then that they got one kid into Cornell and another into Brown.

I don't see the school "falling apart." If anything the Upper School seems more attractive than the middle school. We had money set aside to go private for high school, but our child wanted to stay for the upper school. We think it is a good choice and look forward to seeing how DC grows. The upper school seems very nurturing as well as rigorous and I have been impressed with Latin's administrators. They all seem very knowledgeable about how to best educate kids.

No dear. 5% of 40 is 2 kids. So 2 out of the 40 are high SES. Where did you attend elementary school? DCPS? Hope you are not a teacher. Sad to see an adult unable to do simple percentages...

How do you come to the conclusion that there are 2 high SES in Latin 8th grade? Sorry, just trying to follow.

PP laid out the math above. Suggestion was, 5% high-SES. Given 40 students, 5% of that is calculated as follows: 40*0.05 = 2.
"Half a kid" out of 40 would be 1.25%
But I doubt either number is even remotely correct. Likely another case of someone just throwing around random percentages, trying to sound authoritative but really just full of BS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No way, not a par with Latin or Basis.

Latin's 12th grade is only around 5% high-SES. It all sort of falls apart eventually anyway.

Okay, so that would mean about a half of a kid (given that the 12th grade has about 40 kids). They are doing pretty good then that they got one kid into Cornell and another into Brown.

I don't see the school "falling apart." If anything the Upper School seems more attractive than the middle school. We had money set aside to go private for high school, but our child wanted to stay for the upper school. We think it is a good choice and look forward to seeing how DC grows. The upper school seems very nurturing as well as rigorous and I have been impressed with Latin's administrators. They all seem very knowledgeable about how to best educate kids.

No dear. 5% of 40 is 2 kids. So 2 out of the 40 are high SES. Where did you attend elementary school? DCPS? Hope you are not a teacher. Sad to see an adult unable to do simple percentages...

How do you come to the conclusion that there are 2 high SES in Latin 8th grade? Sorry, just trying to follow.

PP laid out the math above. Suggestion was, 5% high-SES. Given 40 students, 5% of that is calculated as follows: 40*0.05 = 2.
"Half a kid" out of 40 would be 1.25%
But I doubt either number is even remotely correct. Likely another case of someone just throwing around random percentages, trying to sound authoritative but really just full of BS.

I know how to do percentages, I'm asking where the 5% high SES figure came from? Who measures for HIGH SES? Even if that grade were 95% FARM (which I doubt) how can you deduce that the other 5% are high SES?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many, perhaps most, white, Asian, Latino and upper-middle-class AA parents in this city simply won't send their kids to a majority AA high school. The same parents, who are often fine with a majority AA ES, worry about HS peer influences when most of the kids are from lower-middle-class or low-income families, as is the case with DCPC AA kids. Concern about yet another majority AA HS without the right academic inputs lower down is an unspoken problem at Latin. A large and possibly insurmountable problem for the parents of most of the strongest high school students in the city. Walls and Wilson have the same problem.

"Many, perhaps most" !?!?! This might just be you. Walls is majority AA, with DC-CAS scores of 98%+ proficient. What exactly is the "same problem" you perceive at Walls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many, perhaps most, white, Asian, Latino and upper-middle-class AA parents in this city simply won't send their kids to a majority AA high school. The same parents, who are often fine with a majority AA ES, worry about HS peer influences when most of the kids are from lower-middle-class or low-income families, as is the case with DCPC AA kids. ES GT and MS test-in programs could change the calculus, but none appear to be on the way. Concern about yet another majority AA HS without the right academic inputs lower down is an unspoken problem at Latin. A large and possibly insurmountable problem for the parents of most of the strongest high school students in the city. Walls and Wilson have the same problem.

My bet is that for better or for worse BASIS will not be majority AA even in their first graduating class - if you look at their results in Arizona as an example. Think of Basis as a test out of, as opposed to test in to, school. Actually I think they might have majority AA the first 2 years - the present 7th and 8th graders. But after that, I don't expect it. And I don't want my minority kid discovering their roots in high school. They can do that safely in college once they have gotten in............

[Anonymous]

Race is less of an issue at BASIS for our family than it was in ES.

[Anonymous]

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Race is less of an issue at BASIS for our family than it was in ES.

What does this mean? You're safe with the high % of white kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many, perhaps most, white, Asian, Latino and upper-middle-class AA parents in this city simply won't send their kids to a majority AA high school. The same parents, who are often fine with a majority AA ES, worry about HS peer influences when most of the kids are from lower-middle-class or low-income families, as is the case with DCPC AA kids. Concern about yet another majority AA HS without the right academic inputs lower down is an unspoken problem at Latin. A large and possibly insurmountable problem for the parents of most of the strongest high school students in the city. Walls and Wilson have the same problem.

"Many, perhaps most" !?!?! This might just be you. Walls is majority AA, with DC-CAS scores of 98%+ proficient. What exactly is the "same problem" you perceive at Walls?

Uuhhh walls is 45% AA, close but no cigar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Race is less of an issue at BASIS for our family than it was in ES.

What does this mean? You're safe with the high % of white kids?

My kid, who is not white or AA, has a mix of friends. But they are all the ones doing well at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Race is less of an issue at BASIS for our family than it was in ES.

What does this mean? You're safe with the high % of white kids?

My kid, who is not white or AA, has a mix of friends. But they are all the ones doing well at the school.

BASIS is a diverse school.

[Anonymous]

^^ from what I've seen at 5th grade end of period ceremonies, there isn't a majority anything -- maybe AA, but overall very diverse. Ors nyone have the numbers?

[Anonymous]

"Does anyone" have. . .