BASIS charter expansion is up for public comment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the for profit school gives my child a better education than the non profit school then that for profit school definitely has a place in education. For profit does not equal bad. We accept for profit in so many other spheres of life so why not in education? Or are we happy to condemn our children to suffer the failure of not for profit education because it aligns with our values that profit has no place in education?

because, presumably, you don't view your child's education the way you view buying a car.

you can believe public education is deeply troubled and that we need serious reform and alternatives without thinking that we should turn our children's education over to people whose only incentive is to get rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the for profit school gives my child a better education than the non profit school then that for profit school definitely has a place in education. For profit does not equal bad. We accept for profit in so many other spheres of life so why not in education? Or are we happy to condemn our children to suffer the failure of not for profit education because it aligns with our values that profit has no place in education?

i'd also submit that allowing for-profit to take over ALL the other parts of our lives isn't going so great either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For profit education is not the problem here. The problem is the inability or unwillingness of DCPS to educate kids. A BASIS elementary school isn’t going to make DCPS schools any better or worse. DCPS will continue its race to the bottom all on its own. At least BASIS gives families a choice.

DCPS offers the instruction, it's not DCPS fault if said child's guardian doesn't care about their offspring's education. Stop putting the blame on DCPS. It's the parents and or their environment. DCPS does educate kids duh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For profit education is not the problem here. The problem is the inability or unwillingness of DCPS to educate kids. A BASIS elementary school isn’t going to make DCPS schools any better or worse. DCPS will continue its race to the bottom all on its own. At least BASIS gives families a choice.

There are two problems. (1) DCPS and (2) charter schools give parents "options" that are probably not better, but everything thinks they are because they chose it.

BASIS has been looking to locate close to good or getting-better DCPS elementary schools. This is likely to hurt DCPS elementary schools because people will send their kid to BASIS (no matter how inappropriate the BASIS model is for small children), in order to secure a middle school spot.

DCPS has no one to blame but themselves, though. They could easily switch feeder patterns or consolidate schools in places like Capitol Hill in order to have a stronger Deal-like middle school, but they refuse to do anything that might result in better schools.

DCPS could only do this in theory. District ed leaders don't have anywhere near the requisite mayoral or city council support to consolidate 2-3 Ward 6 middle schools. The barriers to creating a Deal-like middle school outside Upper NW are political, and intractable, at least for this generation of kids. Moreover, Deal isn't that great. We have friends who were fine with DCPS elementary schools but were so nonplussed by Deal academics and chaos that they moved to MoCo after 6th or 7th grades, just last year. Unlike in the burbs, DC city council members aren't voted in, or out, on the strength of their positions and track records on ed reform and there's no elected school board with political clout. The Latins and BASIS are a sop to UMC voters, primarily Ward 5 and 6 voters, to placate them so they don't vote with their feet from the District, not more. BASIS can and will poach scores of high SES little kids from rising DCPS elementary schools with impunity. Nothing to stop them.

[Anonymous]

It really depends on where you live.

[Anonymous]

We live in DC EotP, where the BASIS elementary school will take off in the next few years and the most gentrified Ward 6 elementary schools will suffer as a result. Nothing to be done: the pols won't give a hoot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC EotP, where the BASIS elementary school will take off in the next few years and the most gentrified Ward 6 elementary schools will suffer as a result. Nothing to be done: the pols won't give a hoot.

lol

No one is going to choose BASIS over Mann or Key or Stoddert

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC EotP, where the BASIS elementary school will take off in the next few years and the most gentrified Ward 6 elementary schools will suffer as a result. Nothing to be done: the pols won't give a hoot.

lol

No one is going to choose BASIS over Mann or Key or Stoddert

Not true. Our family is actually at BASIS (a Cardozo feeder so an easy choice for us) and there are many families from Hardy feeders here.

[Anonymous]

And even some from the Deal zone for tougher academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC EotP, where the BASIS elementary school will take off in the next few years and the most gentrified Ward 6 elementary schools will suffer as a result. Nothing to be done: the pols won't give a hoot.

I doubt this. Many parents know that BASIS isn’t a good fit for their kid, and it’s not worth toughing out MS if the end result is poor grades that trap you into staying at BASIS for HS. So if you wouldn’t go for the MS, then why would you go for the ES?

[Anonymous]

I’d agree with you if more than a quarter of the kids in my child’s Brent 4th grade cohort of around 70 hadn’t run off to BASIS. In the future, lots of IB families will run off for K. It’s going to happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d agree with you if more than a quarter of the kids in my child’s Brent 4th grade cohort of around 70 hadn’t run off to BASIS. In the future, lots of IB families will run off for K. It’s going to happen.

From what I hear, this is a phenomenon that is unique to Brent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC EotP, where the BASIS elementary school will take off in the next few years and the most gentrified Ward 6 elementary schools will suffer as a result. Nothing to be done: the pols won't give a hoot.

I doubt this. Many parents know that BASIS isn’t a good fit for their kid, and it’s not worth toughing out MS if the end result is poor grades that trap you into staying at BASIS for HS. So if you wouldn’t go for the MS, then why would you go for the ES?

Agree. I don’t think the Basis elementary school will significantly detract from any of the W6 DCPS elementaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the for profit school gives my child a better education than the non profit school then that for profit school definitely has a place in education. For profit does not equal bad. We accept for profit in so many other spheres of life so why not in education? Or are we happy to condemn our children to suffer the failure of not for profit education because it aligns with our values that profit has no place in education?

i'd also submit that allowing for-profit to take over ALL the other parts of our lives isn't going so great either.

Communism doesn’t have a great track record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in DC EotP, where the BASIS elementary school will take off in the next few years and the most gentrified Ward 6 elementary schools will suffer as a result. Nothing to be done: the pols won't give a hoot.

I doubt this. Many parents know that BASIS isn’t a good fit for their kid, and it’s not worth toughing out MS if the end result is poor grades that trap you into staying at BASIS for HS. So if you wouldn’t go for the MS, then why would you go for the ES?

Agree. I don’t think the Basis elementary school will significantly detract from any of the W6 DCPS elementaries.

There are plenty of W6 families who would jump as a BASIS elementary. Maybe you mean W3?

And there are lots of W3 families at BASIS—namely, those that didn’t want the J-R pyramid.