Basis fills a gap that shouldn’t exist.
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Anonymous
After researching the options, we only applied to one school in the lottery: BASIS DC. Our kids are there now and doing great. |
Anonymous
Oh. You haven’t heard public discourse about teaching quality at Harvard and thus wouldn’t want your kid to go there. Your critique of Basis sounds very credible. |
Anonymous
This poster is not saying that all students who are good at math will like BASIS. This poster is saying that in this poster's experience, students who are NOT good at math will NOT like BASIS. So the poster is not suggesting that any student who gets, for example, a high 5 on the math CAPE will like BASIS. Of course that's not the case, everyone's different and there are so many factors that go into whether a student likes a school. I think the idea is more that students who already struggle with math in elementary school (e.g., who perhaps get a 3 or below on the math CAPE or struggle with iReady math despite putting in some effort) will very likely NOT like BASIS. From what I've observed as a BASIS parent, that seems accurate. And the main reason for that is that kids who have to spend a lot of time and energy just keeping up with the schoolwork don't have as much time as they would like for extracurriulars, sports, and other things that provide a well-rounded school experience. The kids who like BASIS (mine included) seem to be the ones who can do well academically without spending all that much time on academics and still have a lot of time to participate in extracurriculars. |
Anonymous
This seems right. |
Anonymous
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Come on, almost any BASIS kid can keep up with the math with the right prep and support (read STEM oriented parents and tutors in the US context).
BASIS parents like to boast about having kids who can do well academically. From what I've seen, what these kids tend to have in common are UMC parents and possibly tutors, math whiz classmates and summer enrichment programs, that help. In my native Taiwan, almost all the kids were doing BASIS level, or harder math, from the upper ES grades. What you Americans consider to super-duper GT math has been normal in regular Taiwan schools from a young age for several generations. What happens here is that too many of the students don't get the math prep or push they need to succeed at BASIS before they start in 5th grade. For the most part, the problem is a lack of ambition and commitment to good math instruction on the part of the society, not the kids' innate ability. But self-congratulate away, don't let me stop you. |
Anonymous
This seems right. My child is having a good experience at Basis because they have to work hard-ish and stay organized but are not otherwise cognitively taxed by the curriculum. It’s not a breeze, but right-sized and challenging enough to keep them sharp and growing. We had imagined constant late nights and frequent frustration, but that just hasn’t been the case. Still plenty of relaxed bandwidth for two sports and a musical instrument. FWIW — I’m FAR less certain that Basis will be a good fit for our younger child. |
Anonymous
What? This whole thread has been people complaining endlessly about how BASIS has such a high attrition rate because it aggressively weeds out kids who can't pass its tests. Now you're questioning whether kids there study more than at any other school? We're clearly in the say-anything phase of people complaining about BASIS. |
Anonymous
Agree with all of this. The amount of time kids are spending on HW and studying at home varies from 0-15 minutes all the way to 3 hours daily, for the same classes. For kids who can easily handle the math and science (for math, physics and chem) and have good memories (for history, biology and english), there is plenty of time for clubs, sports and relaxation and they are simply much happier as a result. Parents have enough info/test scores about their kids by the time the 4th grade lottery season hits to know if they can handle it. If they had stayed in DCPS, accelerated math options would be decided by those test scores. at BASIS, it needs to be assessed by the parents. So that was a response to how it feels like a "crapshoot." BASIS doesn't seem to want to get explicit about it, but they repeatedly say things like "accelerated curriculum" in the hopes that parents do their due diligence about what they means. |
Anonymous
+1. We chose BASIS because we knew that our kids would actually enjoy the curriculum plus have plenty of time for outside ECs they were already engaged in. For high school, our eldest was accepted to both Walls and private schools, and turned them down to stay at BASIS. If we thought our kids wouldn't like BASIS, we would never have sent them there. |
Anonymous
Actually what I said is that it's not clear whether school pedagogy or student body is more important to the success of any given school, different people will value one or the other more highly in their decisionmaking, and that both approaches are rational. It's not a critique BASIS. It's an observation of what BASIS is providing compared to other schools based on quantitative information on school performance and school demographics. |
Anonymous
| Which other schools? The humanities instruction at the school we left for is far better and the math teaching, too. |
Anonymous
Actually, people have been arguing about the source of attrition, with BASIS supporters arguing it's students failing comps and BASIS detractors arguing it's people opting out of an unpleasant school environment. |
Anonymous
I find this comment odd on a variety of levels. On the one hand, it derides upper-middle-class parents as being clueless about the stronger math instruction available in places like Taiwan or Singapore. Then, in almost the same breath, it lambasts BASIS parents whose kids have had early math enrichment (e.g., AOPS/Beast Academy, RSM, etc.) — as if their children’s success is somehow illegitimate because they did the very thing those other systems normalize. In reality, many of those parents invested in math instruction early precisely because they understood how deficient most U.S. elementary math programs are. They knew that if they wanted their kids to develop real mathematical architecture during the optimal time window, they had to do it themselves. You’d think the poster would see that as a good thing. So I’m left wondering: who exactly is the target here? The “ignorant” parents who didn’t prepare? The “knowledgeable” ones whose kids are now doing well at BASIS? Or BASIS itself — which, at worst, is simply offering a curriculum that gets closer than most D.C. schools to the global standard the commenter claims to admire? It all feels like an amorphous critique of BASIS parents in general — a kind of reflexive discomfort with people who’ve found something that works for them. But in the real world, there’s no BASIS fan club roaming around congratulating itself. There are just families navigating a limited system and trying to find the environment that works best — or least badly — for their kids. |
Anonymous
Are you seriously questioning what I know about my own kid? We did the whole tour and talked with HOS, looked at the curriculum, etc… Because my kid needs more than just challenging academics to be happy. He needs open spaces and to burn off energy which he gets with 1/2 hour play at lunch and PE and fields. He is very social and clubs and sports are important to him. Tons of that at his school where he does it 4 days a week and we don’t have to drive him anywhere. He has other interests outside of academics and the large selection of electives offered at the school meets this need. In fact, so many great electives that it was hard to choose 6 for the year. We have been in the Basis building with no light, cramped classrooms and hallways especially. It is damn depressing. That’s why. You don’t have to be an actual student at the school to know what the deficits are as a family. Tour the building, talk to admin with your questions, and look at the limited curriculum. It is all there. |
Anonymous
oh stop. it's a pressure cooker environment. that's it. that's all. |