Here's what Colorado Springs looks like demographically: 81% white, 7% AA, 12% Hispanic Median family income: $53K: Now here's a whopper! Only 11% of families headed only by a female, with no husband present! % of families in poverty: 6% Economy is military, high-tech, & tourism Colorado Springs looks NOTHING like DC. (All data fr/ Wikipedia) |
What a cop-out. Meeting them where they are ends up meaning not educating them. The idea is academic ADVANCEMENT. First you crawl, then you walk, then you run. But your rationale would have us telling the kids who can walk and who want to run that they have to give all that up and slow down to the crawl of the lowest common denominator all the way through high school. Sorry, but that is NOT meeting the needs of children for education. As stated above, that approach is nothing but a glorified daycare and totally misses the point of educating. |
BASIS does, however, get to choose which of their students advance to 7th grade, 8th grade, etc. Is there any difference other than in 5th and 6th grade? |
Something tells me you have never set foot inside a low-SES urban classroom. |
As has been discussed many times on this board, Yu Ying won't take new students after 2nd grade. And more significantly, it actually does track, apparently starting in 2nd grade. But hey, at least they created an alternative education for students who still want to be at the school (even if they aren't fluent in Mandarin). |
If Basis wants to say that they won't take new students after a certain grade (like Yu Ying), I think that is fine. What is not fine is to put selective admissions into place after 6th grade. You can't take only the city's finest, most advanced 7th graders and leave other students for other schools. If that means that they have a class of 7th graders doing below grade level work until they catch up, so be it. I teach Saxon, and you can get through two books a year if kids have at least 60 minutes for math and don't mind doing 30 minutes of homework. Saxon even has a program called Adaptations that does exactly that. |
How come in many parts of the world students from low-SES urban areas jump at the chance for an education and excel in their schooling but often not here???? Attitude maybe??? |
Not just in many parts of the world, in the US with Asian immigrants. My spouse's parents immigrated from Hong Kong and scraped by running a little dry cleaner, speaking minimal English. The daughter went to Yale; the son to MIT. Their low-income ABC (American-Born Chinese) friends tell similar stories. It's not just attitude, it's parents pushing like crazy for kids to apply themselves, keeping TV watching and hanging out to a minimum etc. OK, some of these Tiger parents go too far and create great business for shrinks, but things generally work out well. BTW, the kids went to NYC academic magnets with, horrors, selective admissions, schools that are around 60% Asian in a city that's 10% Asian. Totally unfair, eh? |
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as mentioned earlier -- just tell the parents that their kid is being held ack a grade and many will leave on their own. |
Basis offers tutoring and extensive support, and if that doesn't work, the student repeats the grade if they still can't master it. As I understand it, that's entirely within the law, and parents and students are left to their own choices. Yes, they could keep their student at Basis and if they still don't want to or can't work at the material and master it, have their student keep being held behind year after year but just because you can do that doesn't mean it makes sense or that it's the right thing to do. |
Is it the right thing to socially promote someone year after year until they graduate unable to read and do basic math??? I think that would be a gross injustice to said student. |
Remediation will only be offered in the daily tutoring sessions before and after school and possibly in other ways but not in class from what I understand. There will be no twiddling of thumbs because Basis will not be watering down the material. I think offering daily tutoring sessions both before and after school as well as other supports is more than adequate. Basis will not be persuading anyone to leave. Again they offer over the top tutoring and supports and the opportunity to repeat a grade if necessary. |
THE CHILD WILL REPEAT THE CLASSES THEY FAIL, NOT THE GRADE.( IF THEY FAIL ALL CLASSES, THEN I GUESS THEY WILL HAVE TO REPEAT THAT CLASS! WHY DON'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS! |
REPEAT THAT GFRADE NOT CLASS. |