Parents are pulling their children out of Basis FAST!

[Anonymous]

Goodbye

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools like Latin do you have in mind? Boston Latin, Roxbury Latin, and Washington Latin would never use use social promotion in any form.

Washington Latin does promote socially.

Sorry, no.

Your evidence?

Now that's funny. This whole thread started with someone basically screaming FIRE! and running out of the room. Evidence, not one piece of evidence has been provided for anything posted on this thread.

My evidence: At Latin, kids who should have failed classes and been retained were repeatedly given extra credit assignments by which they raised their grades sufficiently to be promoted. Latin engages in social promotion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools like Latin do you have in mind? Boston Latin, Roxbury Latin, and Washington Latin would never use use social promotion in any form.

Washington Latin does promote socially.

Sorry, no.

Your evidence?

Now that's funny. This whole thread started with someone basically screaming FIRE! and running out of the room. Evidence, not one piece of evidence has been provided for anything posted on this thread.

My evidence: At Latin, kids who should have failed classes and been retained were repeatedly given extra credit assignments by which they raised their grades sufficiently to be promoted. Latin engages in social promotion.

Are you a teacher or adminstrator who saw the grades of these children and then saw that extra credit was given so that they passed? How are we to know you are actually telling the truth. Your statement is not evidence.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure that requiring kids to do extra work in order to get to the next grade is "social promotion". "Social promotion" to me is defined as moving a kid up even if they have consistently demonstrated an inability to master the grade level material.

Latin does give children the chance to revise/retake a failed test, do extra credit work, and/or attend summer school. But if the child does not take advantage of the opportunities given, or repeatedly fails despite completing those opportunities, then I doubt that Latin would pass them.

I do know that Latin---which is committed to its mission to educate kids coming from all parts of the city---is constantly trying to help kids who are coming from less advantaged households or DCPS elementary schools without sacrificing curriculum rigor. It is a difficult balancing act and I witness the teachers working hard to achieve it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It will be really interesting to see how many of the high SES parents actually stay to 12th grade. The only way to tell is to look at: a) the # and % of FARMS kids taking the DC-CAS year-on-year and, b) the # and % of white kids taking the DC-CAS year-on-year. By late next year, the first round of results broken down by race will have been made public. Will Basis' DC-CAS scores for 5th graders beat Latin's? Probably.

Latin has fewer white and Asian kids, and more FARMS kids, every year as you go up. Nearly half the 5th graders are high-SES (almost all white or Asian) but only around 5% of the 12th graders. It will also be interesting to see how many high SES families stick with Latin in the coming years. If their high school goes from around 15% white and Asian now to one-third within five years, I'll be surprised. The truth of the matter is that most high-SES Hill families won't send their kids to a high school that's majority AA, unless there's a school-within-a-school program/academy that isn't. I say this as an AA parent. We don't live in neighborhoods that are majority low-SES and don't want our kids in classes that are either. Go on, pitch another hissy fit arch liberal white boosters.

I am not a liberal white booster. I am AA. The only families I have known at Latin were all high SES AA familes. They all enrolled in private for high school. To a fault everyone cited the undercurrent of racism at Latin expecially against AA boys. This undercurrent according to them was even exhibited at the board meetings. They all got tired of it and pulled out (some tried to change it before they gave up). I understand PP's point about the FARMS. I am unclear as to the reference to # and % of white kids relative to high SES unless the PP is inferring that only whites in D.C. are high SES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Can other BASIS 5th and 6th grade parents confirm this? Are many BASIS families really preparing to pull their children out after a year or two (but keeping it to themselves)?

Visit Latin, dude, the other charter built on great rigor. Observe many white and Asian kids (many adopted by whites) in 5th grade. Observe a handful of white and Asian kids in 10th through 12th. Note that the white parents aren't talking about leaving, the opposite. Put two and two together. High SES attrition is rampant at Latin and will occur at Basis. The only questions are how high the attrition will be and if the school will care to address the problem head on. Departing parents speak euphamistically about "good fit" schools" elsewhere when, privately, most aren't convinced that academic standards will be terribly high, or social environments all that positive, when most of their kids classmates come from multi-generational low-income families.

This is why we need gifted elementary and test-in middle school programs, and much stronger test-in high school programs, in this city - if affluent parents know that low-income kids had to clear a high bar to enter, the well-heeled will generally stay with enthusiasm. It's why whites beat down the door to get their kids into Stuyvesant High School and Thomas Jefferson, and largely stay the course. DC's leading education reformers don't get it and Basis' may or may not. All too easy to term a charter "succesful" despite the fact that most of the high SES/white families drop out along the way. But then I don't know my charter legislation, right?



No, you are from Clarence Thomas' hometown. Instead of reading the charter legislation, you need to read or reread "The Mis-Education of the Negro" by Charles Woodson. It's premise was focused on addressing the stereotypical assumptions about the education of white students that you seem to hold.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools like Latin do you have in mind? Boston Latin, Roxbury Latin, and Washington Latin would never use use social promotion in any form.

It seems like Washington Latin is a perfectly good urban charter school but you can't honestly be putting it on the same level as Roxbury Latin.

And therein lies the problem. I wouldn't send DC to a high school not on par academically (could care less about social) with TJ, Stuy, Roxbury Latin, Exeter, Andover, etc. perhaps Basis DC will reach that level - certainly hope so. Otherwise, we'll be moving or paying so that DC can go to a first rate high school.

Please go quickly. Although it wasn't on your list, Blair magnet begins tracking for its program no later than 6th grade and that is if you do serious supplemental math before then. Otherwise they start tracking for it beginning in 4th with the GT programs. To get in GT at 4th you need to be close to 2 grade levels ahead in math and reading. Better hurry!!!!

[Anonymous]

Do any of you have grown children?
So silly to be stressing about all of this. Have some fun!

[Anonymous]

Ask a real question... Like, what is the best jarred applesauce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What schools like Latin do you have in mind? Boston Latin, Roxbury Latin, and Washington Latin would never use use social promotion in any form.

It seems like Washington Latin is a perfectly good urban charter school but you can't honestly be putting it on the same level as Roxbury Latin.

And therein lies the problem. I wouldn't send DC to a high school not on par academically (could care less about social) with TJ, Stuy, Roxbury Latin, Exeter, Andover, etc. perhaps Basis DC will reach that level - certainly hope so. Otherwise, we'll be moving or paying so that DC can go to a first rate high school.

Please go quickly. Although it wasn't on your list, Blair magnet begins tracking for its program no later than 6th grade and that is if you do serious supplemental math before then. Otherwise they start tracking for it beginning in 4th with the GT programs. To get in GT at 4th you need to be close to 2 grade levels ahead in math and reading. Better hurry!!!!

Don't worry. We'll go when it's time with the general exodus of middle school/high school parents out of DCPS and DCPCS DH and I both attended one of the above mentioned high schools, different ones, and cannot stomach a lesser quality education for our kid.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, I can't really stomach you. Afraid you make it harder for the rest of us who just want decent educational opportunities for our kids in DC. As an outlier, you make it hard for us to make our case without coming off as unbearably snobbish.

[Anonymous]

I just cannot believe there are all these gifted and talented children in Washington, DC. Come on now, really!!!!

[Anonymous]

Whether it's "unbearably snobbish" or not it's obvious many families can't stomach public middle/high schools in DC - thus the exodus. Sincerely wish BASIS the best and hope they can succeed with their high academic standards while having to accept everyone who gets a place through a lottery - a model which only BASIS in Arizona has been able to succeed with thus far.

Every other public high school with rigorous standards either has entrance by examination (Stuy, TJ, etc.) or are from an affluent area with an high SES student body (New Trier, Whitman, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just cannot believe there are all these gifted and talented children in Washington, DC. Come on now, really!!!!

Many of the brightest, most idealistic people in the country come to DC to take positions with the Federal government in which they feel they can effect real change for the betterment of our country. Once here, they procreate. I, for one, have no trouble believing that DC has more than its fair share of G&T kids. I also believe that Palo Alto, San Mateo, and Santa Clara, California have more than their fair share of G&T kids as does Redmond, Washington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just cannot believe there are all these gifted and talented children in Washington, DC. Come on now, really!!!!

National demographics and studies show typically 3.5%-6% of the student body test and qualify as being Gifted & Talented - by IQ, et cetera. With around 80,000 students enrolled in DC schools, that means there are probably around 4,000 G&T students from very SES and background scattered across DC schools - with NO G&T program in the public schools to serve them. Probably at least 2,500 of the 4,000 are AA, including low-SES - IQ is not a function of your skin color or your parent's income. DCPS schools does not and will not meet the needs of those 4,000. Many of them have been fortunate to make their way to schools like Basis and Latin - yet here we have people who not only deny the existence of these kids, they deny them any opportunity to do more, holding them back to sit bored out of their minds in a classroom, twiddling their thumbs, zoned out in daydream, even acting out and causing trouble because they are wasting a month learning a concept that only takes them a week. They not already deny them any adequate academic opportunity in the DCPS system, they also want to deny them the opportunity of attending a more challenging charter that's more their speed. Unbelievable and utterly naive and clueless.