Given the rigor of Basis, was it ever expected to be for every kid in the District?
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Anonymous
But DCPS teachers are not good at providing differentiated instruction that accommodates both the grade level kids and kids who are up to 3 years below grade level. Instead, the kids who are at grade level are slowed down while the kids who are 3 years below grade level never catch up. After several years of this, many of the kids who started out at grade level are behind as well. BASIS teachers would probably be no better at providing this type of differentiated instruction in a single classroom. It is just too difficult. Bear mind that the kids who are at or above grade level have just as strong a claim on an appropriate public education as the kids who are 3 years behind. In fact, their claim might well be stronger as it costs less to educate them and the likely return on the dollars that society invests in their education is higher, i.e., higher incomes, higher income tax revenue, higher property values, higher property taxes, less criminal behavior, etc. It is unreasonable to tell the families of these kids that they must either accept a mediocre education or pony up the cash to go private. The DC city council recognized this when it passed DC's charter law, and now almost half of DC's kids are educated by charter schools. |
Anonymous
This is what the previous post refers to |
Anonymous
No, what is unreasonable is for a public school to exclude kids who do not meet their standards. Public charters have autonomy to design their schools, and many do a great job! That autonomy, however, is not from dealing with less desirable kids in the community. |
Anonymous
| You call them "less desireable". You do. I call them needing a specific, high quality educational model that perhaps differs from that of other students. |
Anonymous
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Op here, I don't think that 18:09 should decide what the definition of a public school is. I’ll venture a guess that 18:09 wants to re-argue the issue of whether a school like Basis should have been given a public charter in the first place.
“So... here is the thing. If you are not able to teach every student- then you are not a public school. There are plenty of private schools in area that will not alter content/delivery for students. And that's OK- because they are not a PUBLIC school. “ But it was given a charter and when it was: “Most charter board members said that the Basis record in Tucson, which includes a Top 10 ranking in Newsweek’s annual high school survey for the past five years and annual standardized test scores that exceed statewide averages, has earned the school a chance in the District. And, the chair of the board said that: “As a school model with that kind of rigor, Basis at the end of the day may not be for every family in the District,” The Board also seems to have known that: “Of the 145 fifth-graders expected to enroll in 2012, 38 would remain Basis students by ninth grade, a retention rate of just over 25 percent.” And: “McKoy, the only board member who voted against the opening of Basis when it was approved last month, said he thought that the charter operator “brushed aside” concerns about the ability of students behind grade level to succeed. said he thought that the charter operator “brushed aside” concerns about the ability of students behind grade level to succeed." Most kids that initially enroll may not be expected to make it. It could have been designed to be a place for very hard working and/or advanced kids from all parts of the city. Kids that will likely go on to university, graduate school, pH.D programs without Basis - sitting side-by-side - with Kids that would not have, but may go on to if exposed to academic rigor at an early enough age. So... here is the thing.....Basis seems to be a PUBLIC school that is not designed to be able to teach every student. Its not going to lift all boats. So what? |
Anonymous
| Ha! I am not deciding what a public school is! When you take public money and hold yourself out to be a public school, the school has decided. The parents want a private school education, and peer group but do not want to pay/ move for it. I am not saying its bad, but let's get the record straight. Before this becomes another 'example' of how charters outperform DCPS. |
Anonymous
No lectures here. I teach many kids who have been kicked out of charters, for being deemed 'less desireable'. I am speaking from experience. Charters run kids out that they do not want to or cannot deal with, and the heavy lifting is done by the public schools, who get dumped on. |
Anonymous
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5:20, parent here, both DCPS and Charter.
First, you couldn't be more right. Second, thank you. |
Anonymous
You are adding in and averaging special need funding. You can't o that and make a fair comparison. A lot of special need funding includes biding and private school placement. So yeah, on pape it looks like DCPS spends a lot more, but in reality they do not. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
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No, what is unreasonable is for a public school to exclude kids who do not meet their standards. Public charters have autonomy to design their schools, and many do a great job! That autonomy, however, is not from dealing with less desirable kids in the community. So no Duke Ellington HS because all the teenagers in the city can't sing, dance, act and play musical instruments well enough for them? So now SWW or Bannker becasue all kids ages 14-18 can't meet their academic standards? What is unreasonable is keeping talented kids back in school, whether their talents are in music, sports, art, reading, math, vocational subjects like electronics, auto repair and welding, or whatever, because do-gooders like you and the politically cowardly in power don't offer them and their parents appropriate programs. Less desirable kids can suddenly become desirable when moved to a setting in which their unique talents are in high demand. My older DC pratically flunked out of one private last year; now he's a star athlete and computer geek at another. Until public school parents start to think more like private school parents, DC is free to support one of the city's lowest-performing school systems. You can't blame poverty anywmore, not when urban school systems in Philly and Baltimore, with higher poverty rates and just as much race segregation, are better overall. |
Anonymous
I can't speak for other charters but the instances I'm familiar with only "kick" kids out when they are expelled for being repeatedly violent and abusive to a criminal level to other students, to faculty and staff. Otherwise, they typically self-select out, after repeated failure after failure, being several grade levels behind and unable/unwilling to put in the extra work needed to come up to where they are supposed to be. So... What is your magical cure for dealing with hard violence, or for miraculously bringing them up several grades? Or do you just sweep it all under the carpet like the rest of the DCPS system does? Care to share some HONEST reality about it? |
Anonymous
No, but you are attempting to dictate policy for public charter schools. The charter school law in DC does not require charters to adopt curricula that serve the needs of all DC children. While they cannot deny any DC child the opportunity to enroll, they do not have alter their program to guarantee that the child is successful there. As OP notes, when the public charter school board approved BASIS's charter, it did so with understanding that the BASIS curriculum would serve the needs of many, but not all DC children, yet you continue to argue that BASIS cannot operate in a manner that the board has already approved. All evidence points to the fact that you are wrong. Furthermore, BASIS will become another example of how charters outperform DCPS. Like you, DCPS seems to believe that its mission is to bring below-grade-level children up to grade level, while relegating grade-level children and advanced learners to mediocre educations. In part this philosophy is attributable to NCLB. In part it is attributable to the provisioning of social services in schools and can probably be traced back to the Great Society programs of the 1960s. Of course, the grade-level children and advanced learners have the highest potential for impressive educational outcomes. By offering programs that attract those children, charter schools such as BASIS and Latin will ultimately deliver results that are more impressive than anything DCPS will deliver. |
Anonymous
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Op here.
The best example to show where DCPS fails isn't successful charters. It's other urban public school systems that offer special schools for hardworking/advanced kids.e.g., the Bronx High School of Science. At the same time, I hope the school becomes another indictment against how DCPS a treats intellectual kids. I suspect that many in DCPS rationalize that any mechanism for identifying hardworking/advanced kids will tend to track race differences, and therefore is repugnant discrimination. At the same time, I wonder whether there are a large number of people in DC that look down on intellectual kids generally as being elitist; and whether the real thought processes are simply anti-intellectualism. No doubt a different sort of anti-intellectualism then might exist in some tea-party types that we have become so vividly familiar with since 2008, but no less real and comparable in their fear of intellect. I don't conflate a focus on academics for intellectual kids with private school education. As if poor/middle class kids aren't entitled to those things. |
Anonymous
I've taught in public and alternative in DC and that's ridiculous. The public schools were sending just as many kids on their way. They would just underserve them until they dropped out. Sorry friend, you've got your facts wrong. |