basis math levels

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How are the Basis kids doing on the AP calc exam? If most of the kids are scoring 4 or 5, then they're not "superficially" advanced.

I don’t think that data is public they are changing the curriculum and slowing it down so that there is your answer.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I wish it was absurd. The current tin-eared BASIS admins are the dregs.

Most my younger kid's friends won't be returning for 9th grade in the fall. This wasn't the case with my older kid. The departing students are some of the highest performers in the cohort, particularly for math.

But whitewash away if it makes you feel good.

Where are they going? I'm assuming not Walls if they are going somewhere for math.

We left basis after 8th, went to Walls. Took Pre Calc in 9th, taking BC Calc next year in 10th

Good for your kid. It's a myth that kids need to stay at BASIS to accelerate in math. J-R and McKinley also offer BC Cal to 10th-12th graders.

JR let’s you take BC even in the 9th.

How many do that? Zero

More than zero.

lol

75% of J-R is BELOW grade in math.

The school can't even get a majority of its students to grade level in math.

The point was whether there are 9th graders who can take BC at JR. And there are. It doesn’t matter how many are below grade level.

As long as a kid has all prerequisite math courses on their transcript they can take BC as a 9th grader. I assume this goes for any DCPS high school.

This whole superficial advancement is not that great. Kids don’t have a solid foundation and then you rush them to advance more.

It’s much better to have a good foundation and go deeper for challenge than advancement. That is why when these kids from DCPS or charter go to private, they struggle or retake math they took in public.

Why does it have to be superficial advancement? There are kids who are pretty advanced in math. Where do you think the US IMO teams and other Olympiad teams come from?

You are joking right? The US IMO and Olympiad kids are not getting on the team from just public school math. They are supplementing and doing all kinds of outside programs.

Public school math is superficial advancement. It’s the easy way out for higher performing kids rather than going deep.

This makes no sense. If the kid is already performing at an Olympiad level the by definition the kid is ‘going ‘deep’. Most of Olympiad math is precalculus level, which these kids have mastered by 6th grade. So what else is the kid who is in public school to do but to go ahead? Calculus is not that hard. Even stupid parlor trick stuff like in Putnam. Formal analysis like measure theory is hard but no school public or private is covering that. In any case most Olympiad kids I know aren’t supplementing. Just working thru past problems and discussing among themselves. Two of them got perfect scores in BC in 9th grade.

"stupid parlor trick stuff like in Putnam"? Are you referring to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition , "widely considered to be the most prestigious university-level mathematics competition in the world, and its difficulty is such that the median score is often zero or one (out of 120) despite being primarily attempted by students specializing in mathematics." ?

[Anonymous]

IMO the math at Basis is nothing special. They offer the typical superficial advancement like most schools in the burb, nothing more.

In fact, you could argue that their math program is not that strong for a school that basically self selects if only about 11% of the kids are testing above grade level in high school. Majority are just at grade level which BTW should be the norm and floor and not the ceiling. The magnet schools in the burbs or programs that are test in have a much higher percentage of kids performing above grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO the math at Basis is nothing special. They offer the typical superficial advancement like most schools in the burb, nothing more.

In fact, you could argue that their math program is not that strong for a school that basically self selects if only about 11% of the kids are testing above grade level in high school. Majority are just at grade level which BTW should be the norm and floor and not the ceiling. The magnet schools in the burbs or programs that are test in have a much higher percentage of kids performing above grade level.

What does it mean to be “above grade level” anyway? Because yes, in the latest data Basis had 14 kids scoring 5 on their math PARCC, but 13 of them were 10th graders taking the Algebra I exam. Which is not “above grade level.” It’s not even on level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the Basis kids doing on the AP calc exam? If most of the kids are scoring 4 or 5, then they're not "superficially" advanced.

I don’t think that data is public they are changing the curriculum and slowing it down so that there is your answer.

Slowing down?

Try speeding up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:IMO the math at Basis is nothing special. They offer the typical superficial advancement like most schools in the burb, nothing more.

In fact, you could argue that their math program is not that strong for a school that basically self selects if only about 11% of the kids are testing above grade level in high school. Majority are just at grade level which BTW should be the norm and floor and not the ceiling. The magnet schools in the burbs or programs that are test in have a much higher percentage of kids performing above grade level.

Wrong.

[Anonymous]

According to the latest data for PARCC 4+, Basis and Walls are about the same for ELA and math (putting them above all other DC public schools), even though Basis is 100% lottery and Walls cherry picks their freshman class from a pool of straight A students. Both are way ahead of J-R, an in-bound school in one of the richest areas of DC.

For math, 82 of 124 were 4+ at Basis, 116 of 172 were 4+ at Walls, and 170 of 680 were 4+ at J-R.

Here are the percentages:

Walls

ELA 94.07
Math 67.44

Basis

ELA 92.06
Math 66.12

J-R

ELA 57.54
Math 25.00

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to the latest data for PARCC 4+, Basis and Walls are about the same for ELA and math (putting them above all other DC public schools), even though Basis is 100% lottery and Walls cherry picks their freshman class from a pool of straight A students. Both are way ahead of J-R, an in-bound school in one of the richest areas of DC.

For math, 82 of 124 were 4+ at Basis, 116 of 172 were 4+ at Walls, and 170 of 680 were 4+ at J-R.

Here are the percentages:

Walls

ELA 94.07
Math 67.44

Basis

ELA 92.06
Math 66.12

J-R

ELA 57.54
Math 25.00

+1.

And it is not clear that you are better off in the burbs.

For example, take a look at B-CC High in wealthy Bethesda.

Only 66% of kids are proficient in math there, which is about the same as Walls or BASIS DC.

[Anonymous]

You're undeniably better off in the burbs if good public schools matter more to you than anything else. B-CC has fantastic sports, music, IB Diploma, facilities, you name it. Who cares how many students are proficient at math at B-CC when they're teaching college level math, including IB Diploma Higher Level, to dozens of students every year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're undeniably better off in the burbs if good public schools matter more to you than anything else. B-CC has fantastic sports, music, IB Diploma, facilities, you name it. Who cares how many students are proficient at math at B-CC when they're teaching college level math, including IB Diploma Higher Level, to dozens of students every year?

Basis and Walls also teach college level math. And the BCC teachers I know are not they impressed with the school. Different perspectives.

[Anonymous]

My child got a 4 on PARCC and then found Calc AB boring in 10th grade because it was too easy (and yes, got a 5 on the AP). So I wouldn't put too much weight on the PARCC.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:How are the Basis kids doing on the AP calc exam? If most of the kids are scoring 4 or 5, then they're not "superficially" advanced.

Basis kids generally refuse to take AP exams unless they believe they’ll pass. So what you really want to know is what % take the exam. But only Basis knows the answer to that question, and there’s no reason for them to tell us.

What is your source? As a BASIS family I can tell you this isn’t how it works.

Someone posted on here that at Basis, the AP score affects your final grade, so taking an AP you don’t expect to pass means voluntarily trashing your GPA. But you say that’s not true?

No, that is 100 percent true. Your grade in an AP class in June is not final. It is revised to reflect your AP score.

My point is that people are making statements without support to back them up. It’s abundantly clear that poster is not a BASIS family b/c kids are not refusing to take the AP to keep their GPAs up.

If a student opts out of AP, does that mean they keep their grade? That's insane.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish it was absurd. The current tin-eared BASIS admins are the dregs.

Most my younger kid's friends won't be returning for 9th grade in the fall. This wasn't the case with my older kid. The departing students are some of the highest performers in the cohort, particularly for math.

But whitewash away if it makes you feel good.

Where are they going? I'm assuming not Walls if they are going somewhere for math.

We left basis after 8th, went to Walls. Took Pre Calc in 9th, taking BC Calc next year in 10th

Good for your kid. It's a myth that kids need to stay at BASIS to accelerate in math. J-R and McKinley also offer BC Cal to 10th-12th graders.

JR let’s you take BC even in the 9th.

How many do that? Zero

More than zero.

lol

75% of J-R is BELOW grade in math.

The school can't even get a majority of its students to grade level in math.

The point was whether there are 9th graders who can take BC at JR. And there are. It doesn’t matter how many are below grade level.

As long as a kid has all prerequisite math courses on their transcript they can take BC as a 9th grader. I assume this goes for any DCPS high school.

This whole superficial advancement is not that great. Kids don’t have a solid foundation and then you rush them to advance more.

It’s much better to have a good foundation and go deeper for challenge than advancement. That is why when these kids from DCPS or charter go to private, they struggle or retake math they took in public.

Why does it have to be superficial advancement? There are kids who are pretty advanced in math. Where do you think the US IMO teams and other Olympiad teams come from?

You are joking right? The US IMO and Olympiad kids are not getting on the team from just public school math. They are supplementing and doing all kinds of outside programs.

Public school math is superficial advancement. It’s the easy way out for higher performing kids rather than going deep.

This makes no sense. If the kid is already performing at an Olympiad level the by definition the kid is ‘going ‘deep’. Most of Olympiad math is precalculus level, which these kids have mastered by 6th grade. So what else is the kid who is in public school to do but to go ahead? Calculus is not that hard. Even stupid parlor trick stuff like in Putnam. Formal analysis like measure theory is hard but no school public or private is covering that. In any case most Olympiad kids I know aren’t supplementing. Just working thru past problems and discussing among themselves. Two of them got perfect scores in BC in 9th grade.

DP.

This person and this subthread is a bit confused.

They didn't get perfect scores in BC. They got 5s. Only about a dozen people worldwide get perfect scores each year. (College Board sends them a congratulations letter.)

Is contest math "going deep" or is it "stupid parlor tricks"?

Studying non class material is, in fact, supplementing.

Someone doing well in pre-Olympiad math would benefit from an enriched school class as well as acceleration, but sadly those exist only at a about 1 magnet school per state.

(Only 1 student in all of 4 years lf DC high schools is Olympiad level this year, a JR student)

But most kids who are accelerated in school are not pre-Olympiad. There's plenty of deeper algebra/geometry they don't know, but they have to go outside of school to learn it. But there's still room between pre-Olympiad and the low expectations of Honors classes.

And most privates aren't different from public non-magnet, until you hit places like Exeter's or Sidwell's upper level track (which have a small fraction of the school population).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to the latest data for PARCC 4+, Basis and Walls are about the same for ELA and math (putting them above all other DC public schools), even though Basis is 100% lottery and Walls cherry picks their freshman class from a pool of straight A students. Both are way ahead of J-R, an in-bound school in one of the richest areas of DC.

For math, 82 of 124 were 4+ at Basis, 116 of 172 were 4+ at Walls, and 170 of 680 were 4+ at J-R.

Here are the percentages:

Walls

ELA 94.07
Math 67.44

Basis

ELA 92.06
Math 66.12

J-R

ELA 57.54
Math 25.00

+1.

And it is not clear that you are better off in the burbs.

For example, take a look at B-CC High in wealthy Bethesda.

Only 66% of kids are proficient in math there, which is about the same as Walls or BASIS DC.

B-CC has 22% students on food support (FARMS)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How are the Basis kids doing on the AP calc exam? If most of the kids are scoring 4 or 5, then they're not "superficially" advanced.

Basis kids generally refuse to take AP exams unless they believe they’ll pass. So what you really want to know is what % take the exam. But only Basis knows the answer to that question, and there’s no reason for them to tell us.

What is your source? As a BASIS family I can tell you this isn’t how it works.

Someone posted on here that at Basis, the AP score affects your final grade, so taking an AP you don’t expect to pass means voluntarily trashing your GPA. But you say that’s not true?

No, that is 100 percent true. Your grade in an AP class in June is not final. It is revised to reflect your AP score.

My point is that people are making statements without support to back them up. It’s abundantly clear that poster is not a BASIS family b/c kids are not refusing to take the AP to keep their GPAs up.

If a student opts out of AP, does that mean they keep their grade? That's insane.

No. They have to take either the AP exam or an alternate final written and graddd by the teacher.