BASIS DC shut down/abolished the school list serve

[Anonymous]

who is long winded but well meaning and supports Basis and tells everyone about it and tries to recruit more people to come. So go ahead, call her names, just remember that she will be at the next coffee and your kids are classmates of hers and you are basically accusing her of singlehandedly taking down a list serve and hating Basis

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The lady in question DOES post on DCUM pretty darned often. She started a bunch of threads about people who left BASIS for Walls or other schools, asking why they had done so, etc and she is certainly very obvious when she does post and uses certain words and distinct descriptions of family members and a unique writing style that makes her authorship clear. She is welcome to post, of course, but it's no secret who her emails are written by.
And BTW, 12:44, I bet dollars to doughnuts you are that lady.

.

I am tired of you all betting dollars to donuts, and I am tired of you all calling this person a crazy lady, holding her responsible for every single negative post about Basis, listening to you tell her to leave the school, etc. You are not as smart as you think you are but you sure have a lot of issues that you seem to be working through on DCUM.

I am requesting that you stop confusing two people, or assuming that they are the same person, and at the same time vilifying them for things that you have no idea whether she did. You may think you are an expert linguist. I don't agree. But then I went back and read her emails. Did you?

[Anonymous]

Eventually someone is going to tell her about this and she is going to be needlessly hurt and badly upset and I for one am not looking forward to that. But maybe you are????????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lady in question DOES post on DCUM pretty darned often. She started a bunch of threads about people who left BASIS for Walls or other schools, asking why they had done so, etc and she is certainly very obvious when she does post and uses certain words and distinct descriptions of family members and a unique writing style that makes her authorship clear. She is welcome to post, of course, but it's no secret who her emails are written by.
And BTW, 12:44, I bet dollars to doughnuts you are that lady.

.

I started the "if you left Basis, where did you go and why thread." I did not send the three emails. Great detecting.

[Anonymous]

There were 4 "if you left BASIS" threads, and a whole bunch of "join my facebook listserv," "I can't believe 25 6th grader spots are gone and no one told us until it was too late" "chemistry candy gate" and "I am a Luddite" emails. She wrote a bunch of them, but unlikely all of them, but I say everyone drop it. The various points have been beaten to death, and this has gotten silly and ridiculous and it is time to move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BASIS is doing fine. They need a real board rather than hand-picked people who Michael and Olga liked and who can play with Craig B.

sorry but who is Craig B?
I thought the line of authority went to Sean Aiken and then Caroline McGarvey (and can never go to Michael Block because he is on the Board of the for profit company), while his wife Olga stayed on the non profit side. Pretty cosy, but still.

Craig Barrett, former Intel CEO, picked up BASIS (and privatization of public schools in general) as a pet project a while back. But make no mistake, BASIS is and always has been Olga Block. Michael (economics professor) is a nice guy but never wore the pants in that relationship and certainly not when it comes to BASIS. Carolyn is Olga's right hand man - no background in education but a powerful (although quite aggressive) personality and fiercely loyal. Sean, like all the other HOS's, was picked out of the teaching ranks (to detriment of teaching ranks) as a nice guy, capable, ambitious but willing to tow the party line and desirous of more than the minimum wage teacher salary. He has absolutely no power to innovate, only to implement the system. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested in hearing it. As far as I can see, at BASIS, from admin to teachers to parents, you either believe in Olga's system, or you don't.

[Anonymous]

^^ meant to say ... you believe in Olga's system 100%, or you silently put up with whatever you don't like, or you leave. BASIS doesn't need you or your ideas about how it could be better. After all, it is a #1 ranked program based on some metric or other.

[Anonymous]

Jesus you people are crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jesus you people are crazy.

Says the guy posting random opinions about posters on a thread no one is forcing him to read...

[Anonymous]

I am sad the listserv was deactivated. I really enjoyed the article a parent shared right before it was shut down, the one about the teacher spending a day as a student and how they learned first hand how they would change their class structure to accomodate what engages more and feels less deadening? I would have loved to suggest a book I just began (Make It Stick) which discusses what science has revealed about learning and memory, and that one of the things Basis has going for it is the constant testing - or what this book would call "interuptting forgetting"; the act of actively retrieving information strengthens the nueral pathways and makes the information more accessible. So, yay flashcards and testing, but yay making real world connections to the concepts you learn as well; hence, making it stick. Learning can be done anywhere, for my kid Basis just makes the skills of introducing concepts and "interuptting forgetting" of those concepts a daily fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The lady in question DOES post on DCUM pretty darned often. She started a bunch of threads about people who left BASIS for Walls or other schools, asking why they had done so, etc and she is certainly very obvious when she does post and uses certain words and distinct descriptions of family members and a unique writing style that makes her authorship clear. She is welcome to post, of course, but it's no secret who her emails are written by.
And BTW, 12:44, I bet dollars to doughnuts you are that lady.

.

I am tired of you all betting dollars to donuts, and I am tired of you all calling this person a crazy lady, holding her responsible for every single negative post about Basis, listening to you tell her to leave the school, etc. You are not as smart as you think you are but you sure have a lot of issues that you seem to be working through on DCUM.

I am requesting that you stop confusing two people, or assuming that they are the same person, and at the same time vilifying them for things that you have no idea whether she did. You may think you are an expert linguist. I don't agree. But then I went back and read her emails. Did you?

You need a vacation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am sad the listserv was deactivated. I really enjoyed the article a parent shared right before it was shut down, the one about the teacher spending a day as a student and how they learned first hand how they would change their class structure to accomodate what engages more and feels less deadening? I would have loved to suggest a book I just began (Make It Stick) which discusses what science has revealed about learning and memory, and that one of the things Basis has going for it is the constant testing - or what this book would call "interuptting forgetting"; the act of actively retrieving information strengthens the nueral pathways and makes the information more accessible. So, yay flashcards and testing, but yay making real world connections to the concepts you learn as well; hence, making it stick. Learning can be done anywhere, for my kid Basis just makes the skills of introducing concepts and "interuptting forgetting" of those concepts a daily fact.

The one thing about that article that struck me and seemed Basis-like in a negative way, was the effects of constant sitting and few opportunities for class participation. Also the eye rolling and derision by teachers.

But these kids were in high school and had 15 minutes between classes. Reminded me of the mom complaining that making kids sit until 4pm with only 5 minute breaks is hard for 10 year olds at coffee hour. My kid has never complained, but I think girls are different. 5th vs 9th also very different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There were 4 "if you left BASIS" threads, and a whole bunch of "join my facebook listserv," "I can't believe 25 6th grader spots are gone and no one told us until it was too late" "chemistry candy gate" and "I am a Luddite" emails. She wrote a bunch of them, but unlikely all of them, but I say everyone drop it. The various points have been beaten to death, and this has gotten silly and ridiculous and it is time to move on.

I have an issue with the 25 spots and intend to try to bring it up at the next coffee hour. I want to know why it happened, and how HOS intends to prevent it from happening in this year's lottery. Bottom line is this is about money, people. We do not get money for empty spots. We can hardly ask to expand if we cannot fill our school. I also agree that we all have neighborhood list serves we could have posted the openings on had we been told earlier. So:

Are you all going to boo me down or throw popcorn at me? I agree that it is time to move on here, but I think you people ought to be ashamed of how far this went and in what direction. It is not like she is a deranged dangerous person who has done permanent damage to the school. Unless you are gullible enough to blame her for shutting down the list serve when they "had been thinking about it for some time" - read ante FB Luddite Candygate which were all in the same friggin 3 emails.

[Anonymous]

LOL! If you are tired of being confused with the other ranting poster, then please stop posting your own confused ranting posts which basically just keep repeating and reiterating what the other confused ranting poster posted, perpetuating the cycle of confused rants on and on and on.

Personally, I think the two of you should go off and get a room together, and leave the rest of us out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a BASIS parent, but I'd be pretty pissed if our school closed the listserve down.

I agree. Our parent listserv (google group platform, btw, and not difficult to set up) has been known to get testy, but by and large there is so much worthwhile information on it that I'd be very upset if anyone tried to shut it down.

Sorry you're getting such heat, OP. Some people hate free speech.

Thank you for being the blast of fresh air I needed right now, and as an outsider seeing what all these idiots do not.