Reply to BASIS Lottery ONLY for 5th grade?

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Reply to "BASIS Lottery ONLY for 5th grade?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
From what I've observed in DC, and a sibling with kids in a BASIS AZ school has observed there, families leave in fairly large numbers for a great variety of reasons.  The AZ schools generally graduate around 1/3 of the original 5th grade group, what BASIS wants.  There is absolutely weeding out of middle school kids deemed undesirable, plenty.  There's also some weeding out of parents who challenge policy.  BASIS spins it all differently, but that's what it amounts to.  I'm told that in AZ, political push back to BASIS' weeding out methods has been growing in recent years.  The franchise can no longer get away with their most egregious culling practices. [/quote]

My kids' school offers a lot of tutoring and student hours for struggling students.  It's not like they're actively trying to get rid of kids.  They're just not willing to compromise their standards.  Really, BASIS is for kids who are bright and motivated.  If you think that charter schools exclusively serving the gifted/high achieving population serve an important function, then you wouldn't object to the way BASIS implements its standards.  If you think that charter schools that don't serve the broader population are problematic, then you'd obviously have issues with BASIS.  A lot of it comes down to what you view as the role of charters.

I'm thrilled with BASIS, because my motivated, bright, high achieving kids finally have an outlet and are learning.  They were largely ignored and bored out of their minds in their regular public schools.  I wish BASIS had admissions tests, so they could weed out kids who are unlikely to be successful before placing the kids in a classroom and letting them fail.  Self-selection isn't working, since every parent of an average kid seems to think that the kid is gifted and belongs in essentially a gifted school.  [/quote]

Not our experience. You're painting too rosy a picture - they are actively trying to get rid of certain kids. The help is there in name only for a good many.

BASIS doesn't cater to gifted kids, or respect individual talents, interests or backgrounds.  What's not working is their militant approach to every dimension of the middle school experience.  They'd get MORE about of the brightest kids, a lot more, if they bothered to get to know them well and listened to their parents.  Their tin ear approach and ridiculous staff turnover only gets them so far.  BASIS works for a minority of students.  Most families leave between 6th and 9th, including lots of very bright, hard-working kids.  The program is just OK.  The building sucks.[/quote]

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