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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]PP isn't wrong, but more explanation needed.

Walter Washington, Sharon Pratt and Barry ran DCPS into the ground during the first 20 years of home rule. By his own admission, Williams mostly left DCPS alone - he had bigger fish to fry in making the city function. No secret that Congress opened the door for charters in the nation’s capital when it passed the DC School Reform Act of 1995. Setting up the DC Public Charter School Board as an independent body governed by the School Reform Act was really Fenty's baby, but the most successful charters we see today mainly came in under Gray. He had the worst relationship with the WTU of the mayors and let the charter sector explode to get back at the union. Bowser has continued in this vein pretty relentlessly. Something is obviously rotten to the core in a jurisdiction where almost half of public-school students attend charters. A complete mess, really. The fact that VA and MD essentially don't bother with charters is probably all we really need to know. BASIS came out of Arizona, one of the several states with the least regulation of the charter sector.[/quote]

I think there are a few things wrong with your premise, one of them being that DC schools as a whole have improved greatly, and charter schools are a part of why. (Not the whole why, but a part.) https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/did-washington-d-c-s-education-overhaul-help-black-children-this-study-says-yes/2021/08

" ...The Mathematica study...results are in line with those seen in Detroit, Mich., and in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, when both urban districts boosted charter schools and school choice, and overhauled teacher tenure."

But the fact that other areas don't allow charters is because those school systems were doing ok before, not because they are inherently bad ideas.

Anyhow, what I don't understand is, when DCPS schools are failing plenty of studetns, why giving parents optiions is a bad thing. It has kept many more afluent taxpayers in DC and their students in DC schools. It has allowed a moducum of control for poorer families and given families options like...you guessed it...schools that focus on math and science and foreign languages. Is it a mess? Sure. But every urban school system is.
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Give us a break. Reliance on the charter sector to educate almost half of DC public students is a declaration of catastrophic failure, an indictment of the woeful state of at least two-thirds of DCPS programs and at least half the charters, too.  A bifurcated school system just isn't what Congress had in mind in 1995. This New Yorker doesn't see catastrophic failure in City schools I came through.  Failures, yes, but certainly not on this scale. [/quote]

More than 100,000 NYC students attend charter schools. [/quote]. Fine, not even 10% of the total. In DC we’re up to around 46% of all public school students, madness.[/quote]

Choice is good, not madness.

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+100 Got to love the full circle irony of this thread. OP chose Basis because they had a choice. People chimed in (as they always do) to complain about Basis (OP didn't ask, BTW). Then people complained that 50% of DC students choose charters. Because, they have a choice. [/quote]

+1. Somehow people find it hard to believe that a parent would actually choose Basis over other schools, the suburbs, etc. Most parents who have a choice are going to pick the school that actually fits their kid the best -- not the one that some random parents just think is the best.[/quote]

Fact is, no parent yearns for a 5th-12th grade school without standard offerings like green space, a gym/stage, basketball court, library, PTA, a performing arts program, but WITH a new 20-something head most school years.

If you're honest, you admit that [b]you make the best of BASIS because the academics are a vast improvement over alternatives in the DC public system and staying in the District works for you.[/b][/quote]

Ok, can we just accept that as a given and not have to discuss it on EVERY BASIS thread?[/quote]

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