Reply to Capitol Hill - middle school and beyond?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]One of the nicest things about sending kids to Latin is that Latin parents aren’t DCUM posters. [/quote]

Ironic[/quote]

Not really, as I don't have kids old enough to send to Latin. My neighbor told me this, and seeing this thread, I see what she means.[/quote]

I think some of this is parent self-selection. BASIS has more hyperacheiving Type A parents who want their kids to be the same & are more likely to have kids capable of being the same. Latin parents tend to be a bit more laid back about academics. Latin seems like a lovely, well-run school where kids are happy, but I look at the college outcomes and cringe. Why is virtually no one getting into the kind of school my DH & I went to? BASIS seems to have many issues, but some kids are getting into such schools. Most normal, laid back parents rank Latin over BASIS given everything else... I'd love to be one of those parents. BUT... I have this decision to make very soon & I'm not sure I can be.[/quote]

Because times have changed and the college landscape has changed. It's a generational thing, it's not just Latin. The kids I interview for my alma mater come from all different schools, are 1000x better than I ever was, and don't get in.[/quote]

That doesn't change the fact that SOME of them come from BASIS and virtually none seem to come from Latin. I don't disagree at all that it's much harder to get into such schools these days. Absolutely true.[/quote]

Nonsense. Latin had a Princeton admit this year. BASIS had zero 2023 Ivy admits.  They got one into CalTech and one into Johns Hopkins though. [/quote]

[b]There is something wrong with Basis. [/b]With how hard they are pushing the kids and their big talk about rigor, they should be getting Ivy/MIT/Stanford admits, and the fact that their aren't is concerning. [b]Something is wrong with their model, and their execution.[/b] [/quote]

I have no dog in this fight, but what does this even mean? Why must something be "wrong" based on those statistics? Said differently, why is that the metric? I see similar comments on DCUM about Basis and it really seems like Basis is one of those schools people love to hate for some reason. I'm not saying it's a perfect school and some of the criticism it receives is arguably justified, but this particular complaint misses the mark. If we are going to claim something is "wrong" at schools based on poor statistics, I would expect as much ire directed at other schools with poor statistics--for example, DCI which has abysmal PARCC and IB scores. Or pick any number of charter or DPCS schools where most of the kids aren't at grade level (there are a LOT).

It's just an odd observation: the one school that openly aims for rigor get bashed repeatedly on this board for not reaching certain goals that some people claim demonstrate rigor. Instead of embracing rigor while pushing to improve areas of legit criticism, the default on here is to tout lower-performing schools and claim that kids will be more well-rounded and "Larla will simply fall in with the advanced cohort and be just fine anyway." I mean, maybe she will, sure. But it seems like a gamble if most of the kids aren't at grade level.

Again, I have no dog in this fight but it's kind of an interesting observation.

[/quote]
You can't have had a child at BASIS. Their admins preach the gospel of rigor, geared at launching seniors to the country's most highly competitive colleges, ad nauseam from the get go. Families are pushed to sacrifice to make the grade, starting with long evenings of MS HW and 7th grade algebra for all. Then, whoops, not a single senior is admitted to a solitary Ivy.  Embracing rigor while improving areas of legit criticism sounds good to me. Problem is the BASIS MO is shut up, do as you're told for 8 years and Ivy Plus schools will be within reach. Our skepticism and dislike is warranted. [/quote]

They must have changed their approach. I went to ALL of the open houses, shadow days, etc. and heard (and am still hearing) ALL of the preaching. I'm getting all of the marketing emails. The focus isn't on "highly competitive colleges" but rather on the number of students who get merit aid in college. Is that something to preach about? I don't know, and I don't really care about that particular metric, but the school seems to. I haven't heard a single thing along the lines of "do this and you'll get into an Ivy Plus schools."

But if that's the message you received, and your kid didn't get into an Ivy Plus, I can see why you'd be upset. We'll have to agree to disagree about whether having homework in middle school is a bad thing.
[/quote]
My eldest did get into an Ivy+, from the private we left BASIS for. Maybe we can agree that having 3, 4 even 5 hours of homework a night in middle school on a regular basis is a bad thing. That was the story when we were at BASIS. I've heard that there isn't as much HW there these days.

I don't think Hill parents are upset, they're simply less prone to drink the BASIS Kool-Aid than they were a decade back. They're no longer bowled over the wonder of Olga/Michael Block's febrile dream of reforming K-12 ed. despite lacking experience as educators.  SH is looking better all the time.[/quote]

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