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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm surprised by the number of people who sent their kid to BASIS and seemingly had no idea what their kid was in for. The building is a prison with no fields. The crazy curriculum is openly shared. The lack of gym, etc., is obvious. Why would you have lotteried there in the first place? Were you dumb? Did you really not have a Plan B if you couldn't get into Latin? What kind of idiots are you people?[/quote]

They're not effective teachers and can't produce a happy well-balanced successful kid to save their lives, but as a for-profit they know how to market to rubes—and taxpayer pick up the bill![/quote]

Found the WTA rep.  Maybe move to North Korea--you would be happier there.

USNW&R ranks 11 BASIS schools in the top 100 in the United States out of nearly 25,000 schools, and a BASIS school is ranked #1 in the whole country (with TJ in Fairfax ranked #14).  So, yeah, I think that the people running BASIS know a lot more than you than running a school network.  But you certainly know how to run your mouth off.

[url]https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings[/url]

[/quote]

DP. Couple things about BASIS in the rankings. All other BASIS schools are test-in, so that already makes their situation much different than all other schools except other test ins. But more importantly, BASIS structures their policies to affect their ranking. For example, US News gives a lot of weight to how many seniors have taken and passed at least one AP. BASIS does not allow their students to advance to senior year if they have not met this metric, so they always have 100/100, because they don’t allow kids to get to senior year if they don’t meet this.

Also, from my perspective, the people running *BASIS DC* are the problem. BASIS DC has actually dropped in the rankings year over year. They plummeted another 200 down this year and their PARCC scores have gotten worse. BASIS’s reaction to this was to cancel all electives for two weeks so they could do extensive test prep. This is the kind of thing that people are talking about when they say BASIS cares more about BASIS looking good than they do about student happiness/mental health/well-being. [/quote]

In the current USN&WR rankings, BASIS DC is currently the #1 public middle school in DC, #1 charter school in DC, and #1 non-selective public high school in DC.

They seem to be doing fine.

https://www.usnews.com/education/k12/middle-schools/district-of-columbia
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/district-of-columbia/rankings

And, btw, requiring a 3 on a single AP test in high school is not "gaming" the rankings.  Any kid that can't pull a 3 on a single AP test shouldn't be there.[/quote]

Requiring a 3 and not allowing a student to advance if they don't achieve it is absolutely "gaming" the rankings.  It ensures that on one of the most important metrics, you are guaranteed 100% of the points, not because you actually taught the students to the point that they all got a 3, but because you prevented those who got a 3 from being counted in your stats.

Here, because you love US News so much, the national rankings:

TJ: #14
School Without Walls: #68
Benjamin Banneker: #96
Walt Whitman: #139
Langley: #148
Wootton: #196
Oakton: #199
McLean: #218
...
BASIS DC: #400

Note that none of those other schools are playing games with the US News stats. [/quote]

I’m certainly not invested in defending the merits/utility of USNWR rankings, but this isn’t an apples-to-apples comparison. [b]Basis DC is open to anyone through the lottery, which means its population looks a lot different than selective schools like TJ and SWW and Banneker and also a lot different than uber wealthy districts like those listed here. [/b]

I think it makes more sense to have a test or something to select for academically advanced students at the outset, but failing that wholeheartedly support whatever measures they want to use to maintain some minimum academic standard (and a 3 on a single AP test is an extremely low bar). [/quote]

Wrong. BASIS (like the suburban schools on that list) has single digit at-risk numbers, which are mostly from the lower grades before at-risk kids drop out. Both SWW and Banneker have higher at-risk numbers - with Banneker having almost triple the number of at-risk kids that BASIS does.

[/quote]

You (and many others) confuse at risk with poor performers. It is at once offensive and telling. We don't have standards in DC. We teach to the bottom. We argue that academic excellence and holding kids to expectations in racist or classist or something else-ist. That argument is ginned up by a vocal minority and then repeated by faux liberals like you who don't actually care about at-risk or minority kids, you just find it a convenient talking point. One of the things many of us love about BASIS is that they do not care about your pretend activism. If a black kid or white kid or poor kid or rich kid can't hack it, they repeat or leave. BASIS doesn't means test math outcomes to decide if it is unfair for kids to fail math, or get Cs or Bs or As. They teach. They test. You earn your grade. So many of you spend so much time on DCUM whining about these things without considering for a moment the educational opportunities afforded to those at -risk kids who you pretend to care about that are at BASIS. I am certain this thread will continue forever.

What amuses me is that you seem to think BASIS gives a damn what you think. They don't. It is one of the things I love about the school.    [/quote]

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