Reply to BASIS Lottery ONLY for 5th grade?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I agree with no middle school spots after 5th most years, BUT I kind of wonder if there will be just a little bit of attrition at all schools, including Latin, next year considering the change in administration (to Biden, not school admin) and some people leaving DC once their company decides they can mostly work from home indefinitely (meaning people no longer trying to minimize commute time may move further out).[/quote]

Right or wrong, they don't want to admit after 6th because it would be tough for some kids to catch up, particularly in the sciences. What BASIS students cover in Chem and Bio and Physics (they take all 3 every year of MS) really doesn't align to anything in other schools.

Some kids could catch up, others will not but that's the rationale behind their enrollment strategy. It does cost them $ each year since they can't really backfill students who leave after 6th or 7th.

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Oh come on.  BASIS could backfill with 7th and 8th graders kids who could handle the curriculum if they spelled out exactly what the curriculum entails and bothered to provide learning resources to students who arrive after 6th grade.  7th and 8th graders who got spots could be sent the resources with a disclaimer/warning stating that if you haven't mastered this content, you won't be able to pass end of year comps in 7th and 8th grade.  Hence, you will be forced to repeat the entry year.

BASIS just isn't great at innovating, as a franchise or a DC campus.  BASIS is hardly the only program in which middle school kids can cover chem, bio and physics.  Mine currently take on-line science courses through Johns Hopkins CTY and Stanford's on-line middle school program covering roughly the same science content.[/quote]

Ok, but why should they spend extra resources to bring new kids up to speed - what you propose is setting them up to fail.  And they can't select based on what classes a kid has taken before ore not.

They seem comfortable with their set up, so it is what it is.[/quote]

I'm not arguing that BASIS should spend extra resources to bringing new kids up to speed in 7th and 8th grades.  Not at all.

BASIS could simply post a bare bones curriculum with links to appropriate learning resources on their web site and let prospective families figure out if it's worth putting in for the lottery after 6th grade. This is what colleges do with on-line prospectuses - tell students  and prospective students what's to be expected in classes.

If you're told exactly what your kid will need to know to cope, without risking to repeat the grade of entry, some new families can and will rise to the occasion.  I seriously doubt that my own kids, and many others in the District, would fall flat on their faces at BASIS if they started a year or two after the cutoff.  Mine routinely do advanced work in science on-line and in summer programs, for fun.  BASIS' exceptionalism is lame.    
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But when they don't Basis will get blamed for not doing well by kids who need extra help. There's no upside for them.

It's not exceptionalism, it's just their design. [b]My 5th grader is already 3-4 months ahead of where her DCPS peers are in Math at the moment. [/b]She's not a genius, she's just being pushed a lot more math.[/quote]

I wouldn't count on it, PP.  My 5th grader does 6th grade math at Brent elementary.  She's not particularly pushed though.  We wish we'd pushed for 7th grade math, which the school's science teacher is prepared to teach to 5th graders.  Really.[/quote]

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