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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Think back to when you were a kid.  Did you care about buildiings/classrooms/windows?  I sure didn't.  I cared about seeing friends, clothes, etc.  I have an 8th grader at BASIS and we have been very impressed by the program, with the exception of writing instruction - that has generally been minimal, up to now.  Grammar, on the other hand - my kid nails that stuff :).  And now that kid is in 8th grade she absolutely loves the off campus lunch option.[/quote]  When I was in middle school, in a mostly working-class community, I cared most about playing in my school's orchestra and on the girls' lacrosse team and participating in our school's Outward Bound gym program. I also cared about learning French from 6th grade. I attended Ivies for college (on a Pell Grant) and grad school.

I taught a humanities subject in the BASIS high school for a year (just a few years ago) and was asked to extend my contract. I moved on instead. The building was too claustrophobic for me, the curriculum too limited, and admins too controlling. From my perspective, the BASIS policy of cramming four years of high school work into three damages the colleges admissions prospects of some of the students, mainly because they lack the time for serious extra-curriculars in 9th, 10th and 11th grades while they cram in AP classes. The tough DC Metro area elite college admissions pool and much softer Arizona pool are v. different, which the franchise doesn't seem to get.[/quote]

Well, maybe, but the school has changed a lot in the last few years.  As a charter, BASIS has a lot more flexibility than the typical sclerotic DCPS school, which is mired in bureaucratic red tape.  My impression is that the school gets better and stronger each year, and that is also borne out by the data.   BASIS DC has only been around for 11 years, and has already rocketed its away to being ranked as the #1 public middle school in DC and the #1 non-selective high school.  BASIS seniors already get higher SAT scores and do more APs than Walls, so I have no doubt that BASIS will soon surpass Walls as the #1 high school (especially given that Walls did away with the admissions exam a couple of years ago and as a result the admitted classes are getting weaker and weaker).

The BASIS senior class is really small (around 50) but college admissions are just as good, if not better, per capita than other DC schools such as Walls and J-R.  The college counseling at BASIS is excellent and seniors can focus on it their senior year instead of studying for multiple AP tests.  BASIS has 2 college counselors for around 50 kids and students get a lot of hands-on assistance beginning in 9th grade.  In comparison, there is one overworked person for 150 seniors at Walls and the kids are doing their normal coursework while applying for college.  Moreover, plenty of kids do high-level extracurricular activities at BASIS and outside of school.  So, I don't agree with your assessment that the college admissions prospects of kids at BASIS are "damage[d]."  In fact, the opposite is true.[/quote]

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