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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why can't we have a single well-equipped, "normal" high school, or school-within-a-school program with sky high standards, virtually guaranteeing that the student population would be majority white in the short and medium-term.  BASIS will never fit the bill - it doesn't aspire to serve many kids.

OK, great, the odd Latin kid now breaks into an Ivy League school.  Congratulations all around.  This doesn't change the fact that more kids are admitted to any one elite college, be it MIT or Harvard or Stanford, from TJ or a Blair test-in magnet program every year than ALL DCPS AND DCPC.  All we're asking for is one high school program on a par with the best in the burbs.  I like how hard Latin and BASIS try, but they're never going to offer TJ academics because they don't have the inputs - money, kids, teachers, facilities, test-in option, or ES and MS GT programs to build on.

BASIS does have a program called LEAP - I don't know what the acronym stands for, to be honest, but I think one requirement is the math - that you take alg 1 in 5th, alg II in 6th.  It is a MS GT test-in program for all intents and purposes, because once the kids are admitted they do diagnostic testing and are either placed on a track for LEAP or not, and I assume as the years continue  they do more weeding out, but I think it is flying under the radar this year in DC because aside from the fifth graders in Algebra 1 (from what I understand there are several classes) there are only 4 or so who met the bar for Algebra II in 6th.  There are also a few in 7th and 8th who are taking Algebra II, but I do not know what that means about their LEAP status as that puts them a year or two behind in math.  The math placements were based on the diagnostic testing and for those who participated in the STARS program or maybe from summer school.  So in addition to being incredibly rigorous to start off with, it also has a test inMS "school within a school".  I think this will become more obvious and better developed once they are effectively starting with fifth graders so that almost everyone has an equal shot.

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