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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

From all I have seen, schools like Basis are bending over backward to keep up their end of the bargain toward providing a high-quality education.  They have tutoring sessions and all kinds of other extra resources available to the struggling kids.  The more important and more-ignored challenge that should be focused on is for the students, parents and the community to keep up their end of the bargain.  If the struggling kids can't keep up it will more likely be because their families won't back them up, won't support them toward getting the extra tutoring and help to catch up, then that is not the fault of Basis.[/quote]

-100.  Completely disagree.  As my Irish immigrant grandmother used to say, like Sam, the Italian athletics coach in Chariots of Fire, "You can't put in what God left out."

Struggling kids won't be able to keep up if they aren't gifted- 7th grade algebra definitely isn't for almost all kids, as pie in the sky Basis assumes; it's for a tiny fraction.  Most kids won't be able to "catch up" in the long-run, not when 8-10 AP classes/tests are the ultimate goal, because they don't have the combination of drive and ability to get there.   This is true of many on-the-bell-curve high-SES kids, never mind SpecEd kids.

Culling kids using the pretense that they are their families are responsible for failure, when it's primarily their lack of aptitude that's doing the job, is an inefficient and unpleasant approach to building a high school student body.  Much better to screen middle school kids for ability, hunting high and low for low-SES students with a good chance of making the grade on the AP front later, and knocking yourself out to include and support them, than admitting random kids from "self-selecting" families.  That's what NYC has done for 40 years and not just in public schools.  NYC's famous "Prep for Prep" program, which identifies super bright 5th graders of color and gets them scholarships to privates, including top East Coast boarding schools, has done that really well since the 80s.

Guess what, selective admissions works for the best students.  Most parents are happy to assume that their middle schoolers are really bright and motivated - the bubble generally doesn't burst until SAT and AP test results time.

I'm not convinced that DC Charter wouldn't have played ball if some sort of screening mechanism had been part and parcel, either.  They wanted Basis enough to compromise some more.

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