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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How much intellectual curiosity springs from kids marching in step through MS and most of HS in any program?  Where's the respect for the individual in learning styles in the BASIS MS?  What's presumptuous is notion that the surest path to Yale is the homogenized path.

When I asked at BASIS admins if the program would support my kid's language learning--s/he speaks a very difficult major world language--perhaps through DL, I was told, absolutely not.  The only language the the child could, and must, study before 7th grade is Latin.  Come 7th grade, the choice would be to study the language the child speaks at either the beginning level, or begin studying a different language and stick with it for the next six years.  When I pointed out that this rigid approach would make it next to impossible for the child to reach our goal of achieving native level fluency/literacy in the language the kid already speaks as a teen, I was told "no exceptions."   When I asked if the child could test out of 5th and perhaps 6th grade ELA based on his JH CTY summer camp work, I was told, no.  By contrast, in Arlington, I was told that the child could study any major world language at the appropriate level, perhaps via DL/special software through UVA, without having to study a different language.  I was also told that the child could freely test into ELA classes as much as two years ahead of grade.

Even the highest-performing DC public schools have a great way of pushing quirky advanced humanities students around.  Not a cheap dig and not unfounded.  New HOS, no difference.  [/quote]

Look, they have a specific curriculum. You choose to attend this school, you are choosing to follow it. What you are asking for is [b]like attending a Spanish immersion school and asking to take French instead.[/b] It seems like you selected a school that doesn't suit your kid. That's fine. That what school choice is- allowing for different schools to sprout up with different focuses. Pick the one that works for you.[/quote]

Poor analogy. The problem is that when BASIS parents ask those interchangeable HOS for any sort of flexibility to support advanced learning in any subject other than math, they're told our way or the highway.  School choice shouldn't become code for admins limiting academic achievement in an under-achieving urban school system.

A real life example.  Immigrant BASIS parents are raising their children bilingual and biliterate in English and very difficult world languages spoken at home...Russian, Arabic or Chinese.   These parents asked multiple HOS if the kids could opt out of mandatory beginning language classes.  The parents homeschool in the languages, asking only that their students be allowed to take language classes as a study hall.  Parents even offer to take turns supervising study hall sessions. The heads say no, if you don't like our language teaching system, leave.  The families leave and the kids go on to study Chinese or Russian or Arabic at the college level at new schools, along with advanced math, science, world history etc.  Where was the path to stratospheric Chinese or Russian or Arabic studies at...Yale?   [/quote]

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