Reply to Basis fills a gap that shouldn’t exist.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So the core of what OP sees is an artifact of class differences in DC.

DC income distribution is U-shaped and it's directly related to educational trajectories. We have no middle class, by national standards.

High-income DC parents are almost strictly advanced degree holders. Our low-income parents have low educational attainment. Studies have shown that these flows directly into a child's educational attainment.

So the result is a system that can't be targeted broadly. We either have students who are almost immediately behind and students who are already ahead and the difference only accelerates across the grades.

So what is DC to do at a certain stage, probably around middle school? Differentiate.

If they don't, I can see a need for a BASIS. I would prefer differentiation within DCPS middle schools in order to promote integration.

My child did this, not at Deal, and has now gone onto one of the selective high schools. It was doable because there was more than one level of math and other specific courses available and sufficient students willing to do the work.

If the educated end of the DC population sends its kids to middle schools that aren't Deal, the differentiation can happen.

If they don't, DCPS will of course focus its staff on the needs of the low educational attainment population. The differences that can be made in their lives based on educational success can be huge.

If DCPS won't differentiate, though, go ahead and send your kids to BASIS. It makes sense to have your kids made a natural educational progression.[/quote]

There's no "if" here. DCPS currently offers Algebra I and Geometry at many middle schools. Not just Deal and Hardy. Look in the OSSE CAPE stats if you want to know which ones. I recently persuaded our charter middle to offer Geometry and the main argument was that it's increasingly common in DCPS, on the Hill and elsewhere. [/quote]

Math is one thing. Geometry helps (though it is not offered at our feeder, Francis, which was a factor for us.) but the other subjects matter, too -- BASIS has real science education (as you can see in both the curriculum and the science PARCC scores compared to DCPS schools), earth science, history, writing, etc. The curriculum is much, much fuller than DCPS across all subjects, except language.

I'm not a BASIS "booster" and I think it's a very weird and flawed school, and some kids get deeply stressed there (although my kid likes it.) But DCPS needs to wake up and start offering a much stronger middle school curriculum. [/quote]

Ok, I'm just saying PP's views of DCPS math differentiation seemed not very up to date. [/quote]

BASIS has the highest percentage of middle school kids meeting or exceeding expectations in math in the city. [/quote]

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