Reply to BASIS DC to open in 2012-2013

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "BASIS DC to open in 2012-2013"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A school like Basis, or Latin, for that matter, would surely flourish as an academic magnet, like those in NYC.  With luck as the only criterion for admission, the middle school will surely muddle through, but the high school can only be mediocre when compared to suburban magnets (look at Latin, where the the middle school is 41% white and the high school just 11%, with white as a proxy for upper-middle-class and nothing more).  Great teaching, great leadership, great planning, great facilities won't change this in DC.

As you probably know, in NYC, kids test into talented and gifted elementary and middle schools, which feed into some of the nation's best public high schools, Bronx Science, Hunter, Stuyvesant, Bronx Tech, Bard etc. If a student scores poorly on the SSAT, NYC's magent admissions exam given in 8th grade, they can't attend one of the elite high schools.  But rigorous test prep is given freely to middle school kids from low-income families at various city centers.

Why is the concept of what some cities call "exam schools" (Boston Latin was the first) still anathama in DC when such schools are now found all over the country?  I note that the great majority of the high schools on the US News and World Report "Gold" list are magnets, not charters where the state law mandates one open lottery per school as the only route to admission.  Why is luck the best criterion for admission when, as a society, we don't hesitate to exclude kids without the requisite talent and drive from competing in elite youth sports, music, chess or whatever.  Genius springs up in odd places - why not focus on finding some of the brightest and most disciplined kids in the District and drawing them to Basis?  That's what Takoma Park MS does with its math/science/computer magenet (admitting 16% of students) and the spectacular results are plain to see - kids, even poor ones, winning INTEL prizes etc. a few years hence.  I don't get it, why not in DC.  Why is this impossible in our city but not in others with large minority populations, like Chicago and Atlanta? Enlighten me.

My own children aren't even of school age yet, but I ask this in all seriousness.  In the DC burbs, academic magnet programs serve to keep upper-middle-class parents from voting with their feet in droves after elementary - what's so horrible about that?  Surely poor kids benefit from keeping the affluent engaged in K-12 public education in large numbers.  I interview seniors in DCPS and charters applying to my Ivy alma mater as an alum volunteer every fall. They don't fare at all well as a group, and not for lack of brains or industry.  While Stuyveswant will get 30-40 into any particular Ivy every year, Wilson, SWW, Banneker, and now Latin, are lucky to get a handful.   Ivies work well for the poor because they're practically  a free college education as much as anything else.

[/quote]
PP is clearly thinking a little logically for DCPS & DC Charter!   Yes, public resources will be squandered trying to turn eager, but academically average or below average, kids escaping weak/middling neighborhood Mschools into academic superstars in high school. Basis would be far better off screening for aptitude, and working with available talent, no matter who’s in charge, than relying on an open lottery.

“Must Test Advanced on 4th Grade DC-CAS” to apply would hardly be an unreasonable policy.  FARMs kids who test advanced should have an automatic in, as long as their schools aren’t under investigation for cheating.   The CS Board should work with the DC City Council to amend the law, which has been amended before (twice).

NYC MS magnets work that way –a kid gets a certain combined score on the 4th and 5th grade NYC standardized tests or can’t go.   Remembering that this is not one of the several lowest-performing urban school districts in the country for nothing helps you get your head around why DC charters can’t select students who are a good fit, like the independents do.  Yu Ying doesn’t even have a lottery for Chinese-speaking kids, helping explain why they’re only a handful in the school, and the kids almost always speak English when not addressing a teacher.    And YY is the paragon, right?!
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics