Reply to How's basis going so far?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "How's basis going so far?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] Good insights, 18:02.  Question: in a city where testing in to a charter is a non-starter, how could the Basis model be adjusted to keep the hard-workers even if they can't pass the comps?  Is there a way without 'dumbing-down' the curriculum?  Just brainstorming here for fun because I'm not Olga Block but what if they took the students GPA into account along with the comps, so to capture the hard workers that don't test all that well?  Or is the point that even if they stayed they would not be happy.  And what about those who test in for aptitude but DON'T work hard, and yet pass the comps? (I'm picturing that in a personal way if you get what I mean).  Is the real problem the culture of rewarding academic entitlement attitudes to the detriment of acceptance of differences?[/quote]

18:02, glad to try to answer these questions.  I don't think that Basis would be amenable to adjusting its model to accomodate "average" or below-average hard-workers.  The idea is to show them the door and find those with the right stuff to replace them.  Basis wants students likely to be admitted to colleges taking no more than around one-quarter of applicants, maybe one-third tops.  The gamut runs from Stanford and Harvard, taking about 7%, to to state schools like UCLA, Berkley, UVA etc., taking about a quarter instate and 10% out of state.  Low-income kids get a small break in these college applicant pools, so they get a small break at Basis, but nobody gets a big break.  If a Lower School kid fails pre-comps in the middle of the year, a red flag goes up.

As the poster above said, there is a well-reputed "exam" high school locally.  I lost a fair number of classmates to the place.  I thought about going there, but the commute would have been a hassle for my family.

I'm not sure how to answer the "gifted and talented" question because I'm unsure what gifted means.  My talent (math) is conventional and, hence, what Basis was looking for.  If I were art or music gifted, or simply socially gifted, I wouldn't have stayed.  Make no mistake, I graduated without loving the place.  Yes, there were some fine teachers, but the mentality was too mercenary, and the focus too narrow, for me.  We have world class astronomy facilities here in Arizona and that field of inquiry was my thing outside school.  I don't feel like Basis helped me to pursue my this interest, astronomy not being an AP subject.  Basis was simply a means to an end in my teenage life, not a school I would donate to as an adult (Stanford, yes!).  I would have liked to have attended a school where nobody who tried hard and played nicely was weeded out.

[/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