Reply to BASIS charter expansion is up for public comment

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The much more logical answer to the question about why Walls lacks the same attrition: Walls is a selective application school which begins in 9th grade where students are selected based on criteria and when students are more likely to know whether an academic focused type of school is a good fit.  BASIS admission, on the other hand, is pure lottery in 5th grade when families don’t know their students’ abilities nearly as well and have fewer good public options.  Comparing the attrition between 5th and 12th grade at BASIS to lack of attrition between 9th and 12th grade at Walls is apples to oranges.  At most, you can compare attrition from 9th through 12th at BASIS to the same grades at Walls but even that isn’t completely fair because Walls hand picked its student body.[/quote]

Yes, I'm comparing 9th grade. Pick any other school in the area, public or private, better or worse academically, and tell me if you can find another school that loses students like BASIS.

Your answer is the closest to a logical answer that anyone has given, but it's not particularly satisfying, considering how BASIS promotes itself. It may be a case of lottery admission, but the people applying are self-selecting based on the marketing material prepared by the for-profit school.

Also, to the degree that your answer makes sense, it's still problematic because it's not a NEW problem. It's been happening since BASIS showed up. If they're going to take tax dollars, they should solve problems. At least before they're given the right to open any new profit centers.[/quote]

BASIS is not allowed to solve the problems you want them to solve. They market themselves the way they do for the same reason they don't offer assessment tests and recommend students who are behind not attend: if they did that, there would be enormous pushback. The only way you can have a charter curriculum that's accelerated in DC is by pretending that it's for everyone. But, again, since DCPS has zero interest in providing this to kids who live in most parts of the city, this is what there is. [/quote]

Sounds like it's not a great option for DC then. [/quote]

And yet, even with all of the limitations imposed on it, it's still providing something a lot of parents want and can't get from DCPS, which doesn't have these limitations. [/quote]

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