Reply to BASIS charter expansion is up for public comment

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am all for this, and if they do open I hope I can get my 3rd grader in from the lottery.

Genuine question to this group, especially those who oppose this. If I have an elementary-age kid who is very advanced, and is struggling with boredom at our DCPS school, where do you think I should send them?

I have asked around and don't get the sense that charter schools are any more advanced, so I haven't really bothered to go that route. It feels like maybe our only option is to move to a Wilson feeder, where it sounds like maybe the classes are a bit more advanced just due to the socio-economics of the students. But I'd love to not have to buy a $2 million house just to give my kid a little extra challenge in elementary school. A BASIS elementary feels like a great alternative, and it offers something new for EOTP families. Happy to be told I'm wrong though! Please do tell me what kind of options you'd recommend. [/quote]

Honest response is to move to Fairfax. If you want to stay in DC and don't want to move to W3, then you need to supplement on your own.[/quote]

Never happening. This is why I support a BASIS elementary school. I shouldn't have to move my entire family just to get a little extra challenge in upper elementary + middle schools. The city has great school options for early childhood through 2nd grade; and great high school options. There's a huge hole in the middle that needs to be filled. BASIS elementary would be just the start. [/quote]

I agree you shouldn't have to pick up and move just to get an adequate education for your kids.  Long-term, the best way to get that for the most kids possible in DC is for DCPS schools to attract higher performing kids (which is highly correlated with socioeconomic status).  Basis ES will attract kids away from their neighborhood schools (lest they be out a potential MS option later), which will reverse the real progress that has been made at some schools.

MC and UMC people have sort of collectively thrown up their hands at the state of education in DCPS, but they can and should demand better.  DCPS owes an adequate public education to on- and above-grade level students just as much as it owes an adequate education to below-grade level students.  Additionally, more genuinely advanced programming being available in the schools is the best way to give those academic opportunities to lower income students whose families can't or don't supplement outside of school.

DCPS is 50% at-risk, but the data shows that just 20% of kids in DC are living in poverty.  Maybe that doesn't match up one-to-one to what DCPS calls "at-risk," and maybe there are some uber-rich who are going to send their kids to Sidwell etc. no matter what (and certainly the near-complete socioeconomic segregation of large swaths of the city complicate this), but DCPS can and should do a lot more to attract its MC and UMC families to DCPS.  One elementary charter where kids might get genuine academic rigor, which would set back DCPS elementaries trending toward the same, is a huge setback. [/quote]

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