Reply to “Basis DC: Want the Peer Group, But Not the Boot Camp?”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You're painting with too broad a brush, PP above. We switched from BASIS to Arlington school for 8th grade. In APS, half as many kids are permitted to take 6th or 7th grade algebra as just five years ago, and not for lack of good prep.

What the burbs have been finding is that even kids with strong math preparation and chops often aren't truly ready for 7th grade algebra.  It's a developmental issue. What they've done is adapted by cutting back on 7th grade algebra. Same story in Fairfax and Loudoun.

BASIS hasn't adapted. The franchise is too top down to bother.[/quote]

I understand where you’re coming from, and it’s true that several suburban districts — including Arlington, Fairfax, and Montgomery — have pulled back from universal 7th grade algebra in recent years. But I think it’s important to be precise about why that happened, and what it does (and doesn’t) say about BASIS.

The shift wasn’t driven by some new discovery that algebra before 8th is developmentally inappropriate. It was mostly a response to uneven preparation, equity concerns, and the reality that many kids were being placed in accelerated tracks without the conceptual foundation to thrive — especially in systems that equated “strong math” with procedural fluency or test scores.

BASIS doesn’t operate that way. Their model assumes (or presumes) that students are entering with real number sense, flexible thinking, and early exposure to abstraction — the kind that programs like Beast Academy or AoPS build from a young age. For kids with that background, 7th grade algebra isn’t a stretch — it’s the natural next step. Those kids should have an option at middle school.

So BASIS hasn’t “failed to adapt” — it was never designed to mass-place kids into algebra. It was designed to serve students already on that cognitive trajectory. The burden is on early foundation, not late remediation.

It’s definitely not for everyone, and it’s fair to critique the model if it’s misaligned with a specific child’s needs. But I don’t think it’s fair to equate BASIS’s approach with outdated pedagogy. If anything, it reflects an international standard that U.S. schools are still figuring out how to deliver equitably.

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