Reply to BASIS - how long to figure out if school was a good fit for your child?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "BASIS - how long to figure out if school was a good fit for your child?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I suppose being on their 5th year, BASIS DC should have mastered the art of eliminating "non-Basis material" students by the end of the first or second year in order to spare families aggravation, emotional distress.

No such luck for the ones who applied to BASIS during its Pilot year.  There were certain students who did really well for a year or even two who were treated brutally by getting "F"s in their final report cards (final exams or final comps), regardless of the fact that they had been receiving A's and B's all year long. There are also former BASIS students who are still in therapy or PTSD.[/quote]

BASIS is a pyramid model. They make their bread and butter on 5th-8th graders.  They don't push them out until they absolutely have to unless they individually alter their financial bottom line.  This is about money and the kids are cannon fodder.  The education is not all that great either.

Once BASIS can afford to get rid of additional bodies (in later grades when they no longer have to fill the bleachers or risk admitting additional unexceptional kids), the grades do change, the curves end, and the social promotion ceases.  Kids who were deceived into feeling competent can get crushed.  This is their model - it is not about the Pilot year.  We think they have softened the lower grades to keep kids in longer.

It is a sad situation but a very slick sell. Mastery defense, repetition, and being allowed to fail math keeps the warm bodies and the dedicated students until they are no longer financially necessary.  It is brutal for those kids and wastes the time of the kids who could cut it from the get go in a true test based and less spiraled (boring, repetitive, deliberately slow) system.  And the one leaving doesn't have to be your kid - just their best friend, in what ultimately becomes by design a very small school.  Happiness matters in high school.

[/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