Reply to BASIS DC to open in 2012-2013

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You really don't get it.

There are a lot of people who are interested in Basis and care about Basis. [b]Several posters, as evident on this very thread, have valid concerns that Basis is not considering what makes the school system in DC different than in Tucson. Several people want to discuss those concerns. Several other people want Basis threads that ignore those concerns and extoll the excellence that they think Basis is...before it even opens.[/b]

No, the accusatory poster doesn't have a valid point. Further, I can't find any posts that insults parents for choosing Basis, although I see many that question whether Basis is promising these parents something it cannot deliver.

The accusatory poster wants to shut down anyone who doesn't agree with her.

Sorry, she doesn't get to do that.[/quote]

Well, rather than wrongly being accused of ignoring it, let's talk about it, shall we?

Tucson has been repeatedly portrayed as though it were some wealthy dream demographic.

The fact is, the demographic in Tucson and the other Basis locations are far from perfect.

Tucson and DC make an interesting case study for comparison, since they are nearly the same population, though Tucson is a bit more spread-out, lower population density.  DC has 598,391, Tucson has 545,166.

DC does not even remotely have anywhere near the hispanic and non-native English speaking population that Tucson does - Tucson is nearly half hispanic, with a great many for whom Spanish is their primary language. Tucson has more divorcees and single parents than DC does.  Tucson has a greater percentage of school-age children, and larger households, but a smaller percentage of working-age adults, and a greater percentage of elderly than DC does.  As such, Tucson has more mouths to feed and less to go around coming from the working populace.  Median household income for Tucson: $35,565, Median household income for DC is $58,526.

In terms of costs, about the only big thing that stands out is that housing costs are about twice as much in DC as Tucson (but then again, DC salaries are typically double what Tucson salaries are).  All other cost-of-living aspects are generally equal, groceries and utilities are slightly higher in DC, but healthcare and other goods and services are slightly higher in Tucson.

More violent crime in DC, commensurate with their respective population densities, but Tucson is by no means not without a significant amount of violent crime and in fact has more burglaries and other types of crimes than DC does.  Poverty rates are similar between both cities, 18-20%, but unemployment rates are higher in Tucson.

So no, DC is not Tucson, but in many ways DC actually has more going for it than Tucson does, and so much for that fantasy demographic that the other poster seems to have stuck in his or her head.

So now it's been discussed (and, I believe it's been discussed in the past in other threads as well), so now you can't keep accusing others of ignoring it.

As for the insults, for one, it was an insult of parents' intelligence to assume we don't know or can't understand what the difference between Tucson and DC are.  It could just be that some of us parents may in fact have lived in the southwest and know Tucson and know what kinds of problems and issues they contend with in the schools there.[/quote]

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