Reply to BASIS attrition after middle school- why?

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Reply to "BASIS attrition after middle school- why?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm going to play devil's advocate by arguing that the point the detractors are making is a good one. In a public school supported by taxpayers money, a measure of flexibility in supporting best practices isn't just permitted, it's mandated to execute the overarching mission of the institution: serving the public well. When a local BASIS administrator insists that a student is forced to complete schoolwork that isn't remotely appropriate to their background or aptitude, they aren't serving the public well at taxpayers expense. This is especially true when the remedy would require only a little flexibility on their part, vs. expenditure. This is what happens in one of the country's lowest-capacity urban school systems without a law on GT education, a system that relies heavily on national charter franchises for service delivery: families are blamed and labelled as poor consumers when schools offer no flexibility in situations where a measure of flexibility is warranted. BASIS could indeed strive to accommodate families seeking more appropriate advanced educational challenge within budgetary constraints. They don't bother for two simple reasons: DC ed leaders don't require them to in a poorly governed jurisdiction and neither does the law. In a much higher-capacity public school system, e.g. Fairfax, such modest requests would generally be accommodated. No thoughtful stakeholder should defend such poor treatment of voters/consumers/families. When no flexibility is extended to families making a strong case for it at no expense to the taxpayer, a system failure to be corrected should be flagged up the chain. In BASIS DC's case, there doesn't seem to be any chain to go, up either at the jurisdiction level or the franchise level.

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Your points are valid. However, in a choice system, DCPS should be the system that makes the accommodations that you mention. Parents often choose charters specifically because of the way they run their schools -- i.e., for many of the BASIS families that choose to stay, many of the BASIS characteristics are features, not bugs. The real problem is that DCPS does not provide an MS option for students who want rigor but don't like the BASIS program.[/quote]

+1. I'm one of the families that actually *likes* that BASIS teaches linguistics over offering a language right away. There are other families in the school like us as well.[/quote]

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