Reply to Basis Charter School - Experience and Insight Requested

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]BASIS DC only has 47 in the graduating class but here is a selection of colleges to which kids were admitted (some were admitted to more than one of these).

Per capita, no other public school in DC comes close to these results.

Bryn Mawr
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Edinburgh
Elon
Emory
Georgetown
GW
Harvard
NYU
Northeastern
Northwestern
Oxford
Pomona
Smith
St. Andrews
Tufts
UC Berkeley
UPenn
U Mich
UT-Austin
UVA
Wesleyan
Wisconsin-Madison
Yale

[/quote]

If you kicked out all of the kids who aren’t in AP classes at the other high schools they’d have similar numbers.

BASIS does a good job on those 47, but the real advantage is shaking off the ones who aren’t top tier students.

It’s such a simple sleight of hand trick, it’s amazing that a school so famous for its math slips it by so many people. [/quote]

You keep saying that. But here are a few questions for you:

Can you acknowledge that the curriculum at BASIS differs from DCPS? (Requires you to just take a cursory look at the required classes to know this is true, but if you saw the syllabus, as parents do, you would know it's dramatically different and BASIS teaches much more content).

Do you acknowledge that it's possible that the kids who survive BASIS might be learning more than they would have through DCPS?

Can you acknowledge that many of the kids who make it through 8th and then decide to leave for Walls or Private (about half the kids who start) were actually pretty well served by the middle school curriculum?

And now these 50 kids who make it all the way through to graduate -- yes, I agree that these 50 probably would have been successful anywhere. But maybe, just maybe, they actually like the curriculum at BASIS. Maybe they had opportunities there they wouldnt have had at a different school. 
[/quote]

Can you acknowledge that a lot of kids leave basis feeling hurt and disillusioned and discouraged from learning?

It’s an intriguing idea and clearly works for some kids, but when dcps has so many problems, pouring money into a system that works for so few - and is frankly designed to work for so few - is disturbing. It seems like a great idea for a private school, where a specific model can be implemented and if you don’t fit the curriculum and the culture, you’re free to leave - not a public school system which is supposed to serve everyone.

I’ve got no problem with a curriculum with heavy emphasis on math and science and testing, and it’s nice to see those who suceed, but the cost, both financially and in terms of those who don’t succeed seems awfully high. [/quote]

Then don't send your kids.[/quote]

i won't. Now explain to me why I should pay for it, when it doesn't seem to have a lot of value.

Why not just kill BASIS and double the size of Walls, or create a second school with the same curriculum and policies as Walls?[/quote]

You could double Walls w/o regard to Basis. Or you simply allow Basis to be test in at all grades w/ backfilling mandated. Problem solved.[/quote]

well, there's not an unlimited pot of money, so presumably someone is going to ask where the money for double walls comes from... basis' budget seems a good source.

BASIS allowing test-in would solve most of my problems, but here's the catch -- the BASIS model wouldn't work and the investors wouldn't go for it.

Do the math -- there's 700 students at basis, and basis can charge DCPS x amount to educate each.

Older kids cost more to educate than younger kids, especially if you're doing elaborate AP courses. At the moment, BASIS has 446 kids in the middle school--so the bulk of the student body skews towards the cheaper to educate end. The most expensive to educate (grades 11 & 12) have just 49 and 63. If you kept the same enrollment, just distributed it evenly across all grades (had fewer middle schoolers and backfilled the high school) you'd end up with a much more expensive student body to educate. If you expanded the school to make all grades the same size as the incoming 5th grade class, you'd have a very large, very expensive to educate student body.

Instead, as it is, BASIS can charge DCPS for 700 students, have large grade sizes in younger grades where it's more profitable, have small grade sizes where it's expensive, and get rid of the kids who struggle and keep the kids who would probably be very successful no matter the school they went to, and using the good scores and college acceptances of those few who make it through, keep enrollment at the lower level strong.

And this isn't a secret, this is how the BASIS model works around the country. [/quote]

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