Reply to How was the meeting with the admin meeting last week at BASIS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
OK glad you don't fall for the marketing, but do you agree that BASIS markets itself as a school for all who are willing to work hard? You are right it is a niche school but the charter model needs bodies in the seats for funding.

I also support charter choice and oppose monolithic unified districts - one size does not fit all.

And I am sure there are many stellar students in DC from across the socio-economic spectrum who will end up at BASIS and excel academically. I still think for them that BASIS's standardized test-centric approach will short change them but whatever, they will do fine. But these sorts of kids will only be some percentage of the student body at BASIS DC or any other campus, and I would expect well less than 50%. For their parents, if that is what they want then that is fine. But I am concerned about out those that leave and those that struggle but remain. Freedom of choice does not alleviate my concern for those that get pushed out for no other reason than "they couldn't hack it".  Nor of course does it address the problem of those who remain but are totally overwhelmed. I see this not as a student issue but as a real and systemic problem in BASIS model but they don't see it that way and, because it is a model imposed from the top down and they have their #1 ranking, they are not inclined to change. So I don't teach there any more and I speak out against them from time to time. Truth to power, etc. :)
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I've been lurking here for days, PP, and your well-reasoned posts are refreshing.

However, your perspective as a teacher and my perspective as a parent are quite different.  Your teaching career affords you the luxury of moving from school to school over many years in search of a learning environment you consider to be ideal.  I must enroll my kids in school now and must select from among those that are available to me today.   Having put a lot of thought into this decision, I concluded that BASIS DC was the best choice.  Deal MS would probably have been my second choice, but we can't get in.  Latin PCS would have been my third choice, but we would probably not have gotten in any way.  After that, we probably would have moved to MD or VA.

You argue that the BASIS model is flawed because a large percentage of the kids who attend don't or cannot thrive there.  I, on the other hand, would argue that the struggling students at BASIS point to a failure on the part of local public schools.  If every middle schooler in had access to a functioning neighborhood MS and HS, those unhappy struggling kids at BASIS would return to their local schools.  They wouldn't remain at BASIS simply due to a lack of a reasonable alternative.[/quote]

I agree with you insofar as BASIS may, due to lack of alternatives, be the best option. HAving a great student body (generally motivated, grounded) and good teachers sad to say can be a rare thing in public schools. And yes this is due in large part to the abject failure of the public school system. But that doesn't alter the fact that the BASIS curriculum is seriously inappropriate for a substantial percentage of its student body but it keeps pushing enrollment because it needs to fill seats to keep lights on (for this reason, too, they insist that class size does not matter which I know to be flat wrong in an accelerated curriculum I don't care how many studies you wave in front of my face!). . Fact of the matter is that only a small subset of the student population is going to be able to handle accelerated math/science curriculum and this is regardless of what other options are out there.

My hippocratic oath for teaching says I cant teach at a place where many students are being hurt or not served by the system. And yes, i had the fortune to be able to move on. If I were a parent and my kid were able to thrive in that model I suppose that problem for others would not be my concern. But frequently parents of kids that are hurting do not realize how common and maybe unavoidable their experience is, so they and the student flail for years to keep the kid above water. [/quote]

You seem to be suggesting some necessity to be deceiving or misrepresenting themselves for mere fact of "the need to keep the lights on".  I really have to take exception to that, I have not at all seen that here in DC in their recruitment and retention.  They have been quite consistent in terms of what they are, how they operate, what they offer, what they don't offer, and what their expectations are.  No false advertising.[/quote]

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