Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From what I've observed in DC, and a sibling with kids in a BASIS AZ school has observed there, families leave in fairly large numbers for a great variety of reasons. The AZ schools generally graduate around 1/3 of the original 5th grade group, what BASIS wants. There is absolutely weeding out of middle school kids deemed undesirable, plenty. There's also some weeding out of parents who challenge policy. BASIS spins it all differently, but that's what it amounts to. I'm told that in AZ, political push back to BASIS' weeding out methods has been growing in recent years. The franchise can no longer get away with their most egregious culling practices.

My kids' school offers a lot of tutoring and student hours for struggling students. It's not like they're actively trying to get rid of kids. They're just not willing to compromise their standards. Really, BASIS is for kids who are bright and motivated. If you think that charter schools exclusively serving the gifted/high achieving population serve an important function, then you wouldn't object to the way BASIS implements its standards. If you think that charter schools that don't serve the broader population are problematic, then you'd obviously have issues with BASIS. A lot of it comes down to what you view as the role of charters.

I'm thrilled with BASIS, because my motivated, bright, high achieving kids finally have an outlet and are learning. They were largely ignored and bored out of their minds in their regular public schools. I wish BASIS had admissions tests, so they could weed out kids who are unlikely to be successful before placing the kids in a classroom and letting them fail. Self-selection isn't working, since every parent of an average kid seems to think that the kid is gifted and belongs in essentially a gifted school.

I'll point out that Basis currently offers in-person support for struggling kids and has done so since October. No DCPS has done so.

Our DCPS will start with a 5-day a week in-person class for our struggling kid on Monday in a class of 11 kids. The WTU is starting to lose control.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From what I've observed in DC, and a sibling with kids in a BASIS AZ school has observed there, families leave in fairly large numbers for a great variety of reasons. The AZ schools generally graduate around 1/3 of the original 5th grade group, what BASIS wants. There is absolutely weeding out of middle school kids deemed undesirable, plenty. There's also some weeding out of parents who challenge policy. BASIS spins it all differently, but that's what it amounts to. I'm told that in AZ, political push back to BASIS' weeding out methods has been growing in recent years. The franchise can no longer get away with their most egregious culling practices.

My kids' school offers a lot of tutoring and student hours for struggling students. It's not like they're actively trying to get rid of kids. They're just not willing to compromise their standards. Really, BASIS is for kids who are bright and motivated. If you think that charter schools exclusively serving the gifted/high achieving population serve an important function, then you wouldn't object to the way BASIS implements its standards. If you think that charter schools that don't serve the broader population are problematic, then you'd obviously have issues with BASIS. A lot of it comes down to what you view as the role of charters.

I'm thrilled with BASIS, because my motivated, bright, high achieving kids finally have an outlet and are learning. They were largely ignored and bored out of their minds in their regular public schools. I wish BASIS had admissions tests, so they could weed out kids who are unlikely to be successful before placing the kids in a classroom and letting them fail. Self-selection isn't working, since every parent of an average kid seems to think that the kid is gifted and belongs in essentially a gifted school.

I'll point out that Basis currently offers in-person support for struggling kids and has done so since October. No DCPS has done so.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From what I've observed in DC, and a sibling with kids in a BASIS AZ school has observed there, families leave in fairly large numbers for a great variety of reasons. The AZ schools generally graduate around 1/3 of the original 5th grade group, what BASIS wants. There is absolutely weeding out of middle school kids deemed undesirable, plenty. There's also some weeding out of parents who challenge policy. BASIS spins it all differently, but that's what it amounts to. I'm told that in AZ, political push back to BASIS' weeding out methods has been growing in recent years. The franchise can no longer get away with their most egregious culling practices.

My kids' school offers a lot of tutoring and student hours for struggling students. It's not like they're actively trying to get rid of kids. They're just not willing to compromise their standards. Really, BASIS is for kids who are bright and motivated. If you think that charter schools exclusively serving the gifted/high achieving population serve an important function, then you wouldn't object to the way BASIS implements its standards. If you think that charter schools that don't serve the broader population are problematic, then you'd obviously have issues with BASIS. A lot of it comes down to what you view as the role of charters.

I'm thrilled with BASIS, because my motivated, bright, high achieving kids finally have an outlet and are learning. They were largely ignored and bored out of their minds in their regular public schools. I wish BASIS had admissions tests, so they could weed out kids who are unlikely to be successful before placing the kids in a classroom and letting them fail. Self-selection isn't working, since every parent of an average kid seems to think that the kid is gifted and belongs in essentially a gifted school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
From what I've observed in DC, and a sibling with kids in a BASIS AZ school has observed there, families leave in fairly large numbers for a great variety of reasons. The AZ schools generally graduate around 1/3 of the original 5th grade group, what BASIS wants. There is absolutely weeding out of middle school kids deemed undesirable, plenty. There's also some weeding out of parents who challenge policy. BASIS spins it all differently, but that's what it amounts to. I'm told that in AZ, political push back to BASIS' weeding out methods has been growing in recent years. The franchise can no longer get away with their most egregious culling practices.

My kids' school offers a lot of tutoring and student hours for struggling students. It's not like they're actively trying to get rid of kids. They're just not willing to compromise their standards. Really, BASIS is for kids who are bright and motivated. If you think that charter schools exclusively serving the gifted/high achieving population serve an important function, then you wouldn't object to the way BASIS implements its standards. If you think that charter schools that don't serve the broader population are problematic, then you'd obviously have issues with BASIS. A lot of it comes down to what you view as the role of charters.

I'm thrilled with BASIS, because my motivated, bright, high achieving kids finally have an outlet and are learning. They were largely ignored and bored out of their minds in their regular public schools. I wish BASIS had admissions tests, so they could weed out kids who are unlikely to be successful before placing the kids in a classroom and letting them fail. Self-selection isn't working, since every parent of an average kid seems to think that the kid is gifted and belongs in essentially a gifted school.

Anonymous wrote:
From what I've observed in DC, and a sibling with kids in a BASIS AZ school has observed there, families leave in fairly large numbers for a great variety of reasons. The AZ schools generally graduate around 1/3 of the original 5th grade group, what BASIS wants. There is absolutely weeding out of middle school kids deemed undesirable, plenty. There's also some weeding out of parents who challenge policy. BASIS spins it all differently, but that's what it amounts to. I'm told that in AZ, political push back to BASIS' weeding out methods has been growing in recent years. The franchise can no longer get away with their most egregious culling practices.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What are you smoking, PP? It is a permanent trend, by design, not a secret. The AZ campuses ensure that most of the middle school students don't stay for high school. Somewhere between half and two-thirds of the middle school students have been gone by high school at the original campuses since the 90s. That's the BASIS model. The franchise gets away with weeding out most of their public school students by 9th grade everywhere they operate.

Huh. In my kids' BASIS school, it is true that they go from 180 5th graders to maybe 70 graduating seniors. It isn't due to weeding out underperforming kids, though. Some kids leave because BASIS is too small to have competitive sports teams, large orchestras, big drama programs, etc. These kids want a more normal high school experience with all of the things available at larger schools. Also, there are some elite test-in magnets (somewhat comparable to TJ) that draw off large portions of the BASIS crowd.

Anonymous wrote:Come on, Deal has a decent building and academics. Whatever happened to Alice Deal for all?

Anonymous wrote:Deal does not reflect most DCPS middle schools, certainly not my inbound.

Anonymous wrote:

What are you smoking, PP? It is a permanent trend, by design, not a secret. The AZ campuses ensure that most of the middle school students don't stay for high school. Somewhere between half and two-thirds of the middle school students have been gone by high school at the original campuses since the 90s. That's the BASIS model. The franchise gets away with weeding out most of their public school students by 9th grade everywhere they operate.

Anonymous wrote:
This sort of blame-the-families take on BASIS isn't reasonable. My kid could handle the homework, the pressure, the inflexibility without difficulty. But it wasn't a humane set up. Kids who weren't going to last were routinely shunned by others (don't bother with him, he won't be in our grade next year). Middle schoolers, particularly boys, bounced off the walls without enough natural light, space or exercise to thrive. Just not a very happy place. Not what the taxpayer should be paying for.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the inveterate boosters are the worst on these threads.

BASIS admins can do no wrong.

C'mon, the program doesn't go from around 130 mostly bright and hard-working 5th graders to four dozen seniors without a whole bunch of families finding BASIS lacking.

Basis parent here. There's plenty of things not to like or not to like about Basis. But I would argue it's a bit early to claim this is the permanent trend- its first class of 5th graders only graduated last year.

What are you smoking, PP? It is a permanent trend, by design, not a secret. The AZ campuses ensure that most of the middle school students don't stay for high school. Somewhere between half and two-thirds of the middle school students have been gone by high school at the original campuses since the 90s. That's the BASIS model. The franchise gets away with weeding out most of their public school students by 9th grade everywhere they operate.