Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Other subjects at Deal are not tracked,but were appropriately challenging (but not over the top); many Deal students go on to take at least one AP in 10th grade and 3, 4 or 5 APs each year in 11th and 12th grades at Wilson.

OP again, grateful that my house doesn't look like one on Stanton Is. or the NJ Shore. Thank you, pp, for confirming that Deal is not in fact tracking outside math classes. Math instruction sounds very strong at both schools and, hence, appropriate for my kids.

I just checked the 2012 DC-CAS scores for reading by school and it seems that nearly 20% of Deal students did not test proficient or advanced. With no humanities tracking, that means that around 1 kid in 5 in every class other than math must lack basic skills, correct? How could classes indeed be appropriately challenging then when a sizeable minority of students in each is working below grade level? Teachers surely need to focus on ensuring that low-performing kids will test proficient in the future, rather than pushing high-performing kids to work harder and achieve more. Are most high-SES parents OK with the near universal tracking deficit? Do parents expect tracking outside math to enter the picture in the forseeable future? I ask in all seriousness, being new to the DC public schools middle school scene. My kids have scored advanced in both reading and math on every DC-CAS they've taken thus far.

Well, my child is in the 5th grade and takes Robotics as an extracurricular class at Basis and it is on Mondays and it IS $300! There is also another Robotics class offers as a academic class but that too has a fee but I'm just not sure what that is. I would presume it was $300 to since Basis said the $300 pays for the Robotics kit itself.

Last week, there was an interesting 40-post thread entitled "TAG testing and differentiation in DCPS" on which pps made the case for middle school tracking. The lack of tracking at Deal, combined with social promotion, concerns me greatly, as do relatively thin sounding extra-curriculars and cramped facilities at a cash-strapped charter. Gosh, $300 for robotics? So poor kids can't participate? Can't a franchise with roots on the opposite side of the country raise money to include all interested kids in every elective/club?

Thanks for advancing this somewhat sobering research project at any rate.

I am not so sure the info about Robotics is correct. I would definitely be asking Basis itself before relying on a message board.

Anonymous wrote:Public school education and there's reference of they take FARMS into account. This is freaking crazy! Free public education is what Basis offers, am I correct? Finding fees acceptable should be everyones least worries. It is crazy to think that if a child's family qualifies for FARM that they are too poor to play public intramural sports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: Other subjects at Deal are not tracked,but were appropriately challenging (but not over the top); many Deal students go on to take at least one AP in 10th grade and 3, 4 or 5 APs each year in 11th and 12th grades at Wilson.

OP again, grateful that my house doesn't look like one on Stanton Is. or the NJ Shore. Thank you, pp, for confirming that Deal is not in fact tracking outside math classes. Math instruction sounds very strong at both schools and, hence, appropriate for my kids.

I just checked the 2012 DC-CAS scores for reading by school and it seems that nearly 20% of Deal students did not test proficient or advanced. With no humanities tracking, that means that around 1 kid in 5 in every class other than math must lack basic skills, correct? How could classes indeed be appropriately challenging then when a sizeable minority of students in each is working below grade level? Teachers surely need to focus on ensuring that low-performing kids will test proficient in the future, rather than pushing high-performing kids to work harder and achieve more. Are most high-SES parents OK with the near universal tracking deficit? Do parents expect tracking outside math to enter the picture in the forseeable future? I ask in all seriousness, being new to the DC public schools middle school scene. My kids have scored advanced in both reading and math on every DC-CAS they've taken thus far.

Last week, there was an interesting 40-post thread entitled "TAG testing and differentiation in DCPS" on which pps made the case for middle school tracking. The lack of tracking at Deal, combined with social promotion, concerns me greatly, as do relatively thin sounding extra-curriculars and cramped facilities at a cash-strapped charter. Gosh, $300 for robotics? So poor kids can't participate? Can't a franchise with roots on the opposite side of the country raise money to include all interested kids in every elective/club?

Thanks for advancing this somewhat sobering research project at any rate.

Anonymous wrote:Public school education and there's reference of they take FARMS into account. This is freaking crazy! Free public education is what Basis offers, am I correct? Finding fees acceptable should be everyones least worries. It is crazy to think that if a child's family qualifies for FARM that they are too poor to play public intramural sports.

Anonymous wrote: Other subjects at Deal are not tracked,but were appropriately challenging (but not over the top); many Deal students go on to take at least one AP in 10th grade and 3, 4 or 5 APs each year in 11th and 12th grades at Wilson.