Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want to gather good info, listen to parents of top performers who left BASIS 3, 4 or 5 years in. All ears? Be open to moving to NoVa if you can't afford private school.

Doesn't this mean that it's the best public option in DC?

Not necessarily. We switched from BASIS to SH after 5th. Kid is on his way to Walls in the fall, while his elementary school pals at BASIS who tried for Walls weren't offered spots. We supplemented in various ways at SH, especially for science and social studies, but that worked better for us than BASIS, which we disliked.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You want to gather good info, listen to parents of top performers who left BASIS 3, 4 or 5 years in. All ears? Be open to moving to NoVa if you can't afford private school.

Doesn't this mean that it's the best public option in DC?

Anonymous wrote:You want to gather good info, listen to parents of top performers who left BASIS 3, 4 or 5 years in. All ears? Be open to moving to NoVa if you can't afford private school.

Anonymous wrote:You want to gather good info, listen to parents of top performers who left BASIS 3, 4 or 5 years in. All ears? Be open to moving to NoVa if you can't afford private school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids don't really "start taking physics, chemistry and biology in 6th grade." BASIS just claims they do. What they take is the regular middle school science kids get at good suburban middle schools around the country on a campus without the facilities for hands-on science learning, like a greenhouse or space to fly kites, test DIY rockets or drones or a real robotics lab. They also take what amounts to the same science over and over for years until they're bored silly with it. The curriculum is narrow primarily because electives are so weak, largely a function of the hopeless facilities, and because BASIS won't let kids study languages before 8th grade (much too little, too late here in the 21st century). A lot of these posts aren't in fact sour grapes. They're simply brutally factual. You don't really know what you're in for at BASIS, because you don't know what kind of admins or teachers your kids will get, or what sort of element (middle school cohorts) they'll land in either. There are decent admins and awful ones, there are well-behaved cohorts and rowdy ones. There are woefully inexperienced and overwhelmed teachers who quit mid-year and experienced teachers who don't.

Okay, this made me laugh out loud, because I graduated from one of our highly-rated suburban high schools in FCPS and we also were not blessed with greenhouses or kites or a robotics lab. We theoretically had a chem lab, but I took AP chem there and we used those tables to write on, not to do bench chemistry. I expect that I'll pay through the nose for my kid to be a college student somewhere with these facilities, but I have more modest expectations for publicly-funded middle schools. Meanwhile, we fly drones and model rockets (although not in DC airspace, sigh) and do our own gardening and chemistry experiments.

My rising fifth-grader is looking forward to BASIS because he's brilliant at math. He would rather scrub bathrooms than perform on stage or play football, and he hates the language learning he's done already. He rises to clearly-defined expectations and wants to know all the science things. Is there probably a more perfect school for him somewhere in this country? Sure. Is BASIS the best choice for us, given what we know right now? Yes. Any school experience anywhere can be changed by bad administrators or a particularly difficult cohort of students, so that's not really a deciding factor. We would rather have a better building. We'll see how the homework and comps shake out. It's a school, not a prison, and we're open to changing course as needed.

Maybe we could all take a deep breath? BASIS isn't the best school since Harvard, and it's not child abuse. It's just a school.

You haven't even tried BASIS yet? Get a life.

Anonymous wrote:You have a student in the BASIS middle school? I have science degrees, BA and MA from MIT. The science at BASIS repeats without much thought, promoting mind-numbing boredom on the part of kids who started out with real enthusiasm. There isn't nearly enough hands-on instruction or good teaching to keep the kids engaged.

We even tried the high school but left for a private after 9th. Before anybody jumps in applauding how we "washed out," I note that my kid scored high on AB Calc in 9th. Relieved to be gone, to a school that teaches all 4 AP Physics courses. BASIS teaches 1.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kids don't really "start taking physics, chemistry and biology in 6th grade." BASIS just claims they do. What they take is the regular middle school science kids get at good suburban middle schools around the country on a campus without the facilities for hands-on science learning, like a greenhouse or space to fly kites, test DIY rockets or drones or a real robotics lab. They also take what amounts to the same science over and over for years until they're bored silly with it. The curriculum is narrow primarily because electives are so weak, largely a function of the hopeless facilities, and because BASIS won't let kids study languages before 8th grade (much too little, too late here in the 21st century). A lot of these posts aren't in fact sour grapes. They're simply brutally factual. You don't really know what you're in for at BASIS, because you don't know what kind of admins or teachers your kids will get, or what sort of element (middle school cohorts) they'll land in either. There are decent admins and awful ones, there are well-behaved cohorts and rowdy ones. There are woefully inexperienced and overwhelmed teachers who quit mid-year and experienced teachers who don't.

Okay, this made me laugh out loud, because I graduated from one of our highly-rated suburban high schools in FCPS and we also were not blessed with greenhouses or kites or a robotics lab. We theoretically had a chem lab, but I took AP chem there and we used those tables to write on, not to do bench chemistry. I expect that I'll pay through the nose for my kid to be a college student somewhere with these facilities, but I have more modest expectations for publicly-funded middle schools. Meanwhile, we fly drones and model rockets (although not in DC airspace, sigh) and do our own gardening and chemistry experiments.

My rising fifth-grader is looking forward to BASIS because he's brilliant at math. He would rather scrub bathrooms than perform on stage or play football, and he hates the language learning he's done already. He rises to clearly-defined expectations and wants to know all the science things. Is there probably a more perfect school for him somewhere in this country? Sure. Is BASIS the best choice for us, given what we know right now? Yes. Any school experience anywhere can be changed by bad administrators or a particularly difficult cohort of students, so that's not really a deciding factor. We would rather have a better building. We'll see how the homework and comps shake out. It's a school, not a prison, and we're open to changing course as needed.

Maybe we could all take a deep breath? BASIS isn't the best school since Harvard, and it's not child abuse. It's just a school.

Anonymous wrote:The kids don't really "start taking physics, chemistry and biology in 6th grade." BASIS just claims they do. What they take is the regular middle school science kids get at good suburban middle schools around the country on a campus without the facilities for hands-on science learning, like a greenhouse or space to fly kites, test DIY rockets or drones or a real robotics lab. They also take what amounts to the same science over and over for years until they're bored silly with it. The curriculum is narrow primarily because electives are so weak, largely a function of the hopeless facilities, and because BASIS won't let kids study languages before 8th grade (much too little, too late here in the 21st century). A lot of these posts aren't in fact sour grapes. They're simply brutally factual. You don't really know what you're in for at BASIS, because you don't know what kind of admins or teachers your kids will get, or what sort of element (middle school cohorts) they'll land in either. There are decent admins and awful ones, there are well-behaved cohorts and rowdy ones. There are woefully inexperienced and overwhelmed teachers who quit mid-year and experienced teachers who don't.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is pretty lame.

1) If your kid is not academically inclined and you are only sending your kid to BASIS because your in-bounds school is really bad, it is probably not going to work out for you. Also, if the reason you picked BASIS is just because your kid didn’t get into Latin, that is another bad reason. Please do your research before you send your kid to BASIS and make a different choice.

2) Sure, there is a lot of attrition at BASIS but that is only because 1) BASIS generally doesn’t admit after 5th grade; 2) they don’t socially promote; and 3) they don’t backfill. Moreover, kids that leave the school depart for many reasons. Some leave because they can’t handle the curriculum (see #1 above). Those parents didn’t do their research and made a bad choice. Others leave for Walls, private, or some non-DC school elsewhere in the region, U.S., or overseas. Some of the kids who leave BASIS are struggling. Others are excelling. The fact that high school classes are smaller than middle school classes just reflects the situation that BASIS finds itself in DC and its charter; it says nothing about the merits of the school.

3) While BASIS isn’t perfect, it is far better than the alternatives for an academically inclined kid. That is reflected in the PARCC scores for BASIS, which are significantly better than other public schools in DC, especially after a few years. Since a couple of posters mentioned Latin, just look at the 4+ PARCC scores for those 2 schools for high school, after kids have been at the schools for a while:

BASIS

ELA 4+ 92.06
Math 4+ 66.12

Latin

ELA 4+ 70.71
Math 4+ 30.47

Anyone claiming that Latin is on par academically with BASIS is just wrong.

4) BASIS parents can attest that the curriculum at the school is very rigorous and kids are learning a lot. Anyone asserting that the curriculum is “narrow” is way off the mark. BASIS kids learn a huge amount of advanced material and the curriculum is far broader and more comprehensive than any other public school in DC. For instance, kids start taking physics, chemistry, and biology in 6th grade and continue through 12th grade. That is hardly “narrow.”

5) People complaining about the curriculum ignore the fact that all BASIS schools, public and private have the same curriculum. BASIS has 11 schools in the USN&WR top 100 public high schools in the country, including the #1 school in the entire U.S., and Niche ranks BASIS McLean as the top private school in the DMV--ahead of Sidwell, GDS, and STA/NCS. The BASIS curriculum is fine.

6) Basically, a lot of these posts are just sour grapes: parents sent their kids to BASIS without doing their research or because they didn’t have good middle school options (their in-bounds middle school was bad, they didn’t have money for private, or they didn’t want to move to the suburbs). They then come to DCUM and bash the school to cover up their poor decisions.

Enough. Just leave BASIS to the rest of us.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is pretty lame.

1) If your kid is not academically inclined and you are only sending your kid to BASIS because your in-bounds school is really bad, it is probably not going to work out for you. Also, if the reason you picked BASIS is just because your kid didn’t get into Latin, that is another bad reason. Please do your research before you send your kid to BASIS and make a different choice.

2) Sure, there is a lot of attrition at BASIS but that is only because 1) BASIS generally doesn’t admit after 5th grade; 2) they don’t socially promote; and 3) they don’t backfill. Moreover, kids that leave the school depart for many reasons. Some leave because they can’t handle the curriculum (see #1 above). Those parents didn’t do their research and made a bad choice. Others leave for Walls, private, or some non-DC school elsewhere in the region, U.S., or overseas. Some of the kids who leave BASIS are struggling. Others are excelling. The fact that high school classes are smaller than middle school classes just reflects the situation that BASIS finds itself in DC and its charter; it says nothing about the merits of the school.

3) While BASIS isn’t perfect, it is far better than the alternatives for an academically inclined kid. That is reflected in the PARCC scores for BASIS, which are significantly better than other public schools in DC, especially after a few years. Since a couple of posters mentioned Latin, just look at the 4+ PARCC scores for those 2 schools for high school, after kids have been at the schools for a while:

BASIS

ELA 4+ 92.06
Math 4+ 66.12

Latin

ELA 4+ 70.71
Math 4+ 30.47

Anyone claiming that Latin is on par academically with BASIS is just wrong.

4) BASIS parents can attest that the curriculum at the school is very rigorous and kids are learning a lot. Anyone asserting that the curriculum is “narrow” is way off the mark. BASIS kids learn a huge amount of advanced material and the curriculum is far broader and more comprehensive than any other public school in DC. For instance, kids start taking physics, chemistry, and biology in 6th grade and continue through 12th grade. That is hardly “narrow.”

5) People complaining about the curriculum ignore the fact that all BASIS schools, public and private have the same curriculum. BASIS has 11 schools in the USN&WR top 100 public high schools in the country, including the #1 school in the entire U.S., and Niche ranks BASIS McLean as the top private school in the DMV--ahead of Sidwell, GDS, and STA/NCS. The BASIS curriculum is fine.

6) Basically, a lot of these posts are just sour grapes: parents sent their kids to BASIS without doing their research or because they didn’t have good middle school options (their in-bounds middle school was bad, they didn’t have money for private, or they didn’t want to move to the suburbs). They then come to DCUM and bash the school to cover up their poor decisions.

Enough. Just leave BASIS to the rest of us.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did you not research at all before signing up? Very frustrating as the parent of a kid who really wanted to go and would have thrived there, but didn't get a spot. Thanks for wasting one.

You're probably better off...

This is just not universally true. I know, in real life, kids who are happy there. They have to students who want to study a lot and work hard. I also know kids who absolutely hated and got out. Those kids should never have gone there, and should have left the spot for someone who is more suited.

this is about to turn into a "BASIS is child abuse" post, and it is a real disservice to DC parents who have a kid would would enjoy it and love the chance to take advanced classes.

Statistically, they are probably better off, since the number of kids who graduate is a small fraction of those who start middle school there. So, yes it is true that they PROBABLY are better off not having gone there.