Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yea, real problems.

Can we include a cram school housed in a cramped office building graduating 50 students a year substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools EotP?

I think this is the real question: Are charter schools like Basis substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools? Yes, it's absolutely true that if Basis weren't there, some engaged kids and parents would be going to neighborhood schools, bringing their talents, enthusiams, and ability to put political pressure on DCPS, and therefore helping to improve those schools. But how many - more than a handful? How much difference would they make in the overall quality of those schools? How much worse would the education of those kids be compared to what they are getting at BASIS? I really don't know.

I do know that the quality of neighborhood middle schools before charters was dismal. Granted, that was in a very different economic environment. There are many more upper-middle class families sending their children to public schools in DC now - both DCPS and charter. How much of that growth was due to charters? How much was because of other factors, such as the decline in crime? If those families were drawn into DC for other reasons, maybe without charters many of them would have gone to neighborhood schools.

- Basis middle school parent, whose child seems pretty happy and is certainly learning more than in his DCPS elementary school

As a parent if a high schooler and a middle schooler at BASIS EotP, we would have gone private or moved before we would have sent our DCs to the IB DCPS option. Going to a charter had no impact at all by us on our IB school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this implausible, and I am not a BASIS hater or critic.

How many kids among those 5 acceptances? I know of 1 Ivy and 1 MIT.

Pp - 6 different kids. 3 at Yale, 1 Dartmouth, 1 MIT and 1 Tufts early confirmed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yea, real problems.

Can we include a cram school housed in a cramped office building graduating 50 students a year substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools EotP?

I think this is the real question: Are charter schools like Basis substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools? Yes, it's absolutely true that if Basis weren't there, some engaged kids and parents would be going to neighborhood schools, bringing their talents, enthusiams, and ability to put political pressure on DCPS, and therefore helping to improve those schools. But how many - more than a handful? How much difference would they make in the overall quality of those schools? How much worse would the education of those kids be compared to what they are getting at BASIS? I really don't know.

I do know that the quality of neighborhood middle schools before charters was dismal. Granted, that was in a very different economic environment. There are many more upper-middle class families sending their children to public schools in DC now - both DCPS and charter. How much of that growth was due to charters? How much was because of other factors, such as the decline in crime? If those families were drawn into DC for other reasons, maybe without charters many of them would have gone to neighborhood schools.

- Basis middle school parent, whose child seems pretty happy and is certainly learning more than in his DCPS elementary school

As a parent if a high schooler and a middle schooler at BASIS EotP, we would have gone private or moved before we would have sent our DCs to the IB DCPS option. Going to a charter had no impact at all by us on our IB school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yea, real problems.

Can we include a cram school housed in a cramped office building graduating 50 students a year substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools EotP?

I think this is the real question: Are charter schools like Basis substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools? Yes, it's absolutely true that if Basis weren't there, some engaged kids and parents would be going to neighborhood schools, bringing their talents, enthusiams, and ability to put political pressure on DCPS, and therefore helping to improve those schools. But how many - more than a handful? How much difference would they make in the overall quality of those schools? How much worse would the education of those kids be compared to what they are getting at BASIS? I really don't know.

I do know that the quality of neighborhood middle schools before charters was dismal. Granted, that was in a very different economic environment. There are many more upper-middle class families sending their children to public schools in DC now - both DCPS and charter. How much of that growth was due to charters? How much was because of other factors, such as the decline in crime? If those families were drawn into DC for other reasons, maybe without charters many of them would have gone to neighborhood schools.

- Basis middle school parent, whose child seems pretty happy and is certainly learning more than in his DCPS elementary school

Anonymous wrote:Yea, real problems.

Can we include a cram school housed in a cramped office building graduating 50 students a year substituting for acceptable neighborhood public middle and high schools EotP?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, rah rah, boost boost, great job. This intriguing thread would be a lot more interesting and useful if we learned something about these future Yalies and the MIT applicant. Are they legacies, as has already been asked? Are they AA, white, Asian, low SES or high? Did families hire independent college counselors? Did their families seek out strong extra-curriculars BASIS doesn't offer over the years? Are they strong in English, foreign languages, science, math? Yea, we get the part about them having worked really hard while comprising a high-performing cohort since 5th grade, and overcoming the odds despite having gone to school in a building without so much as a computer lab in a school system without formal GT.

These are real students. Even if you hate everything that BASIS stands for and does, why do you feel the need to pick apart and denigrate the students accomplishments?

LOTS of students have strong extra-curriculars, solid academic skills across all subjects, high test scores, have been in magnet schools or ones with tracking, private counselors, and are rejected from top 10 universities every year. For whatever reason, Yale decided that 3 students at a tiny charter school should be admitted. Good for them.

Don't click on the thread, read or keep scrolling, offer congratulations. Please take your criticism, which you offer every time BASIS comes up using the exact same language, to another thread.

Exactly, agree with PP above. These kids worked hard in an environment that values high academic achievement and standards.

Legacy or no legacy, hooked or no hooked, whatever. You still need great academic achievements, success, scores, grades, etc.. to get the spot no matter what. As to outside extracurriculars and college counselors, please, as if it’s only Basis students doing it if they are.

Really, the people who harp on and on about the facilities don’t get it. The kids and parent who choose Basis doesn’t care about it. You may but they don’t. These people who have to put Basis down to feel good about whatever school their child is attending or have insecurities - the issue is not Basis, the issue is with you.

Lastly, no we don’t have a child at Basis. But what we do is say great and celebrate that these kids got into great schools coming from the district.

Anonymous wrote:You PPs sound ridiculously defensive.

Come on, every poster wanting to know details about what goes on at the school isn't intent on tearing BASIS down for no good reason. Unfortunately, BASIS and other charters don't get anywhere near their fair share of public funds per capita, leaving them in a poor position to support serious extra curriculars to burnish college applications. You see this in the sad fact that BASIS students who compete in academic competitions generally have to pay their own way to tournaments.

I'd like to know if the kids being admitted are low SES or high SES. Low SES get a deserved break in elite college admissions, particularly if they've been students in one of the country's lowest-performing urban school systems all along. High SES white students, not so much.

BASIS DC as a "tiny" little known charter school. Give us a break - the Arizona power franchise with multiple campuses has been around since the 90s. The Ivies know the BASIS miracle well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, rah rah, boost boost, great job. This intriguing thread would be a lot more interesting and useful if we learned something about these future Yalies and the MIT applicant. Are they legacies, as has already been asked? Are they AA, white, Asian, low SES or high? Did families hire independent college counselors? Did their families seek out strong extra-curriculars BASIS doesn't offer over the years? Are they strong in English, foreign languages, science, math? Yea, we get the part about them having worked really hard while comprising a high-performing cohort since 5th grade, and overcoming the odds despite having gone to school in a building without so much as a computer lab in a school system without formal GT.

These are real students. Even if you hate everything that BASIS stands for and does, why do you feel the need to pick apart and denigrate the students accomplishments?

LOTS of students have strong extra-curriculars, solid academic skills across all subjects, high test scores, have been in magnet schools or ones with tracking, private counselors, and are rejected from top 10 universities every year. For whatever reason, Yale decided that 3 students at a tiny charter school should be admitted. Good for them.

Don't click on the thread, read or keep scrolling, offer congratulations. Please take your criticism, which you offer every time BASIS comes up using the exact same language, to another thread.

Anonymous wrote:OK, rah rah, boost boost, great job. This intriguing thread would be a lot more interesting and useful if we learned something about these future Yalies and the MIT applicant. Are they legacies, as has already been asked? Are they AA, white, Asian, low SES or high? Did families hire independent college counselors? Did their families seek out strong extra-curriculars BASIS doesn't offer over the years? Are they strong in English, foreign languages, science, math? Yea, we get the part about them having worked really hard while comprising a high-performing cohort since 5th grade, and overcoming the odds despite having gone to school in a building without so much as a computer lab in a school system without formal GT.