Anonymous wrote:"You missed the point that the needs of advanced learners are not[u] being met by public schools. Do not these students count as well? Shall we not meet their needs?"

The vast majority of students' needs are not being met. The average, the above average, the special needs students, and the challenged. The so called advanced learners are not entitled to any greater services than any other city child. Their families should not be allowed to change the charter law to allow them to keep their precious lottery spot throughout high school at taxpayer expense unless every other child gets a fair chance to join that school and cannot be shut out because the families of allegedly advanced students got lucky when their kid is in kinder.

You can't shut out other kids you don't want in your tax payer funded school, under some foolish delusion that you earned it because your child is advanced, and somehow, underserved.

what's wrong with you?

Anonymous wrote:"Seems to me that the law should be changed to allow for some application based charter schools so that all students needs are met unlike now where they are not."

Because, as PPs have noted, this would create tax payer funded private schools serving a very small subset of the children in DC. In reality, all of DC's children deserve an education that meets their needs, not just the those represented by parent groups who want to game the system to their own ends.

Anonymous wrote:"Seems to me that the law should be changed to allow for some application based charter schools so that all students needs are met unlike now where they are not."

Because, as PPs have noted, this would create tax payer funded private schools serving a very small subset of the children in DC. In reality, all of DC's children deserve an education that meets their needs, not just the those represented by parent groups who want to game the system to their own ends.

Anonymous wrote:


Hilarious. ANY school would be better off screening for aptitude and working with available talent. That's exactly why the private schools do it - because they can. But, a magnet charter? That is ground that DC will not cede willingly to the charters. Charter law does not allow it, and everyone knows that if they could cherry-pick, they would. So, if anyone is going to allowed to do it, it will be a DCPS middle school. Not Basis.

Anonymous wrote:

The way to raise the performance for charters is the way it's happening now. You develop a school that has such high expectations that it will encourage families to self select and discourage those who are struggling academically. That is what is happening with the likes of Latin, BASIS and now Sela.

In effect, creating private schools using public money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A school like Basis, or Latin, for that matter, would surely flourish as an academic magnet, like those in NYC. With luck as the only criterion for admission, the middle school will surely muddle through, but the high school can only be mediocre when compared to suburban magnets (look at Latin, where the the middle school is 41% white and the high school just 11%, with white as a proxy for upper-middle-class and nothing more). Great teaching, great leadership, great planning, great facilities won't change this in DC.

As you probably know, in NYC, kids test into talented and gifted elementary and middle schools, which feed into some of the nation's best public high schools, Bronx Science, Hunter, Stuyvesant, Bronx Tech, Bard etc. If a student scores poorly on the SSAT, NYC's magent admissions exam given in 8th grade, they can't attend one of the elite high schools. But rigorous test prep is given freely to middle school kids from low-income families at various city centers.

Why is the concept of what some cities call "exam schools" (Boston Latin was the first) still anathama in DC when such schools are now found all over the country? I note that the great majority of the high schools on the US News and World Report "Gold" list are magnets, not charters where the state law mandates one open lottery per school as the only route to admission. Why is luck the best criterion for admission when, as a society, we don't hesitate to exclude kids without the requisite talent and drive from competing in elite youth sports, music, chess or whatever. Genius springs up in odd places - why not focus on finding some of the brightest and most disciplined kids in the District and drawing them to Basis? That's what Takoma Park MS does with its math/science/computer magenet (admitting 16% of students) and the spectacular results are plain to see - kids, even poor ones, winning INTEL prizes etc. a few years hence. I don't get it, why not in DC. Why is this impossible in our city but not in others with large minority populations, like Chicago and Atlanta? Enlighten me.

My own children aren't even of school age yet, but I ask this in all seriousness. In the DC burbs, academic magnet programs serve to keep upper-middle-class parents from voting with their feet in droves after elementary - what's so horrible about that? Surely poor kids benefit from keeping the affluent engaged in K-12 public education in large numbers. I interview seniors in DCPS and charters applying to my Ivy alma mater as an alum volunteer every fall. They don't fare at all well as a group, and not for lack of brains or industry. While Stuyveswant will get 30-40 into any particular Ivy every year, Wilson, SWW, Banneker, and now Latin, are lucky to get a handful. Ivies work well for the poor because they're practically a free college education as much as anything else.

PP is clearly thinking a little logically for DCPS & DC Charter! Yes, public resources will be squandered trying to turn eager, but academically average or below average, kids escaping weak/middling neighborhood Mschools into academic superstars in high school. Basis would be far better off screening for aptitude, and working with available talent, no matter who’s in charge, than relying on an open lottery.

“Must Test Advanced on 4th Grade DC-CAS” to apply would hardly be an unreasonable policy. FARMs kids who test advanced should have an automatic in, as long as their schools aren’t under investigation for cheating. The CS Board should work with the DC City Council to amend the law, which has been amended before (twice).

NYC MS magnets work that way –a kid gets a certain combined score on the 4th and 5th grade NYC standardized tests or can’t go. Remembering that this is not one of the several lowest-performing urban school districts in the country for nothing helps you get your head around why DC charters can’t select students who are a good fit, like the independents do. Yu Ying doesn’t even have a lottery for Chinese-speaking kids, helping explain why they’re only a handful in the school, and the kids almost always speak English when not addressing a teacher. And YY is the paragon, right?!

Anonymous wrote:The way to raise the performance for charters is the way it's happening now. You develop a school that has such high expectations that it will encourage families to self select and discourage those who are struggling academically. That is what is happening with the likes of Latin, BASIS and now Sela.

Anonymous wrote:
S/he is entitled to her views. High expectations aren't the only issue. Creating academic stars in HS from kids who can't so much as score Advanced on DC-CAS tests lower down is no more feasible than producing musical prodigies from kids without much musical talent. Too many kids who won't bring sufficient academic promise will coast into Basis on lottery luck. True of all races and classes.

Anonymous wrote:

The way to raise the performance for charters is the way it's happening now. You develop a school that has such high expectations that it will encourage families to self select and discourage those who are struggling academically. That is what is happening with the likes of Latin, BASIS and now Sela.

In effect, creating private schools using public money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The way to raise the performance for charters is the way it's happening now. You develop a school that has such high expectations that it will encourage families to self select and discourage those who are struggling academically. That is what is happening with the likes of Latin, BASIS and now Sela.

In effect, creating private schools using public money.

This is breathtakingly inappropriate. You seem to be arguing that only those who can pay for a private school deserve to go to a school with high expectations. What is wrong with you?

Anonymous wrote:

The way to raise the performance for charters is the way it's happening now. You develop a school that has such high expectations that it will encourage families to self select and discourage those who are struggling academically. That is what is happening with the likes of Latin, BASIS and now Sela.

In effect, creating private schools using public money.