Anonymous wrote:help me understand this: is there any prohibition on BASIS pulling in students from outside the DC area, who would PAY tuition? I had heard that other charters accepted out-of-staters with tuition...that might make up the numbers as attrition hits the upper grades

Anonymous wrote:
The price for staying in DC will be providing an alternate path for the students who can't be in the regular program (a la Yu Ying). Yu Ying isn't allowed to counsel out the low-performing students, Basis won't be either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The Arizona high attrition model won’t fly in DC for obvious reasons. Instead, Basis will come under heavy pressure from charter board to manufacture a creative solution to keep struggling students on board, e.g. Yu Ying’s non-immersion Mandarin track (where all the kids are black). The National Assessment for Educational Progress (think tank giving a small percent of students in every state and DC the same test in 4th and 8th grades) findings on the vast black-white achievement gap in DC, coupled with non-selective admissions, do not auger well for the school: more than a third of DC white kids currently score in NAEP’s “advanced” category for reading and math (vs. 14% of white in the highest scoring state, Massachusetts) and 1-2% of black kids. Politically, will Basis be in a good position to encourage a large percentage of the black kids to hit the road? The franchise surely won’t bite the hand that feeds it, risking having their charter revoked, by allowing anywhere near the attrition rates seen in AZ. No, standards will invariably be watered down instead, with victory declared in the number of AP tests taken per capita (easy to do when there’s no magic AP pass number, and scores of 2s and 3s out of 5 on AP tests are already the DCPS norm).

You raise several interesting points, PP.

I too have been concerned about the possible watering down of the BASIS curriculum over time as a "solution" to the high attrition rate. However, I suspect that if push came to shove, BASIS would abandon its charter in DC rather than water down its curriculum.

The BASIS mission statement is unequivocal:

"BASIS seeks to provide an accelerated liberal arts education at internationally competitive levels for all students. The rigorous college preparatory education at BASIS readies students for the competitive admissions process, helps them become eligible for scholarships, prepares them to prosper at top colleges, and enriches their lives."

Why would BASIS maintain a presence in DC if doing so required the curriculum to be watered down to the point that few of its DC graduates were prepared to attend top colleges? The small overhead the national organization receives per child in DC would hardly justify sacrificing the organization's mission or its reputation.

BASIS is not Latin. BASIS can leave DC and continue to expand in Arizona. Latin cannot.

Thus, the real issue, then, is whether the charter school board will drive BASIS out of DC due to the high attrition rate. I think it is highly unlikely that the charter school board will do so.

The board has adopted a system for assessing charter school performance known as the PMF. Under PMF, the re-enrollment rate contributes only 10 out of 100 points to the overall assessment. A five-year graduation rate of 35% suggests a re-enrollment rate of about 81% (.81 ^ 5 is about .349). Re-enrollment rates for DC charters range from about 55% to about 90%. Latin, with its re-enrollment rate of 87.9% received 9.41 of 10 points. Chavez, with its re-enrollment rate of 71.3% received 4.73 points.

On the other hand, year-to-year growth on the DC-CAS over time of individual students contributes 40 out of 100 points on the PMF (20 points for Reading and 20 points for Math), DC-CAS achievement contributes 25 points (12.5 reading, 12.5 math), and 8th grade proficiency on the DC-CAS math contributes 15 points. Attendance contributes the remaining 10 points.

The rigorous curriculum at BASIS combined with the comprehensive testing mean that the vast majority of students there will either make academic progress or choose to leave. Those that make progress will increase the BASIS PMF score significantly, while those who leave will reduce the score by only a small amount. Why would the charter board drive BASIS out of DC for poor re-enrollment results when re-enrollment is tied with attendance for last place in its assessment scheme?

Anonymous wrote:
The Arizona high attrition model won’t fly in DC for obvious reasons. Instead, Basis will come under heavy pressure from charter board to manufacture a creative solution to keep struggling students on board, e.g. Yu Ying’s non-immersion Mandarin track (where all the kids are black). The National Assessment for Educational Progress (think tank giving a small percent of students in every state and DC the same test in 4th and 8th grades) findings on the vast black-white achievement gap in DC, coupled with non-selective admissions, do not auger well for the school: more than a third of DC white kids currently score in NAEP’s “advanced” category for reading and math (vs. 14% of white in the highest scoring state, Massachusetts) and 1-2% of black kids. Politically, will Basis be in a good position to encourage a large percentage of the black kids to hit the road? The franchise surely won’t bite the hand that feeds it, risking having their charter revoked, by allowing anywhere near the attrition rates seen in AZ. No, standards will invariably be watered down instead, with victory declared in the number of AP tests taken per capita (easy to do when there’s no magic AP pass number, and scores of 2s and 3s out of 5 on AP tests are already the DCPS norm).

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't it be more cost effective for a school like Basis simply to select the kids who probably have the potential to handle half a dozen or more AP classes at the 5th grade or MS level? High attrition is expensive for the taxpayer. If a charter can't select kids, why not simply make Basis a DCPS school? Why not push the pols to establish a mechanism for DCPS franchise schools as well as charter? Basis can learn from Latin, where nearly 3/4 of the white kids are leaving before HS graduation, certainlly not the case with suburban magents.

Anonymous wrote:From everything I've read, Looks like BASIS may not have start up trouble but may be angling for a bad case of 'founders syndrome.'

Choosing to send your child there will largely depend on your child's overall profile and needs.

So far though this is clearly not the right mix for me and my middle schooler. Too much of the discussion lacks any semblance of humanity.

While my child is 'Gifted' (Participates in CTY JHU programs etc, Stanford EPGY online courses) the kid also needs down time and especially to be with kind hearted people. I'm not sensing those possibilities from this thread.

So we will stick with the 'less uber human' school and continue to supplement at home.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The following article argues that BASIS uses high attrition as a solution to the rigorous non-selective charter dilemma:

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/03/blog-post.html

While the data are a little dated, the spreadsheet presented in the article shows that of the 78 students in the 6th grade at BASIS Tucson during the 2004-2005 school year, only 27 were still there during the 2009-2010 school year as part of the 11th grade class. (BASIS offers its students the option of graduating in the 11th grade.) In other words, only 35% of the 2004-2005 6th grade class actually graduated from BASIS Tucson.

At first, the 35% graduation rate seems like a terrible indictment of the BASIS model. At least that's how the author of the article portrays it. However, it seems to me that the 35% graduation rate is a natural consequence of a non-selective admissions process for a school with a rigorous academic program.
Suppose your goal is to ensure that at least 35 students complete a rigorous 8-year academic program. You might choose to accomplish this goal in one of two ways:

Option A: Admit the 35 most promising from a pool of 100 applicants. (Actually, you might want to admit a couple more to guard against attrition.)

Option B: Admit all 100 applicants and allow them to self-select the 35 who graduate. (Actually, if you're lucky, more than 35 will make it.)

BASIS has chosen Option B. In fact, BASIS doesn't have a choice, as the DC charter law does not permit Option A. However, non-selective admissions is part of the BASIS philosophy, so it would likely have chosen Option B even if Option A were allowed.

Option B is more equitable than Option A. While Option A offers the rigorous academic program only to the 35 applicants who make the cut at the outset, Option B offers repeated opportunities over many years to all 100 applicants to make it into the 35 through hard work.

Based on national rankings of high schools, BASIS Tucson and Thomas Jefferson in Virginia are comparably ranked. BASIS Tucson has achieved this success through a high attrition rate, while Thomas Jefferson has achieved it through a high rejection rate. Only about 16% of the applicants were accepted during a recent admissions round.

To me it seems clear that the BASIS Tucson approach is more equitable, and I hope that the model is as successful in DC as it has been in Tucson.

The Arizona high attrition model won’t fly in DC for obvious reasons. Instead, Basis will come under heavy pressure from charter board to manufacture a creative solution to keep struggling students on board, e.g. Yu Ying’s non-immersion Mandarin track (where all the kids are black). The National Assessment for Educational Progress (think tank giving a small percent of students in every state and DC the same test in 4th and 8th grades) findings on the vast black-white achievement gap in DC, coupled with non-selective admissions, do not auger well for the school: more than a third of DC white kids currently score in NAEP’s “advanced” category for reading and math (vs. 14% of white in the highest scoring state, Massachusetts) and 1-2% of black kids. Politically, will Basis be in a good position to encourage a large percentage of the black kids to hit the road? The franchise surely won’t bite the hand that feeds it, risking having their charter revoked, by allowing anywhere near the attrition rates seen in AZ. No, standards will invariably be watered down instead, with victory declared in the number of AP tests taken per capita (easy to do when there’s no magic AP pass number, and scores of 2s and 3s out of 5 on AP tests are already the DCPS norm).

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't it be more cost effective for a school like Basis simply to select the kids who probably have the potential to handle half a dozen or more AP classes at the 5th grade or MS level? High attrition is expensive for the taxpayer. If a charter can't select kids, why not simply make Basis a DCPS school? Why not push the pols to establish a mechanism for DCPS franchise schools as well as charter? Basis can learn from Latin, where nearly 3/4 of the white kids are leaving before HS graduation, certainlly not the case with suburban magents.

As far as I can tell, DC's current magnets don't shine mainly because, for political reasons, DCPS is not willing to let them become more than half white in a city that is half black. Hence, the admissoins tests are easy and loads of kids who aren't well prepped or terribly academic glide in. Moreover, the quality of instruction is uneven, standards aren't all that high, and the best students are not pushed to take more than a few AP classes, enter INTEL competitions etc. I've had guidance counselors at SWW and Banneker tell me straight out that Ivy League admissions are not a priority for DCPS. The schools aren't bad, they're just OK, and that seems to be fine with almost all involved but the most ambitious and able kids. Excellence is not part of the calculus because the chorus of voices pushing for it isn't large enough yet. Also, arguably, DC's privates are the best in the country as a group, and they suck in the upper echelon of poor kids in a city with a voucher program.

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.

No, charter schools that are rigorous help meet the needs of students who are advanced and those who are willing to work hard.

Unfortunately, most public schools do not meet the need of students who are advanced learners and who are willing to work hard Why is it ok to only meet the needs of struggling students or average students but not the others???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm just confused that even with selective admissions and a brutal work schedule, the students of our two 'big' magnets aren't performing better

Performing better than....

Help me to understand what metric you're using. Are you using the SAT or AP as your guide? What is success?

Anonymous wrote:I'm just confused that even with selective admissions and a brutal work schedule, the students of our two 'big' magnets aren't performing better