Anonymous wrote:Please help a newbie who has never paid attention to the lottery (2nd grader at in bound elementary). What do 2nd and Cooper mean?

They are the two Latin campuses.

Cooper is newer and only through 7th grade currently but expanded as that class moves up

Anonymous wrote:Please help a newbie who has never paid attention to the lottery (2nd grader at in bound elementary). What do 2nd and Cooper mean?

They are the two campuses of Washington Latin charter school.

Please help a newbie who has never paid attention to the lottery (2nd grader at in bound elementary). What do 2nd and Cooper mean?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA at BASIS is going to be a disaster.

You said the quiet part out loud. Why do you assume that kids who are economically disadvantaged are dumb and/or can't apply themselves? Why do you assume they don't have or can't develop executive functioning? Some of these 10 and 11 year old kids have already dealt with more sh*t in their lives than you will ever know and they are still in the game fighting to succeed. EA preferences are designed precisely for this reason; to ensure kids who more than many others need a solid educational footing have access.

DP. My understanding of the Basis model is that it would take a lot of support at home to catch up academically and pass the tests. If the kids are coming in behind and Basis keeps its “up or out” approach, we’re gonna see a disproportionate number of EA kids dropping out.

Your understanding is wrong. The kids at the top of the class don't have parents all up in their stuff. They tend to be independent, self-starting learners. Kids who grow up in unstable environments and grow up quickly might tend to exhibit high level executive functioning beyond coddled peers whose parents sit next to them and do the work with them.

DP. That’s ridiculous. If EA kids were going to outperform non EA they would be doing that on average across the board at other schools already. You keep trying to bait us into arguing there are no EA kids that can succeed. We don’t believe that. There are some amazing kids that will fight through their disadvantages. The truth is that there is a smaller percentage of kids from families receiving SNAP and TANF that can do that than the percentage of non EA kids that can succeed with all the MC/UMC advantages.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA at BASIS is going to be a disaster.

You said the quiet part out loud. Why do you assume that kids who are economically disadvantaged are dumb and/or can't apply themselves? Why do you assume they don't have or can't develop executive functioning? Some of these 10 and 11 year old kids have already dealt with more sh*t in their lives than you will ever know and they are still in the game fighting to succeed. EA preferences are designed precisely for this reason; to ensure kids who more than many others need a solid educational footing have access.

DP. My understanding of the Basis model is that it would take a lot of support at home to catch up academically and pass the tests. If the kids are coming in behind and Basis keeps its “up or out” approach, we’re gonna see a disproportionate number of EA kids dropping out.

Your understanding is wrong. The kids at the top of the class don't have parents all up in their stuff. They tend to be independent, self-starting learners. Kids who grow up in unstable environments and grow up quickly might tend to exhibit high level executive functioning beyond coddled peers whose parents sit next to them and do the work with them.

+1 and I say this as a parent who decided BASIS was not a good fit for my kid. My impression of the kids who are there and doing well is that they tend to be excellent test takers and organized thinkers who do very well in a fairly rigid system where they are given clear goals to meet and clear metrics for meeting them. If your kid has a different learning style you might be able to do okay at BASIS with lots of parent support but I'm not sure it would be worth it -- we decided our kid would likely be miserable there even if they excelled acadeically.

There are plenty of kids there with limited support at home who seem to do well.

Also I would not assume that EA kids do NOT have lots of parental support -- the process of lotterying under the EA system requires some effort to understand the system and be able to certify as EA. Just because a family may be low income or have other challenges does not mean they don't have supportive family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:165 9th grade offers at MacArthur, wow

My reaction exactly: wow. Half the waitlist blown through already.

Well, they hadn't admitted anyone at all out of boundary in the initial lottery, so not really surprising given its location.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA at BASIS is going to be a disaster.

You said the quiet part out loud. Why do you assume that kids who are economically disadvantaged are dumb and/or can't apply themselves? Why do you assume they don't have or can't develop executive functioning? Some of these 10 and 11 year old kids have already dealt with more sh*t in their lives than you will ever know and they are still in the game fighting to succeed. EA preferences are designed precisely for this reason; to ensure kids who more than many others need a solid educational footing have access.

DP. My understanding of the Basis model is that it would take a lot of support at home to catch up academically and pass the tests. If the kids are coming in behind and Basis keeps its “up or out” approach, we’re gonna see a disproportionate number of EA kids dropping out.

Your understanding is wrong. The kids at the top of the class don't have parents all up in their stuff. They tend to be independent, self-starting learners. Kids who grow up in unstable environments and grow up quickly might tend to exhibit high level executive functioning beyond coddled peers whose parents sit next to them and do the work with them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm stunned that Cooper is moving so little, less than 2nd St!

Everyone I know who got a Cooper seat took it, so I'm not surprised. I also know many people who ranked it over 2nd street because they thought they had no shot at 2nd.

Same. And we are in a part of town where Cooper is much more convenient... I think commute matters to them? What are the differences between the schools?

Well, Cooper will be moving to close to 2nd street in a few years, so commute convenience shouldn't really be a factor unless you're planning not to stay after it moves.

It would still be a lot more convenient for me-- it's not that close to 2nd Street.

Cooper is just a lot less built-out than 2nd. They don't have a high school yet, they don't have a lot of sports either. This will naturally improve as the grades progress and they get into their bigger building. I don't think there's the intention of any really major differences compared to 2nd St. The languages offered might be different.

Is it still the case that Cooper offers Spanish as a World Language and 2nd St doesn't? That's big boost for Cooper as far as I'm concerned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:EA at BASIS is going to be a disaster.

That's not really fair. Being disadvantaged doesn't mean you're unintelligent. It also doesn't mean you aren't serious about school.

Success at BASIS depends on being able to pass tests based on cumulative learning - intelligence isn’t enough if the kids are starting out behind & don’t have resources at home to catch up. Personally I think it would be good for BASIS to somewhat soften what I understand is their approach to high-stakes testing. Like, kids can advance with a lower score but have to double up the next year on math or writing. That way you’re keeping the rigor of BASIS but giving kids more chances.

You’re attempting to defend your comment with a faulty understanding about the school’s model. Kids enter BASIS at 5th grade from a variety of backgrounds, from a variety of elementary schools. Some are prepared, some are not. Some have support at home, some do not. Some catch on and do well, some struggle a bit more. One feature of the BASIS model is to help kids be accountable for their own education, so a self-motivated kid from any background could do very well there. There are also supports in place for kids who need extra help, including weekly teacher hours that kids can attend for each subject. The score required for passing the final test starting in Grade 6 isn’t that high, and the handful of kids who don’t pass have a chance to make it up. There’s no reason to assume kids from disadvantaged backgrounds couldn’t be successful at BASIS simply because of their background—and it says a lot about you that you think otherwise.

The whole rationale for offering EA is that coming from a disadvantaged position in life can be more difficult, hence the alternate path. The only thing it says about anyone who is aware of that is that they have a brain. Both EA and non-EA get all the supports you listed. In addition, the non-EA kid gets the advantage of coming from a non-EA background. No one is making the strawman assumption you claim that "kids from disadvantaged backgrounds couldn’t be successful at BASIS simply because of their background". Those are your words. What's likely correct (and will be shown or not by this experiment) is that the extra support non-EA kids have at home makes them more likely to last longer at BASIS.

It seems like the trouble with Two Rivers middle school attrition and low enrollment is continuing. And for lower grades, the number of applicants is many times the number of matches and waitlisters, indicating bottom-of-the-list ranking by applicants.

4th St 5th grade: 16 seats offered, 8 matches (no EA seats or matches).

Young 5th grade: 11 seats offered, 11 matches, 3 WL, 1 offer. No EA offers or matches.

Middle school 6th: 60 seats offered (!), 37 matches, WL of 3, 3 offers.
Middle school 7th: 30 seats offered, 30 matches-- that's a lot of new kids in a non typical entry year! 1 WL, 1 offer.
Middle school 8th: 5 seats offered, 5 matches, 19 WL, 5 offers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm stunned that Cooper is moving so little, less than 2nd St!

Everyone I know who got a Cooper seat took it, so I'm not surprised. I also know many people who ranked it over 2nd street because they thought they had no shot at 2nd.

That’s not how the lottery works. Your shot at cooper or main depends on your master number not on which you put first.

It does depend on that, because if you have a great number and rank 2nd over Cooper, you'll get 2nd and not Cooper. PP is saying that some people ranked Cooper over 2nd and that had the effect of driving more people to Cooper who could have got into 2nd.

Right, but the reason for doing that is because those people prefer Cooper, not because they don’t have a shot at 2nd. If you have a really great number you would get your first choice regardless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm stunned that Cooper is moving so little, less than 2nd St!

Everyone I know who got a Cooper seat took it, so I'm not surprised. I also know many people who ranked it over 2nd street because they thought they had no shot at 2nd.

That’s not how the lottery works. Your shot at cooper or main depends on your master number not on which you put first.

It does depend on that, because if you have a great number and rank 2nd over Cooper, you'll get 2nd and not Cooper. PP is saying that some people ranked Cooper over 2nd and that had the effect of driving more people to Cooper who could have got into 2nd.

Anonymous wrote:BASIS sure has made a lot of lottery offers.

Cooper and 2nd sure haven't.

This is always the case. BASIS also offers more seats than either of those schools, so there is a greater chance of churn.

I'm surprised Walls has offered so many offers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm stunned that Cooper is moving so little, less than 2nd St!

Everyone I know who got a Cooper seat took it, so I'm not surprised. I also know many people who ranked it over 2nd street because they thought they had no shot at 2nd.

That’s not how the lottery works. Your shot at cooper or main depends on your master number not on which you put first.

BASIS sure has made a lot of lottery offers.

Cooper and 2nd sure haven't.