Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have two kids at Basis (both in middle school).

One completes all of her homework during the school day with little effort. She’s been extremely happy this year (though there’s one class with teacher turnover that she complains about).

My other child stresses more about the workload, but still manages to spend a lot of time doing video games and watching TV each evening, plus there’s almost never homework on weekends.

Both kids have stellar grades.

The school is far from perfect, but OP’s posting does not resonate with our family.

This is my family's experience, too.

Everyone knows that kids who succeed at Basis need to be smart and motivated. What a lot of people don't seem to know is that the kids who tend to be fast workers will be much more successful than the equally bright kids who just tend to work a bit slower. Homework loads can range from 20 minutes/day(my kids) - 4 hours/day depending on your child's efficiency.

I don’t understand how that can be true. There’s a massibe difference between 20 minutes and 4 hours.

some kids are just faster. Think back to elementary- do you remember the kids who would finish the math test in a fraction of the time of most kids and still get As? Basis is designed for those kids

A little faster, but not 12x faster.

NP here. As explained above, they don’t need to be 12x faster to do homework in 20 minutes. It is rare that my seventh grader (with near perfect grades) does any work past 4:30. She is organized and on task during the day. There are almost no communications between us, other than basically me shoving food at her. She does talk to her friends and watches some tv in the background during the day, which I don’t ever object to as she is happy and why fix what is not broken, but she is completely on task. I follow her team chats with her teachers, and she is on top of everything. If she has a question, she immediately asks the teacher, who almost always responds instantly. She plows through so much work during the day that I can’t even conceive of me being involved in any way. If I were, or if she ever got behind, it would most certainly slow down the process considerably, which would be awful given how long it takes to make up a day when she has to miss (extremely rare), many many hours.

As another view, I have a neighbor friend whose kid does not fit the basis mold at all and is in 5th grade with very little supervision. He was failing in the first grading period, but they assigned him a teacher who is alone with him virtually for a lot of the day, and now he is getting mostly Bs. This is still the wrong fit, but I’ve been very impressed by what they have been doing remotely for this struggling child.

How social are the kids at Basis? Do they hang out together after school or on weekends? Do they do sleepovers, etc?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it’s far from perfect, there is a good amount of self-selection that already occurs at Basis. The incoming 5th grade definitely reflects a higher-performing group of kids than most schools. And at my high-performing Capitol Hill elementary school, a number of parents opted against Basis because they assessed it wouldn’t be a good match for their kids. (But a small number of kids with academic challenges still enrolled at Basis.)

While threads like this, which overall reflect badly on the school, tend to make me defensive, they do serve a purpose in warning parents to think hard about whether their kids are a good match.

Signed,
Very happy parent of a thriving Basis kid, with a younger kid who will not be enrolling at Basis, as she’s a poor match

Yes, and a good amount of self-selection occurs at BASIS on the part of families where kids can work fast enough to burn through homework, but leave before HS anyway. My kid was a "good match" student, but we left for a parochial school anyway because it's a dreary school with weak facilities. He wanted to perform, play on a serious sports team, play in an orchestra, get fresh air and exercise during the day, attend a school with its own TV station, with a language lab, computer lab, library/media center, decent art and music rooms etc.

I don't think that's a flaw with BASIS, though. It's a very small school, so of course the sports, orchestra, drama, and other "larger school" activities will be limited. There will always be some number of kids who decide that they want the larger school experience and leave the smaller schools like BASIS. What I've noticed is that the kids who stay are the ones in the fringe sports that normally wouldn't have high school teams anyway, and the ones who play non-band/orchestra instruments, like piano or guitar, or play in local youth orchestras.

They can't make the self selection perfect.

Our not very religious parochial school has smaller grade cohorts than BASIS. It has a small but strong band and orchestra, a lively school newspaper, a good choir, nicely done school play (with parents directing as volunteers). We pay just 11K per year. What's most different is the psychology and spirit of the place. They believe in character and ethnics training and offering a well-rounded education, vs. a focus on prepping kids to ace high school standardized tests.

No, what's most different is that its a private school, where you pay money, where they can select and remove kids, that is financed by the church, and where they don't need to meet state run testing standards.

FFS.

BASIS is a rigorous education with little joy and few Eureka moments.

That approach isn't the worst thing, but it sucks the energy out of most kids over time.

So glad we bailed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it’s far from perfect, there is a good amount of self-selection that already occurs at Basis. The incoming 5th grade definitely reflects a higher-performing group of kids than most schools. And at my high-performing Capitol Hill elementary school, a number of parents opted against Basis because they assessed it wouldn’t be a good match for their kids. (But a small number of kids with academic challenges still enrolled at Basis.)

While threads like this, which overall reflect badly on the school, tend to make me defensive, they do serve a purpose in warning parents to think hard about whether their kids are a good match.

Signed,
Very happy parent of a thriving Basis kid, with a younger kid who will not be enrolling at Basis, as she’s a poor match

Yes, and a good amount of self-selection occurs at BASIS on the part of families where kids can work fast enough to burn through homework, but leave before HS anyway. My kid was a "good match" student, but we left for a parochial school anyway because it's a dreary school with weak facilities. He wanted to perform, play on a serious sports team, play in an orchestra, get fresh air and exercise during the day, attend a school with its own TV station, with a language lab, computer lab, library/media center, decent art and music rooms etc.

I don't think that's a flaw with BASIS, though. It's a very small school, so of course the sports, orchestra, drama, and other "larger school" activities will be limited. There will always be some number of kids who decide that they want the larger school experience and leave the smaller schools like BASIS. What I've noticed is that the kids who stay are the ones in the fringe sports that normally wouldn't have high school teams anyway, and the ones who play non-band/orchestra instruments, like piano or guitar, or play in local youth orchestras.

They can't make the self selection perfect.

Our not very religious parochial school has smaller grade cohorts than BASIS. It has a small but strong band and orchestra, a lively school newspaper, a good choir, nicely done school play (with parents directing as volunteers). We pay just 11K per year. What's most different is the psychology and spirit of the place. They believe in character and ethnics training and offering a well-rounded education, vs. a focus on prepping kids to ace high school standardized tests.

Anonymous wrote:
DC charters can’t have selective admissions, it’s prohibited by federal law.

Even if they must accept everyone who is selected through the lottery, could they have a "readiness test" that simply informs parents as to whether or not their kids are academically ready for BASIS? That would give parents another tool to decide whether to accept the lottery slot or choose a different school instead.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While it’s far from perfect, there is a good amount of self-selection that already occurs at Basis. The incoming 5th grade definitely reflects a higher-performing group of kids than most schools. And at my high-performing Capitol Hill elementary school, a number of parents opted against Basis because they assessed it wouldn’t be a good match for their kids. (But a small number of kids with academic challenges still enrolled at Basis.)

While threads like this, which overall reflect badly on the school, tend to make me defensive, they do serve a purpose in warning parents to think hard about whether their kids are a good match.

Signed,
Very happy parent of a thriving Basis kid, with a younger kid who will not be enrolling at Basis, as she’s a poor match

Yes, and a good amount of self-selection occurs at BASIS on the part of families where kids can work fast enough to burn through homework, but leave before HS anyway. My kid was a "good match" student, but we left for a parochial school anyway because it's a dreary school with weak facilities. He wanted to perform, play on a serious sports team, play in an orchestra, get fresh air and exercise during the day, attend a school with its own TV station, with a language lab, computer lab, library/media center, decent art and music rooms etc.

I don't think that's a flaw with BASIS, though. It's a very small school, so of course the sports, orchestra, drama, and other "larger school" activities will be limited. There will always be some number of kids who decide that they want the larger school experience and leave the smaller schools like BASIS. What I've noticed is that the kids who stay are the ones in the fringe sports that normally wouldn't have high school teams anyway, and the ones who play non-band/orchestra instruments, like piano or guitar, or play in local youth orchestras.

They can't make the self selection perfect.

NP. Academics to a huge part of the draw but many at BASIS attend because they don’t have better options.

We are in Ward 4 - not the Lafayette part. And awe can’t afford private. Is BDC a better choice overall than our IB EC and HS with no extracurriculars? Absolutely.

^^Yes, but most families choose between those things and academics. Our IB is Stuart Hobson, which has fabulous facilities, and which we can leave for anytime. They have athletic fields, an amazing theater and music program, a library, etc.

But the academics at Basis are superior. And we made the right choice for our family.

Anonymous wrote:While it’s far from perfect, there is a good amount of self-selection that already occurs at Basis. The incoming 5th grade definitely reflects a higher-performing group of kids than most schools. And at my high-performing Capitol Hill elementary school, a number of parents opted against Basis because they assessed it wouldn’t be a good match for their kids. (But a small number of kids with academic challenges still enrolled at Basis.)

While threads like this, which overall reflect badly on the school, tend to make me defensive, they do serve a purpose in warning parents to think hard about whether their kids are a good match.

Signed,
Very happy parent of a thriving Basis kid, with a younger kid who will not be enrolling at Basis, as she’s a poor match

Yes, and a good amount of self-selection occurs at BASIS on the part of families where kids can work fast enough to burn through homework, but leave before HS anyway. My kid was a "good match" student, but we left for a parochial school anyway because it's a dreary school with weak facilities. He wanted to perform, play on a serious sports team, play in an orchestra, get fresh air and exercise during the day, attend a school with its own TV station, with a language lab, computer lab, library/media center, decent art and music rooms etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Realistically, an admissions test would never happen in DC, as we all know. But I do think that it would be smart for the Charter Board to allow Basis to administer one. They could select the kids most likely to succeed using their academic model, and focus on retaining those kids throughout middle (and perhaps high) school. Instead they take a huge 5th grade class, knowing that they will need to weed out many of them to arrive at a cohort that will succeed at their school. This takes a toll on everyone-- the kids that don't make it, their peers/friends who do, and the kids who could have succeeded there, but struck out in the lottery and weren't offered spots in the first place. It stinks.

Why can't an admissions test happen in DC? We already have selective HS admissions at four or five programs, just not for MS. I'd wager that we will have selective MS admissions somewhere in the system 5 or 10 years hence. If the political will existed for BASIS to move toward selective admissions it could happen with a new LEA and perhaps DCPS sponsorship.

DC charters can’t have selective admissions, it’s prohibited by federal law.

This is a common misconception. LEA arrangements are more flexible than the DCPCS Board wants parents to think. States often run charters with selective admissions, particularly for language immersion programs. The Dept. of Ed doesn't give a hoot.

(b) Criteria for admission. -- A public charter school may not limit enrollment on the basis of a student's race, color, religion, national origin, language spoken, intellectual or athletic ability, measures of achievement or aptitude, or status as a student with special needs. A public charter school may limit enrollment to specific grade levels.

But the reality is that many states are in fact limiting charter enrollment in various ways without interference from the US Dept. of Education, and have done for many years. Some states run hybrid charter-traditional public school programs. Others develop LEA arrangements that narrow enrollment. I have a sibling who teaches at a charter language immersion program in New England that actively recruits native speakers (language spoken), gives them preference to enroll, and has done since its inception 15 years ago. The school has had no push back from any quarter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Realistically, an admissions test would never happen in DC, as we all know. But I do think that it would be smart for the Charter Board to allow Basis to administer one. They could select the kids most likely to succeed using their academic model, and focus on retaining those kids throughout middle (and perhaps high) school. Instead they take a huge 5th grade class, knowing that they will need to weed out many of them to arrive at a cohort that will succeed at their school. This takes a toll on everyone-- the kids that don't make it, their peers/friends who do, and the kids who could have succeeded there, but struck out in the lottery and weren't offered spots in the first place. It stinks.

Why can't an admissions test happen in DC? We already have selective HS admissions at four or five programs, just not for MS. I'd wager that we will have selective MS admissions somewhere in the system 5 or 10 years hence. If the political will existed for BASIS to move toward selective admissions it could happen with a new LEA and perhaps DCPS sponsorship.

DC charters can’t have selective admissions, it’s prohibited by federal law.

This is a common misconception. LEA arrangements are more flexible than the DCPCS Board wants parents to think. States often run charters with selective admissions, particularly for language immersion programs. The Dept. of Ed doesn't give a hoot.

(b) Criteria for admission. -- A public charter school may not limit enrollment on the basis of a student's race, color, religion, national origin, language spoken, intellectual or athletic ability, measures of achievement or aptitude, or status as a student with special needs. A public charter school may limit enrollment to specific grade levels.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Realistically, an admissions test would never happen in DC, as we all know. But I do think that it would be smart for the Charter Board to allow Basis to administer one. They could select the kids most likely to succeed using their academic model, and focus on retaining those kids throughout middle (and perhaps high) school. Instead they take a huge 5th grade class, knowing that they will need to weed out many of them to arrive at a cohort that will succeed at their school. This takes a toll on everyone-- the kids that don't make it, their peers/friends who do, and the kids who could have succeeded there, but struck out in the lottery and weren't offered spots in the first place. It stinks.

Why can't an admissions test happen in DC? We already have selective HS admissions at four or five programs, just not for MS. I'd wager that we will have selective MS admissions somewhere in the system 5 or 10 years hence. If the political will existed for BASIS to move toward selective admissions it could happen with a new LEA and perhaps DCPS sponsorship.

DC charters can’t have selective admissions, it’s prohibited by federal law.

This is a common misconception. LEA arrangements are more flexible than the DCPCS Board wants parents to think. States often run charters with selective admissions, particularly for language immersion programs. The Dept. of Ed doesn't give a hoot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Realistically, an admissions test would never happen in DC, as we all know. But I do think that it would be smart for the Charter Board to allow Basis to administer one. They could select the kids most likely to succeed using their academic model, and focus on retaining those kids throughout middle (and perhaps high) school. Instead they take a huge 5th grade class, knowing that they will need to weed out many of them to arrive at a cohort that will succeed at their school. This takes a toll on everyone-- the kids that don't make it, their peers/friends who do, and the kids who could have succeeded there, but struck out in the lottery and weren't offered spots in the first place. It stinks.

Why can't an admissions test happen in DC? We already have selective HS admissions at four or five programs, just not for MS. I'd wager that we will have selective MS admissions somewhere in the system 5 or 10 years hence. If the political will existed for BASIS to move toward selective admissions it could happen with a new LEA and perhaps DCPS sponsorship.

DC charters can’t have selective admissions, it’s prohibited by federal law.

^ It's better for in person school, where the kids are a captive audience, than it is for distance learning. The kids with 4 hours of homework are the ones getting distracted and watching YouTube or playing video games when they ought to be in class doing their work.