Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I totally need to tell my neighbor kid this. He is Murch-Deal-Wilson and sent to graduate from Berkley in about a month.

After that I will tell my sitter who is at AU law. She went to Watkins-Deal-Wilson-U Conn and now law school. She probably just doesn't know she was crushed by DCPS.

Please. There is Anything-Deal-Wilson and then there is DCPS. They are not the same.

Sure, there are a few of those stories one might find from its best schools, and one can cherrypick a few other success stories from across the DCPS system, but so too can one cherrypick a story about someone getting hit by lightning. The typical DCPS student has about that same degree of chance of making it into a top school and actually succeeding there as he does of getting struck by lightning.

Anonymous wrote:I totally need to tell my neighbor kid this. He is Murch-Deal-Wilson and sent to graduate from Berkley in about a month.

After that I will tell my sitter who is at AU law. She went to Watkins-Deal-Wilson-U Conn and now law school. She probably just doesn't know she was crushed by DCPS.

Please. There is Anything-Deal-Wilson and then there is DCPS. They are not the same.

Anonymous wrote:DCPS schools crush the self esteem of thousands of bright young kids each year with totally uninspired teaching, a hostile and unsafe social environment, and a complete dead-end curriculum that will never get them into college or into the careers they dream of. They leave students with nothing but a menial job and lifelong regrets. BASIS on the other hand opens that door for bright achievers rather than slamming it in their faces.

For the record, BASIS in DC hasn't done anything yet.

Don't get me wrong. I'm totally pro-charter, but BASIS booster(s?) needs to bring it down a notch and focus on delivering for any student who walks in the door. "Bright achiever", or not.

Nobody is saying Basis should not expand ever, just that they don't get a pass for underestimating needs in the middle of the first year just because they have an "international track record". (Maybe they meant reputation. Which is, of course, different than a track record.)

Maybe next meeting they should send the School Director, PhD in poli sci who taught at Howard and taught special ed. From website. Don't know her. The Head of School, Scottsdale teacher in 2008, sounds like he's had a wee too much Koolaid in the desert based on twitter feed.

Check out some admittedly incomplete excerpts from twitter feed of meeting. Sounds more like a charter startup than one of the best public school in the nation. Everybody, except maybe Nathan Saunders, would like Basis to succeed. But they could learn a few things about shooting one's self in the foot from Michelle Rhee.

DC PCSB DC PCSB ?@dcpcsb 15 Apr
@saramead There are reasons for concern for your effectiveness in your ability to serve special-ed students

@saramead Agree w/ @johnhmckoy. Would like to see second-year withdrawal rate before approving this. DC is different than other markets

@johnhmckoy If DC was first market you tried this model, you don't have a track record, OK. But you have a model

@johnhmckoy Sounds diff argument. You're on par / not unusual. But you didn't anticipate services

BASIS: We had to add more staff to serve every single student. We continue to add services / programs to meet students needs
@johnhmckoy If this is following the model, why didnt you more accurately estimate the debt-services

BASIS: To speak to @johnhmckoy's comment. Our withdrawal rate is not uncommon. First-year is always highest. Goes down in sub. years

BASIS: True. That's the number we have interested

@saramead Some will be admitted and some will enroll; but some won't actually come to the school

BASIS: 400 students in the school; four not returning. And we have pre-enrollment number of 308 who are coming from outside

@donsoifer Could you discuss # -- 709 families?

@johnhmckoy You don't have the track record here yet. Hoping to be proven wrong. Like to see better track record

@johnhmckoy Hoping BASIS model does prove out. Pretty sure you're gonna make it in the long-run. Cannot vote against recommendation

@johnhmckoy What i'm hearing is we have a reputation. When applied, pointed out DC is sometimes a market tough to figure out.

BASIS: Strengthening our financial situation will only strengthen our school's position here in DC

BASIS: We do have a national, and now int'l track record that this is a successful model.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And again, they drummed out 10% of their original student body.

These 11 and 12 year olds.

So, so nice to smash the self-esteem of young children, especially those with IEP.

BASIS must be proud.

DCPS schools crush the self esteem of thousands of bright young kids each year with totally uninspired teaching, a hostile and unsafe social environment, and a complete dead-end curriculum that will never get them into college or into the careers they dream of. They leave students with nothing but a menial job and lifelong regrets. BASIS on the other hand opens that door for bright achievers rather than slamming it in their faces.

But by the same token, BASIS is far more realistic about the work, life skills and discipline that's needed to actually get those kids into college and those dream careers, as opposed to just blowing smoke and graduating illiterate kids that think it's fine to not have to do the work, to pass kids on to the next grade with an "F", where they will only be even further behind, that it's fine to show up late to school everyday, to skip school, et cetera - as DCPS does. What kids may have been used to in their DCPS schools will not fly at BASIS, and they have a choice of either upping their game or going back to the DCPS status quo.

+1000 How is a kid going to become an astronaut, an inventor, a scientist, an engineer when he can't do long division. So much for that Mars mission. The next Indiana Jones trying to read an arcane ancient inscription on the walls of a lost temple when they can barely even manage to read English?

Schools like BASIS help to fill in the glaring gaps left in the DCPS system. They are what help the DC public school system (DCPS and PCS) COLLECTIVELY meet all the needs of students far more effectively than DCPS was ever able to do by itself.

So we agree that Basis is down 26 students.

That was my point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And again, they drummed out 10% of their original student body.

These 11 and 12 year olds.

So, so nice to smash the self-esteem of young children, especially those with IEP.

BASIS must be proud.

DCPS schools crush the self esteem of thousands of bright young kids each year with totally uninspired teaching, a hostile and unsafe social environment, and a complete dead-end curriculum that will never get them into college or into the careers they dream of. They leave students with nothing but a menial job and lifelong regrets. BASIS on the other hand opens that door for bright achievers rather than slamming it in their faces.

But by the same token, BASIS is far more realistic about the work, life skills and discipline that's needed to actually get those kids into college and those dream careers, as opposed to just blowing smoke and graduating illiterate kids that think it's fine to not have to do the work, to pass kids on to the next grade with an "F", where they will only be even further behind, that it's fine to show up late to school everyday, to skip school, et cetera - as DCPS does. What kids may have been used to in their DCPS schools will not fly at BASIS, and they have a choice of either upping their game or going back to the DCPS status quo.

Completely agree. My DC is much more happy at BASIS than DCPS, mainly because of the improved environment socially (it's not a bad thing to be smart) and because of the teaching. DCPS pretends that the student are doing well but then gets shown up by their own CAS. How many children get "4s" in class and aren't proficient on the not-hard standardized tests?

I totally need to tell my neighbor kid this. He is Murch-Deal-Wilson and sent to graduate from Berkley in about a month.

After that I will tell my sitter who is at AU law. She went to Watkins-Deal-Wilson-U Conn and now law school. She probably just doesn't know she was crushed by DCPS.

Anonymous wrote:16:10. Lets do the math together:

443 (students as of count day)
-43 (students that left AFTER count day)
+17 (students added AFTER count day)
______
417 (current number of total students)

Basis has currently been paid for 26 students which it is not educating at this time.

I think you should be directing your arithmetic lesson at the Post reporter and earlier BASIS bashers.

I already did the math and calculated that enrollment at BASIS is down only 26 (or 6%) since count day, not 43 (or 10%) as the Post reporter implies and the BASIS bashers claim.

BASIS has little control over who leaves. Students leave after count day for various reasons. Families move. They get off the wait list for their preferred charter. They realize that the commute to the charter is harder than they expected and transfer to their neighborhood school. They decide that the school requires more work than they are willing to do. (Heck, they might even be MD residents who were scared away by the threat of more aggressive enforcement of the residency requirement.)

Again, BASIS did not choose this silly method for funding charter schools in DC. The DC government or PCSB did. Because of the expectation of higher than average attrition at BASIS due to the mid-year pre-comps, this funding method creates bad PR for BASIS. I'm sure the folks at BASIS would rather be funded based on monthly enrollment to avoid the appearance of gaming the system.

Anonymous wrote:And again, they drummed out 10% of their original student body.

These 11 and 12 year olds.

So, so nice to smash the self-esteem of young children, especially those with IEP.

BASIS must be proud.

DCPS schools crush the self esteem of thousands of bright young kids each year with totally uninspired teaching, a hostile and unsafe social environment, and a complete dead-end curriculum that will never get them into college or into the careers they dream of. They leave students with nothing but a menial job and lifelong regrets. BASIS on the other hand opens that door for bright achievers rather than slamming it in their faces.

But by the same token, BASIS is far more realistic about the work, life skills and discipline that's needed to actually get those kids into college and those dream careers, as opposed to just blowing smoke and graduating illiterate kids that think it's fine to not have to do the work, to pass kids on to the next grade with an "F", where they will only be even further behind, that it's fine to show up late to school everyday, to skip school, et cetera - as DCPS does. What kids may have been used to in their DCPS schools will not fly at BASIS, and they have a choice of either upping their game or going back to the DCPS status quo.

That is a good question. What is the attrition rate at a DCpS middle school? Or at Latin which is probably a better comparison.

I think the statements like "drummed out", pushed out etc. are not reasonable unless the child was expelled or selectively ill treated. If the family decides they don't like the curriculum and leave i don't think drummed out is a fair statement. I haven't seen evidence that the 43 that left were drummed out.

What I have heard from parents and students at the school is some children left because of violent behavior and others have stayed despite F's in the beginning and now have A's.

Just because people leave doesn't mean they have been ill treated.

Not everyone is "cut out for" DCPS, given their huge attrition rates (far higher than Basis).

Guess we better shut DCPS down.

And again, they drummed out 10% of their original student body.

These 11 and 12 year olds.

So, so nice to smash the self-esteem of young children, especially those with IEP.

BASIS must be proud.

16:10. Lets do the math together:

443 (students as of count day)
-43 (students that left AFTER count day)
+17 (students added AFTER count day)
______
417 (current number of total students)

Basis has currently been paid for 26 students which it is not educating at this time.

Hee, 16:32.