The highest ranked charters in the nation, based on graduation rates, test scores, AP courses passed, etc., are the BASIS schools of Arizona.
Two articles tell you what you need to know to understand their “secret sauce.”
Carol Burris reports here on their demographics and attrition rate. Their top-performing schools are overwhelmingly white and Asian, with few Hispanic, African American, or Native American students, and few students with disabilities. They lose most of their students between 7th grade and 12th grade.
Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic details the BASIS business model here. The charters are owned by a private, for-profit company created by the founders Michael and Olga Block. They collect a sizable portion of the schools’ revenues (“According to an agreement between Basis Schools and Basis.ed, the Blocks’ private firm keeps 11.75 percent of all school revenues — state, federal and local tax dollars — for management fees”). They recently bought an $8.4 Million condo in New York City to be closer to private schools they own there. Their company, the article says, received $14 million in management fees last year. The charters pay their teachers less than the average Arizona teachers’ salary, but they are less experienced. Teachers get more money because parents are asked to donate $1,500 per student per year, which is a bargain compared to private schools. Teachers get a bonus of $200 whenever a student gets a 5 on an AP exam. The average BASIS student takes a dozen AP exams and passes nearly all of them.
A reader on the blog added this comment:
Basis, the #1 school in the nation by Newsweek Magazine, 2017, graduated 44 students. 18 whites, the rest mostly Asians. No ELL, No Special Ed. Less than 8% Black/Hispanics. No free or reduced lunch. So, basically we’re saying privileged, upper socio-economic, gifted students.
In my last year of teaching, I had 45 in one room with 30 desks, not enough old texts to teach. Didn’t stay that way all year, but enough to impact teaching & learning.
Basis only teaches the gifted. Look a little deeper.
There you have it. The secret sauce. Accept everyone who applies. Get rid of the students who are unlikely to pass AP exams. Hire young teachers and pay less than underpaid public school teachers. Pay a bonus whenever students get a 5 on an AP exam. Create a culture of testtaking. Drop those who can’t do it. Solicit money from parents to pay teachers more.
Is it a model for public education? No. Public schools must keep all students, not just those most likely to pass tests.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Again I’m going to protest the use of the word “gifted”. BASIS is not known for graduating skilled craftsman, artists, musicians, dancers, writers or others who would be generally considered “gifted”. (Personally, I think we’re all gifted in different ways, but that’s a side discussion.) BASIS caters to academically motivated/capable kids who are also highly obedient. Generally speaking, kids who are good test takers. I supposed that’s a slice of the “gifted” population, but a thin one.
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Gift is the German word for poison and I think it fits well in this context.
Students in programs that cater to the “gifted and talented” are often poisoned with the idea that they are somehow better than everyone else.
I witnessed this phenomenon first hand when I was teaching.
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The other main problem with the “gifted and talented” distinction is that it makes everyone else feel that they are neither gifted not talented, which is just utter rubbish.
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Yes! And I wish people – especially the “gifted” and their parents – would realize that it is a poison. I was one of those “gifted” kids (obedient good test taker) and I was made to feel that I was “better” because of it. It’s been a bitter pill as an adult, but well worth taking. I’m now a “lowly” law firm grunt married to a “lowly” truck driver and a better person for it.
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When I did my student teaching (physical science) at a middle school in what was largely a blue collar town in upstate NY, the students were divided into two class groups, the “advanced” and the “locals” (yes, even the teachers called them that).
Naturally, all the students in the “locals” classes thought they were dumb, but the reality is that they were every bit as smart as the students in the “advanced” class. I was actually teaching pretty much the same thing to both, so I could not even figure out what the reason was for the distinction.
I think AP is the way that they now divide students into smart and dumb classes.
Some things never change.
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“I think AP is the way that they now divide students into smart and dumb classes. Some things never change.”
Exactly!
And the harm caused by that labeling goes deep into the psyche of the students in some fashion or another, crippling their thinking whether they “AP material” or not.
What Noel Wilson has to say about that labeling and a further comment of mine:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
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“The Gift (poison)”
The Gift that keeps on giving
When high school’s dead and gone
A label for the living:
“You’re dumb and always wrong”
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The Blocks have figured out how to use the charter laws to create an elitist for profit empire on the taxpayers’ dime. Sadly, even as these few students gain, many others with their own talents and dreams in public schools get less of the public pie. Has anyone ever calculated the per student cost of a BASIS graduate? This is an example of opportunity for a few at the expense of many.
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” State law does not require transparency about how that money is spent.” That is how these scams are perpetuated, profits made at the expense of parents, students, and teachers. Of course, the rating scheme of US News and World Report fuels the tests-r-us ranking schemes and boosts false pride in extracting wealth from public services.
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Very valuable expose of the privatization charter fraud not just in AZ but around the nation. Pls consider sending a copy of this to the clueless Deems who flirt with charters and refuse to get it, both here in NY and elsewhere.
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If I knew their personal email, I would send it to all of them.
Starting with Cuomo, then Malloy, Jerry Brown, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, etc.
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“The average BASIS student takes a dozen AP exams and passes nearly all of them.”
Ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay ay! Pulling my hair out in sheer frustration. Is that a marketing line from BASIS? What kind of bullshit is it?
For those not familiar, and I’m sure the vast majority of the population are not, AP exams are scored on a 1-5 scale-as it is an inadequate, error-filled and false way of evaluating a student’s work. As far as I know I’ve never heard that AP has a cut point where above a certain number, let’s say 2.4 for giggles, is passing, nor has it ever said that any score was “failing”.
Now as much as I despise the whole AP concept, and I was certified to be an AP Spanish instructor, to allow such blatant falsehoods to come through–That “student takes a dozen AP exams and PASSES nearly all of them” is patently absurd and a terrible lack of journalistic integrity and should be rightly condemned for the crap statement it is.
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In districts that lack a strong advanced high school like Stuyvesant and Thomas Jefferson, programs like this can provide a deeper education than the standard district high school does not provide.
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Define “deeper”. From everything I’ve seen of AP and other BASIS-type courses, they’re a mile wide and an inch deep. Stuff as many “facts” into a kid’s head in a year and who cares if they’re interested in anything or if they remember diddly squat once the test is over.
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I was thinking more about post AP classes. Thomas Jefferson High, for example, offers 5 math classes for which AP Calculus is a prerequisite and 8 computer science classes for which AP Computer Science is a prerequisite.
Unfortunately I could not easily find a comparable list for BASIS, but they did talk about post AP classes, including number theory and post colonial literature.
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It’s hard to have “post AP” classes when you have tiny graduating classes.
Since every single “magnet” school that is for very academically motivated students does well, why would anyone who calls himself an “economist” think that privatizing the part of public education that has never been a problem be a good idea?
It is an absurd use of public resources. The cost of teaching a small number of students is absurd. Those students would do fine in a public high school with an honors track. As they do in public schools all over the country.
I am sure if you offer up the chance to run a “gifted” elementary school in any neighborhood, no doubt a group of parents would be happy to take the SAME money their public school has to teach all students and set up their own school. It’s no different than a voucher. And since the point is to make a profit, you just kick out the kids who are not profitable to teach and replace them with those who are.
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NYC PSP,
The cost of teaching a small number of students advanced courses is not nearly as high as the cost of teaching a small number of special education students. Should we not teach the special education students because of the high cost?
They will not be fine. They will correctly see that the education they are being told to take is pointless for them. Would you deny a student the chance to read Shakespeare, Dickens, or Morrison? That is what you are doing to students of mathematics when you say that they should make do with the courses you think are good enough.
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teachingeconomist, your statement makes absolutely no sense.
“That is what you are doing to students of mathematics when you say that they should make do with the courses you think are good enough.”
I am doing no such thing.
I am saying that there is no reason for PRIVATE entities to be able to profit from teaching students who are among the least expensive to teach.
Since you call yourself an “economist”, I expected you to understand.
Every magnet program that excludes students to focus on higher achieving students should be public, period. That way we know that the profits to be made from excluding students are used to teach the children who are excluded and need more costly educations (i.e. very small class sizes, extra tutoring, wraparound services since they are often very poor, etc.)
It is especially galling to give a for-profit entity this franchise.
It’s called privatizing the profits and socializing the costs of education.
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BASIS is what charter schools are all about.
Out of the goodness of their hearts, they will agree to educate the most academically successful students and return the rest to public schools if their parents – in their ignorance – made the unforgivable mistake of assuming their child was worthy of being in their charter.
And the fact that educating only the most motivated and academic students is one of the least expensive parts of public education is surely just a coincidence.
Just like a”charter” hospital will happily treat all the strep throats and mild pneumonia and simple appendectomy patients for the very same cost per patient as the public hospital gets for the very sickest patients. And if the charter hospital decides the patient who came for a simple appendectomy is not “thriving” (i.e. “profitable”) in their charter hospital, they will discharge him to the public hospital stat.
The only difference between BASIS and Success Academy is that BASIS is completely up front about what they do and Success Academy claims that they have come up with the miracle charter that can turn every single at-risk kid (except the many violent ones that mysteriously keep winning SA lotteries) into a high performing scholar. Guaranteed. Every one except the violent ones and the ones whose failure is entirely because the child himself is a failure.
BASIS can’t do this because so many of the students who leave are ALSO white and middle class and therefore the kind of racist excuses that Eva Moskowitz always makes for high attrition (kids are violent, parents hate good schools, kid is so severely disturbed that he should only be a special school) do not work for BASIS.
If the owners of BASIS suspended all their low-performers and claimed they were all violent, no one would believe them because many of those children would be white.
Success Academy gets away with this — but only in low-income schools — because the SUNY Charter Institute is mostly racist white people who don’t blink an eye at a charter CEO saying “18% of the 5 and 6 year olds in my charter acted out violently last year — some of them more than once — and it is only because they are naturally violent children because my teachers are blameless and perfect.” Joseph Belluck says “yes, that’s why I know you should have carte blanche to train ALL your teachers!”
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The commenters and bloggers of this site are surely correct in their perspective that charter schools take scarce funding away from public schools, that some charter schools operate with inadequate oversight and that some or all engage in selection bias.
Nevertheless, the characterization of “Asians” as a proxy for undeserved achievement is noxious. There appears to be a fantasy that high performing charter schools work like Harvard, where affluent kids are bought admission by wealthy donor parents. That is untrue and an unfair characterization of the students.
In my experience, BASIS students work much harder than the average student, sacrificing many hours each week in pursuit of excellence, and are deserving of accolades. I find it disturbing that teachers posting on this site revel in minimizing these kids and attributing achievements along racial lines.
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No one has used “”Asians” as a proxy for undeserved achievement”. The pointing out of the demographic make-up of BASIS is simply to point out exactly that – that BASIS serves an entirely different demographic than schools that they are typically compared to – those lousy public schools. BASIS serves a very thin slice of largely affluent white and Asian families. Yes, I suppose many of those kids do “work much harder than the average student”, but they also have many more advantages than “average” students, many of whom are facing poverty, abuse, homelessness, hunger and other traumas which simply aren’t seen at a school like BASIS (many “average” students also work very hard, thank you very much). The initial vision for charters was to find innovative ways to serve kids with the most needs. That is the exact opposite of what BASIS does.
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With all due respect, AZ parent, you are responding to a different posting with different commenters on a different blog.
As an example of the sorts of discussion on the threads of this blog: re BASIS please read dienne77’s comments just above mine.
😎
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I wouldn’t object to BASIS if its schools were advertised as elite private schools funded with public money. Instead, they present themselves as a model, which they are not, and they celebrate their ranking as #1 on US New and Newsweek, based solely on attrition and exclusion. .
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I agree that claims that Basis is a model for all is wrong. It serves a need for a niche of students in an underserved market.
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I do not doubt that students who attend exclusive programs often work harder than students who do not. After all, hanging over your head is the prospect that you might be removed from a place you like to be. I was one of these when I was young, attending a private school that had many advantages.
The writers above do not mean to suggest that any children are bad. Indeed, their attitude is more in line that all students deserve a chance to excel, and that using attrition to pressure children into doing work that makes the school look good for its own sake should not be the goal of education.
Should every school conduct itself so as to drive away those who are not successful in the eyes of the school administration? Surely no one thinks that. Society is best served if our students are collectively raised to be better citizens, not if a few are groomed to succeed at some erzatz level of imagined heroism based on the score of some test.
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AZ parent says:
“In my experience, BASIS students work much harder than the average student, sacrificing many hours each week in pursuit of excellence, and are deserving of accolades.”
Thank you for explaining one of the requirements of attending BASIS. You either sacrifice many hours each week in pursuit of excellence or you leave.
By the way, how big was the graduating class of your own child’s BASIS school? And how big was that cohort when those kids first started at BASIS?
And how much did you “donate” to your school? $1,500?
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NYC public school parent:
I note that Stuyvesant, a high achieving public school in NYC, was 72.43% Asian, 21.44% Caucasian, 1.03% African American, 2.34% Hispanic in 2013. No doubt the same socioeconomic background that you malign BASIS for attracting. Are you protesting this school in your district? Where is the weekly blog on the inequities of this school?
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Stuyvesant High School is a selective admissions high school. Students must pass a rigorous exam to be admitted. It does not pretend to be a model for public education. BASIS does make that claim. So does NYC’s Success Academy, which winnows out the weak.
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AZ parent,
Stuyvesant is a PUBLIC school. The savings incurred by educating large numbers of motivated and academic students in a PUBLIC magnet school are used to subsidize the much more expensive cost of educating the students who may not have the same academic talents and are not motivated to learn and thus need more attention.
What I would protest would be a private organization like BASIS coming in and getting free space in public schools and the same money as the “average” public school student receives to do the very same job that Stuyvesant and other magnet schools do.
What I would protest would be a private organization like BASIS being like Stuyvesant except for the one big difference that is exclusive to charters and only charters.
You see, not every student at Stuy does well. Some students come in and it turns out they aren’t really ready for the academics. But Stuy has to teach them anyway. Some students come in and it turns out they have special needs that must be accommodated. Stuy can’t dump them like BASIS.
Life is much easier — and there are far more profits to be made — when there is absolutely nobody who can tell you how to treat a child and you have free reign — just like private schools do — to treat a child you don’t want to teach in any manner you please to make sure he leaves. Because the people who oversee your school know that their responsibility for every kid who leaves ends just as soon as you show them the door.
Get it? BASIS can dump a kid and their responsibility is over. That incentivizes then to dump the kids because the “market” that charter folks love incentivizes it! Kid is expensive? dump him. That’s the market for you.
Stuy and other public magnets can’t do that. Because the people overseeing then STILL will be responsible for that child’s education.
Charters are selfish entities. Public schools are not. That is because charters only have to care about the kids they choose to keep in their school. Public schools care about ALL kids. Which is why charters are private schools and always will be.
A magnet school is part of a larger system that educates every single child.
A charter school is part of a system that educates the kids it chooses to teach and the rest can rot for all they care.
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NYC public school parent: it’s one thing to truly not understand the topics under discussion, but it is quite another to willfully refuse to understand them.
Let me put this in the bidness-minded language of the rheephorm-minded: like other charter heavyweights, BASIS consciously and with unflagging determination incentivizes certain policies, behaviors and outcomes.
More specifically, the sorts of policies, behaviors and outcomes that favor the few at the expense of the many. And since these perverse ends require perverse means, “truthful hyperbole” trumps the ethical use of reliable, verifiable and transparent data.
Just sayin’…
😎
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NYC public school parent;
bluntly, the only distinction that I see between a Stuy and a Basis is that Stuy keeps out underperforming kids while Basis takes all comers but only keeps the high performers. And Stuy has a larger applicant pool and a national reputation. Apart from that, it’s all semantics.
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Stuyvesant High School does not advertise itself as a model for all. It is a selective admissions high school. Students must pass a test to gain entry. Stuy, unlike BASIS, makes no pretenses. It does not count on attrition to weed students out.
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AZ parent,
If it is “all semantics”, please answer this question:
Who is responsible for all the students who are dumped by BASIS? Who pays for the education for the kids that BASIS decide are not profitable for them to teach?
Now ask yourself who is responsible for the students who are not in Stuyvesant High School and who pays for their education?
Your dishonesty is typical of charter school promoters everywhere. It’s the reason that the public is slowly starting to get disgusted by your lies just like they are starting to get disgusted by Trump’s lies.
If you can’t make your case without lying, then you are well-aware that the public would never support you if you told the truth.
Try this:
“BASIS profits by teaching only the kids they want to teach and dumping the rest. No public school in America can profit by teaching the kids who they want to teach and dumping the rest. Including Stuy. Because Stuy is part of a system that MUST teach every child and BASIS is part of a market-driven system that MUST dump every child who is not profitable to teach.”
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The sad thing is that the students who graduate from BASIS really don’t need a specialized school like this. They would succeed anywhere. BUT, they take tons of money away from the public schools. I wonder what the per pupil expenditure comes out to for every BASIS student that graduated.
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Threatened,
I am not sure they would succeed in schools in which the courses they take are trivial. Most of the public high schools in my state do not offer calculus. All of the public high schools in my state do not offer anything beyond calculus. It is like running ELA courses but not allowing students Shakespeare, not allowing music students to listen to Beethoven, not allowing art students to see Monet, because their work is “too advanced” and students don’t really need to see the best most interesting works.
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teachingeconomist,
What state do you live in where it is rare for a student to be able to take calculus in high school and the vast majority of high school graduates have never had the opportunity to take a calculus class?
“All of the public high schools in my state do not offer anything beyond calculus”.
Even at Stuyvesant, the number of students who are taking math classes beyond Calculus is very small. And the ones who do are generally so gifted in math that they would be learning that math on their own or in college level classes anyway.
BASIS simply rushes kids through AP level courses. They graduate a small % of their entering class and an even smaller % of those students go beyond AP Calculus at BASIS. And an even smaller % of those kids who are in those post-Calculus high school classes are going to college and enrolling in different math classes than the students who “only” completed AP Calc BC at public schools.
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Kansas
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Instead of asking parents to donate $1500, BASIS probably should be paying out stipends to its parents. After all, those test scores their business reputation is built on rely on hours of nightly parent supervised homework.
Childhood is so short. So sad.
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