We have a brand new 2015 “Best High Schools” List from U.S. News & World Report, not to be confused with the recent Washington Post “Most Challenging High Schools” list that came out a few weeks ago. Except that, in the words of an old Herman’s Hermits song, “Second verse list, same as the first.” Well, not the same exactly, but pretty damn close. Both lists are created from some combination of the frequency of students at the schools taking either the Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses and how well they do on the tests. Not surprisingly, a BASIS school makes the list—BASIS Scottsdale is number 2—as does Tucson’s University High at number 17. BASIS Tucson North most likely would have made the list as well, except that its move from the BASIS Tucson campus meant it didn’t fit into the scoring formula.
The methodology the magazine used to create the list makes it sound like it’s important how well economically disadvantaged students do at the school compared to similar students at other schools. That’s not exactly true. A school’s “economically disadvantaged score” doesn’t have anything to do with where schools place on the list. Doing reasonably well with those students is a hurdle you have to jump over, a door you have to pass through, before you’re allowed to compete. Once you’ve proven your economically disadvantaged students are doing well enough, your placement on the list is purely an AP/IB thing.
However, even that isn’t entirely true. If you’re most charter schools—and that includes BASIS charters—it doesn’t matter how well you do with economically disadvantaged students, or even if you have any in your student population.
U.S. News determines a school’s percentage of “economically disadvantaged students” by looking at state records and finding out what percentage of students at a school qualify for free or reduced lunch. The problem is, most charters don’t serve lunches for their students, so they don’t submit tallies of qualifying students to the state.
I wanted to make sure I had this right, so I contacted Katie Sarvas, BASIS.ed’s Director of External Relations (BASIS.ed is the for-profit company that runs the nonprofit BASIS schools. Long story.). She confirmed what I thought.
We do not report on free and reduced lunch for our students since we do not serve lunch at our charter schools. As a result, the data that U.S. News and World Report receives shows an “N/A” (or zero) for these fields.
Next, I found out how U.S. News deals with this situation by looking through its detailed description of methodology.
The percentage of students in poverty was calculated with enrollment values retrieved from the CCD’s eligibility counts for free or reduced‐price lunch, relative to the total number of students at a school. The weighted mean value of the state was used when poverty values were missing for a school. [boldface added for emphasis]
I took enough college stat to be suspicious of all things statistical, but not enough to know what the “weighted mean value of the state” is. It sounds to me like U.S. News supplies a best-guess number of economically disadvantaged students for schools like BASIS. It also sounds like, contrary to the impression it leaves in its descriptions, it really doesn’t care if you have a significant number of economically disadvantaged students at your school or how well they do. (FYI: U.S. News lists University High as having 17 percent economically disadvantaged students, a low number considering the high percentage in the district.)
All this confirms my healthy distrust of lists and statistics. Caveat emptor is the best rule to follow. Unless you read the ingredients on the package carefully or dig deep in the box to find out what’s inside, you really don’t know what you’re getting.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2015.
Nor believe anything written by Safier.
Does anyone who is familiar with developmental / progressive approaches to pedagogy have a problem with rankings that are determined by the number of AP (a.k.a. college level) courses high school students take? I’m all for giving students the opportunity to get ahead when they are ready to do so, but I’m not for forcing them ahead prematurely to inflate a school’s stats. The way these rankings are structured takes for granted that the curriculum in the “best” high schools looks more like college entered 3 (or 4, or 5) years early than it looks like high school. Perhaps we’re old-fashioned, but some of us still feel that the curriculum in the “best” high school will give students the opportunity for appropriate academic progress while enabling them to lead a balanced life that involves serious engagement with fine arts, extracurriculars, athletics, and community service.
Relevant questions: What kinds of changes do schools that engage in this “arms race” for rankings force in the lives of the students enrolled in them? Do administrators in these schools perhaps implement policies that increase the number of AP’s taken, whether or not students are prepared to succeed in those classes and on those exams? Do they — even worse — turn a blind eye to policies that increase attrition rates, knowing that decreasing the number of seniors enrolled raises the rankings? Some former faculty members at ranked schools who know how the programs at these schools evolved into what they are now will admit that the ever-escalating need to prove your value to the public through your “numbers” has distorted the way administrators structure these schools’ curricular programs — and the way they require faculty to work with students.
People who’ve studied child and adolescent development generally understand that “teaching it earlier” doesn’t necessarily mean “teaching it better”; in fact, in many cases, it means entirely missing the developmental window in which the subject CAN be properly taught, and doing considerable damage to the student in the process. Unfortunately for our beleaguered public school system, the current policy trend towards forcing premature enrollment in AP’s does quite a bit to encourage those who have the means to do so to enroll students in privates with more humane policies. More high-education, high-SES constituents exiting: is this what our public schools need at this point?
Why not add a separate category for ranking the quality of the food given out at the free lunch schools? Who feeds these kids on weekends or do they offer home delivery? It’s a wonder we have time and money left to try to educate them. Let’s hope we’re not trying to teach them that there’s no FREE Lunch.
Basis is the best. Haters gonna hate. You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
You can teach a child, economically disadvantaged or not, but you can’t Make them learn if they don’t want to.
The difference here is that students at Basis WANT to learn and exceed the standards. The teachers there WANT to teach and help their students exceed the standards. It is a partnership in excellence.
Let’s just close all Honor schools. No more AP classes or Schools for the Gifted. Right? That’s what you want, right?
I have a friend who calls the Basis method the “World War Z approach to education.” What does he mean?
Remember the scene in the movie where the zombies form a column trying to get over a huge wall surrounding a city? They climb over and on one another, scrambling upward, some falling off the column…a disturbing spectacle.
What is an educational “community” that has, as some of the Basis sites do, attrition rates of 70% between when students first enroll and when seniors graduate from the school? Why are the senior classes so small? What’s wrong with the 70% who drop out? Don’t they “WANT to learn”? Don’t the teachers “WANT to teach and help” them? Or is it perhaps that a good number of uncertified “teachers” are unable to “help” students who try to enroll in their classes because they don’t properly understand child development and pedagogy, never having taken and passed a single course in the subject, never having completed student teaching under a qualified professional in the field of education?
The satisfied Basis parents I know personally whose kids have been able to maintain their enrollment through middle school and into high school are the kind of people (lawyers, college professors, etc.) whose kids could teach themselves an AP curriculum if they were left alone in a room with a set of textbooks. These students are a uniquely high functioning group, whose cognitive abilities, self-discipline, and level of parent support account for a significant portion of their high achievement. Basis (and UHS, for that matter) have performed quite a conjuring trick in figuring out how to select this crowd (it’s done through attrition at Basis and through a selective admissions process at UHS)and then take credit for the results they produce.
70% of students need to do better. I hope that a different private of public school will help them in their journey to graduation.
So, should we close all private and charter schools? Were has the venom been for the private Catholic Schools for the past 75 years?
What is the difference if a child is in an Honors AP program at a public school or attends BASIS?
Why does BASIS outscore everyone? All I see are a bunch of scared public officials afraid they are losing their golden tickets and stirring the pot.
Lets see a Public High School compete with BASIS and get into the top 20. I hope it happens, but hope only gets you so far.
Just read this, and the comments. This is how discussions should occur, and I will strive to do better in the future.
Now if we could just get David to leave his office and actually visit a BASIS school physically……
http://politicsuncuffed.com/education/the-secret-behind-those-highly-performing-charter-schools/
Old Pueblo Independent’s comments show a great deal of ignorance, and a significant lack of consideration of the many issues that teachers in public schools have to address in order to work toward meeting the varied needs of a public school population. We accept all students, and not just those whose parents are able to provide all of the opportunities that a middle to upper class income level makes possible. Do some actual research or maybe even go volunteer at a public school before you make such generalized comments.
@ Old Pueblo Independent:
RE the “Politics Uncuffed” post: I didn’t read the comment stream, but the main post you link provides a pretty honest assessment of what Basis actually is. What this woman writes supports the view that Basis is more comparable with prep schools or exam schools than with public schools that serve more socio-economically and cognitively diverse student populations. This has been one of Safier’s main points, here and elsewhere.
RE your question, “Why does Basis outscore everyone?”: Many commenters (including a couple in the above stream) have pointed out that Basis’s program design games the rankings system. Requiring students to take the AP version of courses in every subject area and tolerating and / or encouraging high attrition rates produces high rankings: if you look at the Washington Post ranking-generating formula, for example, the former practice raises the numerator, and the latter practice lowers the denominator. Both raising the numerator and lowering the denominator raise the quotient, which determines the ranking.
The sad part of this story is that some public “college prep” schools that used to base their policies and practices on an understanding of the need for breadth, balance, and flexibility in secondary education are yielding to the temptation to require enrollment in more AP’s. Rather than aiming to rise in the rankings, public secondary schools should be aiming to support students’ best interests and form well-rounded graduates. Students should not be forced into courses for which they are not ready. These types of policy changes encourage more people whose kids are on a college prep track to exit the public system and enroll in the private system, where they can still find schools that decline to engage in the rankings wars and that resist the damaging trend towards “data-driven” decision making.
I went to a private Catholic school which my parents paid for. I have no problem with private schools that the parents pay for. Basis has created its own private school on taxpayers’ money. I also recognized years later that although I got a good education, I missed a lot by not attending a public schools. My children did not attend a private school or a charter and I am very happy about that.
I find public schools to have been well-rounded, and more like life in diversity however there are some who continue to want to destroy that. Today, the classes in public schools have a higher ratio of special education students (in the districts I am familiar with) and poorer people. Transportation to charter schools is not available and poorer, single parent homes can’t do it. I applaud those who are fighting to expose some charters for what they are… run by corporations for profit that service those who can handle high stress and a difficult curriculum. That is a crime. Then there are those charters who can’t deal with education and open and close on the taxpayers’ money. Why are we pretending this segregation and misuse of taxpayer money is not happening? So that i am not pigeon-holing too much, there are many parents who work hard in public schools and support them who are not single-parent homes or poor. I am just saying that is the trend that I see happening. I also know there are some charter schools with dedicated teachers and are successful. However, I don’t believe that is the majority and the independent studies also do not support that.
I also find it amazing that so many that scream about transparency in public schools ad nauseum, do not demand anything like that from charters. That is a huge hypocrisy. There are more and more investigations into the misuse of taxpayer money by charters and little is said about this by those that scream about public schools.
Gifted students deserve to have their needs met in our public school system as well. A college preparatory education should not be a privilege available only to the rich. The problem, increasingly, with publicly funded “college prep” schools (both charters like Basis and public “exam schools” like UHS) is that instead of providing a sufficiently broad curriculum that can meet the range of cognitive needs in the gifted population and allow for an appropriate level of involvement in extracurriculars, increasingly they force these students through a high-stress, AP-cram kind of curriculum in order to “milk” the student body for the AP enrollment rates they can produce and the effect these rates will have on inane rankings formulas. The rankings formulas are produced not by professional educators but by media entities who know that ranking schools increases their publications’ circulation numbers. We increasingly have a situation where administrators keep their eyes on the scores and rankings and keep turning up the pressure on students in order to remain competitive with their rivals.
Ironically, the more policy changes are made that turn up the pressure on students, the less able these schools are to serve the needs of a socioeconomically diverse population. There are many ways in which this plays out, but this is one: The vast majority of students are stronger in some subjects and weaker in others. It is much easier for parents who can afford to pay for supplementary tutoring in subjects where their kids need extra help to keep them enrolled successfully in a school that requires you take the AP version of every subject. (It’s true that some tutoring support is made available through the schools, but it is nowhere near the level of support that can be provided when parents are able to hire a highly qualified, regular private tutor.)
It’s a race to the bottom. I have no more interest in these “discussions” in the comment forum aka echo chamber here.
Socio-economically diverse population…………. Please. Enough.
The Education system has become the new Industrial Complex. Throw money at it, and then more money at, and …….. Same results.
I think system is broken AND afraid of any competition that takes their snouts away from a bigger trough.
Over 50 percent of Arizona High School grads NEED to take remedial classes at Community Colleges. I know, let’s throw more money at a system that does not work.
David Safier continuously singles out Basis Charter School.
He does not “investigate” any of the other Arizona Charter Schools with the same vigor.
If David were to investigate each Charter every month, and took the time to visit each one, and learn how exactly they are funded, we would all be better for it.
Why aren’t the Public Schools smart enough to game the system?
So. Honors Schools, AP classes at Public Schools good. Anywhere else, not public, bad.
Guess what kids, Catholic school get funding that could go to Public Schools too, shut them down, right? http://sspptucson.org/funding-your-education.html
Oh we do not have to worry about throwing more money at education in Arizona. We don’t ‘throw’ much anyway. Biggest cuts in the nation in Arizona(Arizona Star). Yes the corporations are running schools and making big bucks. Contrary to what is loved to be said here, good teachers deserve to be paid. Schools need to be maintained. Books need to be bought. The whole system is getting gutted by the greed of our politicians and corporations have. 50% of high school grads have to go to Pima? If you have real numbers , they must include those who graduate from charter high schools also. I doubt your statement or it was created by a right-wing outlet. For the sake of argument, ok, let’s say its true. 7 years in a row our education in Arizona has been cut. How is that working for us? If you have true data on the need for remedial work, it must say also what years this data was collected and who the population was specifically. If that is true, it probably started 7 years ago or close. National data by multiple sources show the correlation between money spent and achievement in education. We are number 50 in money and close to that in achievement( Mississippi might be under us. It was for a long time). I don’t think you will find any argument there on the internet. We are I think the only state that is ‘racing to the bottom’. Oh and BTW are debt is no smaller. Every cut Republicans made did not get us out of debt. We just give more tax cuts to the wealthy. So check that out by just looking up how every year the tax breaks grow for the wealthy here.. Rich get richer on the backs of our children. And we really have people defending this. Unbelievable.
State of mind is delusional at best. Walmart just announced they have raised starting hourly to a higher level because they “can’t find people qualified” to work in Walmart.
Can you explain how that helps corporations? That would be unbelievable.
If only we could put the petty jealousy aside.
Old Pueblo Independent regurgitates negativity and hasn’t an independent thought. Judging by Old Pueblo Independent’s posts, school has never been a priority for him/her.
Old Pueblo Independent regurgitates negativity and hasn’t an independent thought. Judging by Old Pueblo Independent’s posts, school has never been a priority for him/her.
Personal attacks will get you nowhere fast. Education is important. Hypocrisy and the status-quo is not.
Public Schools are not working for American, and throwing money at them is not benefiting anyone that it is supposed to.
Proud to teach….hate?