David Safier by David Safier Dr. David Garcia is exploring a run for Arizona's Superintendent of Education. I had the pleasure of sharing a radio studio with him last Saturday on Robin Hiller's State of Education program, and I was impressed. Dr. Garcia is very knowledgeable about education, as you would expect of someone who is an … Read more
by David Safier
At the original campus of BASIS charter school in Tucson, the class of 2012 had 97 students when they were 6th graders. By the time those students were seniors, their numbers had dwindled to 33, a drop of 66%. At BASIS Scottsdale, the second campus opened, its class of 2012 fell from 53 in the 6th grade to 19 in its senior year, a drop of 64%. Those numbers aren't unusual. Every year at those schools, the number of students dropped between 60% and 71% from 6th to 12th grade, based on the Average Daily Attendance data the schools submitted to the Arizona Department of Education.
BASIS charter schools' high school students do stunningly well in AP classes and on other data-based measures of student achievement. But not many people understand how the schools arrive at those high numbers. They winnow the weakest students year by year until only the most academically successful survive.
When students begin their schooling at any of Arizona's BASIS campuses in the 6th grade (recently the schools began accepting 5th graders), they are already
among the highest achieving, most motivated students in the region. Because
of the BASIS reputation, most applicants are strong students — or have parents with high expectations — who apply knowing the school will be difficult academically. By charter school law, everyone who applies has to be accepted unless there are too many students, at which time they will be chosen by lottery, but BASIS does what it can to make sure the students have a reasonable chance of meeting with the school's high academic expectations before they start school in the fall. When they are accepted, students take a placement test. If they score low, the students and their parents are counseled that the students most likely won't be successful. If they really want to enter the school, they will be moved back a grade.
But even self-selection and a placement test aren't enough to assure that students succeed at BASIS. The middle school years — grades 6, 7 and 8 — are the proving grounds. Students are pushed hard academically in those grades, but they know the academic demands will be much tougher when they hit 9th grade. As a result, a large percentage of students withdraw between 6th and 8th grade years, generally 50% or more. The biggest dropoff is from the 8th to the 9th grade, when students who have been barely hanging on decide — or are counseled — to withdraw before they enter high school.
by David Safier State lawyers are fighting a court ruling that the state owes our schools $82 million. Actually, according to the court, the state owes the schools between $189 and $240 million, but it's willing to let bygones be bygones. In 2000, Arizonans voted to include an automatic inflation adjustment into state funding for … Read more
by David Safier It's always better than even money that, when AZ Republicans are accused of making outlandish, even dangerous statements, they actually made them. But being the cautious type, I like to wait for proof. Here it is. In a legislative hearing on black helicopters the "Agenda 21 UN-Communist Conspiracy," Rep. Bob Thorpe (R-Flagstaff) … Read more
by David Safier By way of background, Obama's education guy, Arne Duncan, was the head of the troubled Chicago schools and "fixed" some of its problems, using "fixes" that didn't actually fix anything. He's a believer in the idea that an aggressive school leader can defy the odds, even in the face of his own … Read more