BASIS Schools Inc. is launching its first campus in Washington, D.C. — called BASIS DC — for the 2012-13 school year. The revolution is already underway:
Instead of waiting for its still-under-renovation building in Penn Quarter to open in mid-July, BASIS DC has been holding intensive after-school and weekend tutoring sessions in four locations since February. Already, 40 percent of the school’s 468 open-enrollment students are participating, and teachers are focusing especially on helping the 20 percent who have been identified as extremely low-performing in reading or math. Preliminary test results indicate students, who come from all wards in the city, have advanced more in five weeks of tutoring than in a whole year at DC Public Schools.
“New charter school will raise the bar on D.C. education”, Barbara Hollingsworth, Washington Examiner, May 15, 2012.
When I checked this morning, they still had space available.
More about BASIS DC: “Will a BASIS charter school work in D.C.?”, Jay Matthews, Washington Post, March 21, 2011.
BASIS has applied for a charter in Texas; if granted, it could open a campus here as soon as the 2013-14 school year.
