Week 1

Hello everyone!

I hope you all have had an amazing week! Today was a very exciting day, as I traveled from Phoenix to our country's great capital, Washington D.C. This isn't my first time here but, for those of you who have not yet had the chance to visit, it's definitely a place you want to put on your bucket list.

In my last post, I mentioned that I would begin reading one of my pieces of literature for this project titled, "The Evolution and Revolution of DC Charter Schools: A Transformation of Public Education in Washington D.C." During my flight today, I began reading this book and to say the least, I found out some very interesting things about not only the charter schools in Washington DC but, charter schools in general. Josephine C. Baker, the author of this book, was a teacher for 25 years who taught at the local public schools here in Washington DC. That is until, she was asked to be a member of the DC Public Charter School Board. She had taken on this role in hopes to be a pioneer in the reshaping of an education system. DC public schools, like many other public schools today, were struggling to provide a high-quality education to their communities. In the face of many skeptics and opponents, she and her colleagues were faced with the challenge of creating new, high quality educational opportunities for students who desperately needed and wanted them.  

So far in chapter 1, Baker begins by laying down the basics of what are public charter schools. For those of you who don't fully understand what a public charter school is, let me inform you as to what that means. A public charter school is an independent school that is funded by its local jurisdiction. This then means that the programs offered at this school, are to be offered to the local residents within that jurisdiction, free of charge. When a school is categorized as being "charter", it therefore allows that school to develop innovative programs and approaches. These are vastly different approaches than what you would typically find at a public school, therefore making these charter schools independent of the traditional school system. However, there's a catch to all of this that I want to focus more on throughout the course of my project. That is, public charter schools are more accountable for its results with students, and failure to reach positive results can lead to closure of the school.

This is important to my research because, I believe this is part of the reason why the culture of BASIS is the way it is. As someone who has attended BASIS for four years, I now understand why my school made such a great deal to ensuring that it's students met certain standards. It wasn't because we were trying to only maintain a good rating but, my school was making an effort to ensure that it could continue to offer a high quality service to its community. However, in order for this goal to be accomplished, there has to be a common mentality amongst the entire school community that there is no room to fall short of these standards. And while instilling this mentality into your school community, you are in essence developing a type of school culture. One in which factors in the importance of academic excellence. This was definitely something that I saw throughout my experience at BASIS, and played out in the form of academic competitiveness between students. Now that everyone has this common mentality that is factored into the school culture, it's now left up to the students and their families to see whether or not they can find adapt to this academically challenging and competitive climate.

I look forward to continuing this book and keeping you all up to date on the details that I find most interesting, as well as some of the ideas that will help me in defining school culture and its impact on students. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and remember to check back here next Friday for my latest update!

Best,

-Eli

Introductory Post

Hello everyone！

This first blog post will serve as my opportunity to share with you more information about my research project. This will include my research question, data collection methods, as well as the overall goals of my project.

My research project question: Are there any persisting school culture differences, that allow a BASIS student to adapt better or differently to the BASIS model that each school implements?

Having been a BASIS high school student for the past four years at the Ahwatukee location, the constant exposure to a diverse community of students, all who come from various unique backgrounds, has led me to inquire about my curiosities and answering questions like the one I’ve presented. As the number of charter schools in the United States is on the rise, students and families face an incredible diversity of choice when selecting a competitive school program. The BASIS academic program, which was first introduced by Michael and Olga Block when they opened BASIS Tucson in 1998. As time progressed, BASIS has found its place as they continue to dominate US News, World Report Lists, and Washington Post as offering the most rigorous academic programs in the country. These rigorous programs can be found at any one of the 29 BASIS campuses. With schools  located in the United States, internationally, and more planned to open in the next several years, an evolvement in the development of BASIS schools is inevitable. Part of this development will take place directly on campus, impacting the culture of each school, even though they implement the same model and programs. Thus far, an analysis of the BASIS model reveals one challenge BASIS schools currently face: the culture of the school affecting its ability to meet the needs and desires of most students. However, being that most BASIS campuses are charter schools,  the charter school system directly plays a role in the schools upheld requirement and ability to meet the needs of its students. By interviewing students and faculty at both the Washington DC and Ahwatukee campuses, I hope to establish and articulate what is the culture of these differing campuses and how this impacts the school's ability to meet the needs of its students. Conducting this research will provide students and faculty an opportunity to reflect on this overall experience, and provide a perspective from that of a student and administrator/teacher, to understand the complexity of our BASIS community that has been shaped by a culture and mentality.

That being said, while interning at both locations, one of which I'm familiar with the environment and culture, I will be using student surveys and interviews to get a sense of how students would describe their experience at BASIS. Listed below are the questions that I plan to include in these student surveys/questionnaires.

1.    What grade are you in?

2.    What is your ethnicity?

3.    How long have you attended BASIS, and what grade did you enter?

4.    Do you like attending you school? Why or why not?

5.    Do you feel that your school offers the resources needed for you to be successful? Why or why not?

6.    What are some of your goals for the future?

7.    If you have attended another school prior to coming to BASIS, how does BASIS compare to the other school?

8.    When it comes to academics, are your parents usually involved, or do you consider yourself to be independent in this area?

9.    How would you describe the environment/culture of your school?

10. What would you consider to be a high point in your time at BASIS? What would you consider to a low point?

Along with this, I will be researching more into charter schools and how they function. Being that BASIS schools are charter schools, I believe that being so, plays an important role in a way that gives these students access to certain resources, that they potentially wouldn’t have access to at regular public schools. However, there seems to be a difference in the quality of education on the east coast as compared to the west coast. So, another one of my tasks will not only be to just research charter schools but to see how charter schools differ from coast to coast, and seeing how this ultimately impacts a student’s educational experience. To help me with this, I will be attending a D.C Charter School Conference on February 16^th as well reading a book titled, The Evolution & Revolution of DC Charter Schools: A Transformation of Public Education in Washington DC, by Josephine C. Baker.

By doing this project, I hope to accomplish goals such as building relationships with students on both campuses. This will not only be an opportunity for them to share their experiences with me but, as well as an opportunity for me to share my experiences with them and share how I was successful throughout my time of attendance. I hope that through my research, I receive insightful experiences from students and their families on what shaped their BASIS experience, and to hopefully articulate the school cultures of both campuses.

You can check back here on February 10^th for my next post, and stay tuned for upcoming new and exciting information. Thanks for stopping by!

Best,

-Eli

Hello my fellow readers!

You can check back here every Friday for a weekly post. I look forward to keeping you all updated, and remember to follow by email or subscribe. Thanks!

Best,
-Eli