[3] In April 2019, the five independent BASIS Schools in New York, California, Washington, and Virginia were purchased by Spring Education Group.
[8] In response to the documentary, Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton visited a BASIS campus to deliver speeches on the importance of education in America.
43 of these are public charter schools found in Arizona, Louisiana, Texas and Washington, D.C. Six of these are private BASIS Independent Schools found in New York City, Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, California and Bellevue, Washington State.
Ten are privately owned international schools found in China, Bangkok, Thailand and the Czech Republic.
Critics contend that Basis fails to provide adequate financial transparency and accountability as it uses for-profit management companies.
[16] Another investigative article in 2010 questioned the founders' salary compared to the teachers and other public school administrators.
[18] Critics also point out that BASIS's performance in national ranking systems like the U.S. News & World Report is largely a function of Basis's singular focus on mandatory Advanced Placement (AP) testing, as these ranking systems give great weight to the percentage of students at a school that take the AP tests.
[19] Critics also take issue with BASIS's attrition rates (senior classes are typically a third to a quarter of the size of the fifth-grade class) and argue that BASIS achieves good test scores in part by weeding out under-performing students.
[24] Most recently, a controversy has sparked over the BASIS independent schools' affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party.