Our story began in 1998 when Dr. Michael and Olga Block, world-class economists and academicians, found that the traditional American education system had fallen far behind the best of those found in Europe and Asia. While they enjoyed the spirit and creativity in the American classrooms they saw, they also found that low expectations of American students led to a lack of curricular substance. So they created a brand new academic program for a brand new school in Tucson, Arizona, and the BASIS Curriculum and BASIS Curriculum Schools were born. They quickly discovered that students did not falter but instead thrived when challenged, rising to the levels of, and then surpassing, the best students in the world.
The Blocks developed a formula for success and have been refining it over the past two decades, proving that any student can achieve and sustain top educational outcomes when challenged with a high-achieving course of study taught by subject-matter experts and supported by a culture of excellence. What began as a single campus in Tucson has significantly grown. The BASIS Curriculum Schools network now serves more than 30,000 students in 50 schools, in the United States, China, and Europe.
The BASIS Curriculum Schools network has grown to include 33 public charter schools in three states and the District of Columbia in the United States; eight high-achieving independent schools in New York, California, and Virginia, in the U.S.; eight international schools, including five in China and two in Prague, Czech Republic; and one bilingual school in China. All BASIS Curriculum Schools are tied together by the belief that achievement comes from the world-class BASIS Curriculum, as taught by excellent teachers, and backed by hard work and accountability.
In 2014, the BASIS Curriculum Schools network began expanding the scope of its revolutionary educational operations – including recruiting teachers from overseas and hosting international students on exchange programs. Soon after, BASIS Global was born – developing and opening schools using the BASIS Curriculum at locations in China.
In the spring of 2015, BASIS Global announced that it would open BASIS International School Shenzhen that fall, serving students in PreK to grade 12; From the outset, interest was sky-high, and students and families from Asia, as well as American and European ex-pats, flocked to the new institution with the tried-and-true world-class program. It was merely the first step for BASIS Global, just as BASIS Tucson turned out to be a first step for the BASIS Curriculum Schools network late last century.
Soon after its opening, BASIS International School Shenzhen won popularity and praises among many parents. With the success of its first school in China, BASIS Global quickly grew to a network of six schools in a few years:
Established Fall 2017:
BASIS International School Guangzhou (PreK – grade 12, grade 5 – grade 12 for boarding and day students)
Established Fall 2018:
BASIS International School Hangzhou (PreK – grade 12)
BASIS International Park Lane Harbour (grade 5 – grade 12 for boarding and day students)
Established Fall 2019:
BASIS International School Nanjing (PreK – grade 12)
Established Fall 2020:
BASIS Bilingual School Shenzhen (PreK – grade 12)
BASIS International Schools are a part of the worldwide BASIS Curriculum Schools network. For our students, this means they learn in an environment that is a portal to the world. In our classrooms, students are able to collaborate with their peers across the United States and China to solve problems, create and share new ideas, and understand the world, how to change it, and their place in it.
The aim of every BASIS Curriculum School — to empower students to achieve at globally competitive levels with a transformative K-12 academic program — has not changed. Indeed, BASIS Curriculum Schools is still redefining education and leading the world in producing remarkable learning results and student outcomes. BASIS Global is proud to be a part of one of the world’s most successful education networks, with such an extraordinary vision for educating students.