Anonymous wrote:I think the white PPs just honestly find it impossible to believe that an all-black high school could be intellectually rigorous and successful at preparing students for top colleges.
I think the black PPs just honestly find it impossible to believe that Banneker is neither as intellectually rigorous nor as successful at preparing students for top colleges as other available options, especially for whites, Asians, Latinos and high SES blacks.
So be it.
Oh come on. Banneker is clearly doing something very right, given its college placement and AP results. Maybe it is not the same as TJ but that is not the question. The question is why don't any white parents, at all, even consider this very good school as compared to other good DC options like Walls and Wilson?
I don't understand the comparison to TJ. According to the latest stats, white people are shunning TJ, and the Asian population is increasingly dominant. So based on this thread, most of the whites who responded said that the school was not rigorous enough; the school was no TJ; and, the school reported too low SAT scores. Hmm, if that is truly the reason, why are whites also declining in enrollment at TJ?
Go find the SAT scores for TJ, compare them to Wilson and to Banneker, and you will see the answer.
No, that's not the answer to the question. White people are using SAT scores for their reasons to not send their children to Banneker. What is the reason for white people not sending their children to TJ, a largely Asian populated magnet school with great SAT scores?
You are a bit slow today, aren't you?
SAT scores at TJ are super high, showing it is a very competitive, race-blind, school. Many white students do try to get in; few do, because there's better qualified (often Asian) students.
SAT scores at Wilson are relatively high for a non-selective and super diverse school. Disclosure: my kids (Latino) will probably end up there.
SAT scores at Banneker at surprisingly low for a selective school. Why would whites (or other with better alternatives) send their kids there, unless for some reason they are looking for an all-black immersion experience?
Yes, slow. To be clear. Banneker is not all black. They have a high Latino population. They also have Asian students. Again, if a great college is your end game, Banneker is it. If you are caught up into SAT scores - I don't know, you have so much attitude - why in God's name would you send them to Wilson. Wilson is nothing to write home about. I am inbounds to Wilson and my kid is afraid to go there. And I'm black.
I won't tell you what to do with your kid, so please don't tell me what to do your mine, especially when you obviously are quite ill-informed. There are many more Latino (and Asian) at Wilson than at Banneker, and going to great colleges, AND learning how to live in the big world out there, instead of self-segregating themselves in a small and very artificial environment.
It is great that DCPS offers different choices, as we live in a very diverse city. I am in this thread because the title question intrigued me, and I wanted to learn more about the school. What I have discovered is multiple reasons why it makes no sense for my kids to even consider Banneker. I wish the school well.
I'm not the pp quoted, but regarding the bolded, What is artificial about the environment at Banneker? That's such an odd thing to say. I'm a current Banneker parent, btw.
I'm not any of these PPs, and I don't necessarily agree with PP you quoted in bold.
However, I think what PP is saying here is that an all-black environment, and frankly, an all-black-led and all-black-all-high-achieving environment, is not representative of broader society. Following high school graduation, or at the latest, following graduation from a historically black college, Banneker grads will need to navigate a world in which whites are the majority and blacks occupy few positions of power or influence. Similarly, graduates from an all girl school will encounter a male-dominated work environment in most fields. I think this was the point, that a school like Wilson is a more realistic introduction to the world out there. Again, I don't necessarily agree that such an "artificially controlled" environment is such a bad thing during formative years, but this was PP's point.
But why is this so different from what happens at other all-white high achieving environments? Why is it a bad thing it its all black, but not if its all white? (i.e(JKLM elementary schools in NW or TJ (asian) and Langley in VA or Churchill, Wooten in MD? I apologize if I am not articulating this very well, but I just don't understand why folks are arguing about Banneker and what it offers it AA population? White don't want to go there, that's clear, but why are whites putting the school down so much if it does a great good of educating its population?
You are responding to me. I did not say it was bad. In fact, I said that I did not agree with PP's assessment of it as being bad.
But to answer the question in your first sentence, it's different because white-male-dominance is (unfortunately) the national norm. Therefore a white-dominant school represents the real (American) world more than a black-dominated or female-dominated school. Don't shoot the messenger, as if this is news to anyone.
Further up thread I defended Banneker, FWIW.
I agree with this. It is important to remember the demographics of our country. If I remember correctly:
- White 65%
- Latino 15%
- Black 13%
- Then Asian and other
As a successful female executive, it wouldn't have mattered if I went to a majority school (went to a women's college) b/c men don't accept you anyway. What is your point? Because I sit in class with them that's better? Do you tell Jewish people who attend Jewish schools and colleges that they are making a terrible mistake b/c the world is not majority Jewish?
You are getting it all backwards. This thread is not about why black parents send kids to Banneker. There are many good reasons for that, similar to, say, Jewish parents sending kids to a Jewish school.
This thread is about why white parents don't send their kids to Banneker. Let's follow with the Jewish example. If you were Muslim, would you send your kids to an all-Jewish school?
Unlikely. But possible. What if it happens to be the best school in the region by far?
Or, what if you are in the middle of Israel in some Jewish-only area and, no matter what, there are no Muslim students around?
Now, the reason whites don't send their kids to Banneker is because neither of these 2 scenarios apply. There are plenty of other equally good, if not better, schools around. And, because we live in a majority-white country, not in Nigeria, there is no particular reason to send a majority white kid to study in a minority black bubble that doesn't represent the demographics of the population at large.
Again, this doesnt say or mean anything about the quality of the school. But it helps explain why so few whites (or Latino or Asian or Native American) send their kids there.
Anonymous wrote:I think the white PPs just honestly find it impossible to believe that an all-black high school could be intellectually rigorous and successful at preparing students for top colleges.
I think the black PPs just honestly find it impossible to believe that Banneker is neither as intellectually rigorous nor as successful at preparing students for top colleges as other available options, especially for whites, Asians, Latinos and high SES blacks.
So be it.
Oh come on. Banneker is clearly doing something very right, given its college placement and AP results. Maybe it is not the same as TJ but that is not the question. The question is why don't any white parents, at all, even consider this very good school as compared to other good DC options like Walls and Wilson?
Yes, slow. To be clear. Banneker is not all black. They have a high Latino population. They also have Asian students. Again, if a great college is your end game, Banneker is it. If you are caught up into SAT scores - I don't know, you have so much attitude - why in God's name would you send them to Wilson. Wilson is nothing to write home about. I am inbounds to Wilson and my kid is afraid to go there. And I'm black.
I won't tell you what to do with your kid, so please don't tell me what to do your mine, especially when you obviously are quite ill-informed. There are many more Latino (and Asian) at Wilson than at Banneker, and going to great colleges, AND learning how to live in the big world out there, instead of self-segregating themselves in a small and [b]very artificial environment. [/b]
It is great that DCPS offers different choices, as we live in a very diverse city. I am in this thread because the title question intrigued me, and I wanted to learn more about the school. What I have discovered is multiple reasons why it makes no sense for my kids to even consider Banneker. I wish the school well.
I'm not the pp quoted, but regarding the bolded, What is artificial about the environment at Banneker? That's such an odd thing to say. I'm a current Banneker parent, btw.
I'm not any of these PPs, and I don't necessarily agree with PP you quoted in bold.
However, I think what PP is saying here is that an all-black environment, and frankly, an all-black-led and all-black-all-high-achieving environment, is not representative of broader society. Following high school graduation, or at the latest, following graduation from a historically black college, Banneker grads will need to navigate a world in which whites are the majority and blacks occupy few positions of power or influence. Similarly, graduates from an all girl school will encounter a male-dominated work environment in most fields. I think this was the point, that a school like Wilson is a more realistic introduction to the world out there. Again, I don't necessarily agree that such an "artificially controlled" environment is such a bad thing during formative years, but this was PP's point.
Many minority parents (us included, and Asians excluded) will not send our kids to Wilson because it is not the big world out there that we want our kids to ever have to navigate. That is why so many of the high SES AA parents have their kids in private schools not DCPS, not Latin, Basis, Walls, and especially not Banneker or Wilson. The colleges we want our children to attend will be a much bigger world than the one in which they are presently living, but all AA students there will have made it to the decent colleges our kids will attend. Some of them will come from much more socioeconomically deprived environments than any of the AA kids in the top DC private schools here, and kudos to those kids for getting to the same college our kids will be at, and at that point in our kids lives we will consider it a valuable and good experience if they integrate into a more AA community and learn from those kids.
But the truth is, NOT all AA and Latino kids at Wilson are college bound. And that is not the kind of diversity or "world" we want for our kids in high school, or ever as a peer group, which is why they are each one of a very few number of AA kids in each class at every private school around here. They can experience it at Harvard, where, unlike in the DC privates, "diversity" is much more than just skin deep. And they can also meet the kids from flyover country, from Oklahoma, Latin America, and Greece etc. At that point it will be all good, because at that point the kids who could really get them into trouble will be the white, multi-generational legacy trust fund brats, not the multi-generational inner city poverty AA population here where many kids never had a chance because their mothers were on crack while they were in utero.
Sorry to insult so many and paint with far too broad a brush, but this the reason that many if not most high SES AA kids in DC, if they are ever in DCPS, leave sometime during ES, without hesitation or any kind of inner conflict, and none of the angst that white liberals seem to experience even moving from school to school here. For parents like us, the equation is quite simple. We do what we believe is best for our kids, and it ain't Banneker or Wilson or Walls or anywhere except private school. Never has been and never will be. And during all this time they are learning how to operate in the white educated world, which is still the world that mostly matters in this country (although the "white" part of that is becoming less and less pristine with every generation......
But PP, I have to ask this question - we are veering off - as a AA family with very high HHI and one kid in DCPS and one in private (each kid is very different), even I have realized that Banneker kids are getting into those same colleges that you are spending over $100k to get your kid into to. For my HBCU family, we want our kids to follow us. We understand that they may not, but given our professions, we are certainly not more impressed with kids whose parents spent all of that money to get their kids into those ivies, etc. Also, as an AA girl who grew up in a very affluent suburb here, I swore that I would never let my kids go through what I did as being one of the very few. Not fun at all. There is more to education than academics.
Also, the reason that I also like Banneker (my DS is not a candidate b/c he would not be able to manage the work) is that all of the kids are successful. Wilson scares him b/c some of the kids are scary, but not at Banneker. Therefore the choice for us would have been Banneker. With all that said, my DS will have to go private. Not because I think those schools are so much better, but because he needs a really small environment.
PP here: we considered Banneker, but we did not like
a) the work load that apparently leaves no time for extra curriculars when our kids are heavily invested elsewhere - there was a recent thread on this, and it sounded like it was not necessarily just work that accomplished stuff but also busy work, TJ parents talk about staying up til 2am to help kids with projects - don't
b) their grading system, which apparently since they are not nationally ranked, needs to be explained to everyone
(see same thread)
c) their SAT scores (our kids have done better on the PSATs and SATs than that)
d) the SES status of the majority of the kids - they are aiming at a different goal, a free ride somewhere, our kids don't need it, and we wanted our kids to be exposed to privileged white kids before college
FWIW our youngest child is in a DC public charter school now - BASIS DC, and the college prospects look good
this did not exist when our older children were in eligible grades. We waited as long as we could to go private - 9th grade - no reason to pour money down the drain, and our kids could get in, looks like last kid will stay at BASIS
My white child attends Duke Ellington, where she is a minority, but I would agree that there is a difference between being the ONLY white kids and being one of a group of white kids. For my child, who came from a majority-white school, it was her first experience being in a racial minority at school. And guess what? The white kids flock together, just like the black kids do when THEY are in the minority. It's not that they don't want to interact with kids of other races -- on the contrary, my daughter has friends from all backgrounds at DESA -- but they need or want that touchstone of common identity.
Anonymous wrote:I have an honest question and would appreciate an honest answer. We are a white family with a white son and are on the wait list for Cleveland. Will we not be welcome because the students and parents are predominately of color? To the PP who states how important it is for her child to be with high achieving AAs (and I get that!) will you not feel comfortable with my family at Cleveland?
From a white family with a white son at Cleveland you will ABSOLUTELY feel welcome.
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