Banneker vs. Walls

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a post full of hateful white people, as usual. Affirmative action is there for a reason! You sound so excited that the next administration is going to “come at it hard”. Compare the schools without showing off how racist you are. Ok?

I wouldn't say it's just white people. Plenty of Asians are complaining too because they think they're special for paying boatloads of money to be able to regurgitate facts/stats on tests.

. Shame on those Asians, for scoring high on tests. They need to be stopped.

For having access to the expensive prep and all the other financial advantages that allowed them to “score high on tests” when low SES POC kids did not.

FTFY.

There are a good many low-income minority students in this city in public schools who score high on SATs and a slew of APs, particularly at BASIS. They tend not to have access to expensive prep. What they have is drive, and, with BASIS, a school that preps them intensely for SATs and and APs in a way that Banneker doesn't seem to. To my knowledge, even the highest-performing Banneker students take just 3 or 4 AP exams. Basis won't graduate students who take fewer than six. [/quote

Are there? BASIS has 9% at-risk kids compared with 20% at Banneker and almost half at DCPS in general. At-risk isn't going to encompass every low-income kid, but considering that BASIS is also almost half white in a city with almost no poor white families, it looks like BASIS is just mostly serving an UMC population. (And that Banneker, for that matter, is also serving a.less-poor group of kids than DCPS, although not to the same degree.)

This. Plus they’ve got about half the students (total of 211, with 51 12th graders). I wouldn’t call that a “good many.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a post full of hateful white people, as usual. Affirmative action is there for a reason! You sound so excited that the next administration is going to “come at it hard”. Compare the schools without showing off how racist you are. Ok?

I wouldn't say it's just white people. Plenty of Asians are complaining too because they think they're special for paying boatloads of money to be able to regurgitate facts/stats on tests.

. Shame on those Asians, for scoring high on tests. They need to be stopped.

For having access to the expensive prep and all the other financial advantages that allowed them to “score high on tests” when low SES POC kids did not.

FTFY.

There are a good many low-income minority students in this city in public schools who score high on SATs and a slew of APs, particularly at BASIS. They tend not to have access to expensive prep. What they have is drive, and, with BASIS, a school that preps them intensely for SATs and and APs in a way that Banneker doesn't seem to. To my knowledge, even the highest-performing Banneker students take just 3 or 4 AP exams. Basis won't graduate students who take fewer than six.

Your information is out of date. Is it based on the interviews you conducted 10-15 years ago? Because the school has made significant gains in the interim, both on the SAT (the average has gone from around 1000 to over 1100, which is to say from below the national average to about the 60th percentile) and on AP exams. Nowadays the highest-performing students in the AP program take 4+ APs by junior year and easily surpass 6 by graduation.

As others have pointed out, Banneker’s school averages would look more like BASIS’s if it also restricted its senior class to the top 50 students. And in fact Banneker does restrict access to its IB and most AP classes, which I think you’ll agree is where intellectual peer group matters most. But the school retains and graduates students with a much broader range of abilities than BASIS. It’s just a different model.

[Anonymous]

It's a model that doesn't serve Banneker students nearly as well as it could. Bragging rights to an improved SAT average of 1100 at a test-in, magnet school? This is shameful in any realm but the dysfunctional, excuse-making, equity-obsessed, affirmative action-reliant bubble DCPS operates in.

Why isn't DCPS getting serious about providing the capable teens at Banneker with sufficient challenge in elementary and middle school so that they could easily score in the 600s and 700s on SATs? We live in a world-class city, with some of the country's greatest museums, libraries and cultural offerings. Great SAT prep has been available on-line via Khan Academy for free for years, while prepping intensely for AP exams can also be done on-line these days, and with good-quality prep books available in public libraries.

Banneker isn't keeping up with the times in encouraging, and celebrating mediocrity, on the part of most of its students.

[Anonymous]

Do you know what an average is? If you do, you understand that individual students can score high above their school average. And if you don’t understand what an average is, you have no business discussing academic achievement.

[Anonymous]

If Banneker were a comprehensive DC high school, I'd thoroughly agree. But Banneker is an application school serving the college bound with average SAT scores in the 500s. That isn't impressive by any standard.

There doesn't seem to be any momentum for change at Walls or Banneker, or Wilson for that matter, with BASIS as an option for those aiming high academically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you know what an average is? If you do, you understand that individual students can score high above their school average. And if you don’t understand what an average is, you have no business discussing academic achievement.

Not PP but it also goes the other way and kids score below that. Bottom line is that the average is low considering it’s an application school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a model that doesn't serve Banneker students nearly as well as it could. Bragging rights to an improved SAT average of 1100 at a test-in, magnet school? This is shameful in any realm but the dysfunctional, excuse-making, equity-obsessed, affirmative action-reliant bubble DCPS operates in.

Why isn't DCPS getting serious about providing the capable teens at Banneker with sufficient challenge in elementary and middle school so that they could easily score in the 600s and 700s on SATs? We live in a world-class city, with some of the country's greatest museums, libraries and cultural offerings. Great SAT prep has been available on-line via Khan Academy for free for years, while prepping intensely for AP exams can also be done on-line these days, and with good-quality prep books available in public libraries.

Banneker isn't keeping up with the times in encouraging, and celebrating mediocrity, on the part of most of its students.

Agree 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Banneker were a comprehensive DC high school, I'd thoroughly agree. But Banneker is an application school serving the college bound with average SAT scores in the 500s. That isn't impressive by any standard.

There doesn't seem to be any momentum for change at Walls or Banneker, or Wilson for that matter, with BASIS as an option for those aiming high academically.

Can someone please cite to the average SAT score of 500? That's appallingly low. So low that I don't believe it without seeing independent verification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Banneker were a comprehensive DC high school, I'd thoroughly agree. But Banneker is an application school serving the college bound with average SAT scores in the 500s. That isn't impressive by any standard.

There doesn't seem to be any momentum for change at Walls or Banneker, or Wilson for that matter, with BASIS as an option for those aiming high academically.

Can someone please cite to the average SAT score of 500? That's appallingly low. So low that I don't believe it without seeing independent verification.

Looks like 1120 combined here. https://www.niche.com/k12/benjamin-banneker-academic-high-school-washington-dc/academics/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Banneker were a comprehensive DC high school, I'd thoroughly agree. But Banneker is an application school serving the college bound with average SAT scores in the 500s. That isn't impressive by any standard.

There doesn't seem to be any momentum for change at Walls or Banneker, or Wilson for that matter, with BASIS as an option for those aiming high academically.

Can someone please cite to the average SAT score of 500? That's appallingly low. So low that I don't believe it without seeing independent verification.

Looks like 1120 combined here. https://www.niche.com/k12/benjamin-banneker-academic-high-school-washington-dc/academics/

That's slightly above average for college-bound seniors and it reflects the fact that Banneker accepts students who range from at grade level all the way up. Schools with significantly higher SATs have an entering student body which is more selected, either via actual tests or via something else (like parental income/education), or they have students leaving before SAT time. It doesn't tell you much about how well the school is instructing students.

[Anonymous]

The Ivy interviewer began posting these anti-Banneker rants on here back in 2012, when the SAT had three parts and scores were typically given separately for each section. Now that the SAT is two parts again, everyone refers to the cumulative score. She’s not trying to understate the score, she’s just behind the times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Banneker were a comprehensive DC high school, I'd thoroughly agree. But Banneker is an application school serving the college bound with average SAT scores in the 500s. That isn't impressive by any standard.

There doesn't seem to be any momentum for change at Walls or Banneker, or Wilson for that matter, with BASIS as an option for those aiming high academically.

Can someone please cite to the average SAT score of 500? That's appallingly low. So low that I don't believe it without seeing independent verification.

Looks like 1120 combined here. https://www.niche.com/k12/benjamin-banneker-academic-high-school-washington-dc/academics/

That's slightly above average for college-bound seniors and it reflects the fact that Banneker accepts students who range from at grade level all the way up. Schools with significantly higher SATs have an entering student body which is more selected, either via actual tests or via something else (like parental income/education), or they have students leaving before SAT time. It doesn't tell you much about how well the school is instructing students.

Its concerning that a test in honors school is taking kids at grade level at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Banneker were a comprehensive DC high school, I'd thoroughly agree. But Banneker is an application school serving the college bound with average SAT scores in the 500s. That isn't impressive by any standard.

There doesn't seem to be any momentum for change at Walls or Banneker, or Wilson for that matter, with BASIS as an option for those aiming high academically.

Can someone please cite to the average SAT score of 500? That's appallingly low. So low that I don't believe it without seeing independent verification.

Looks like 1120 combined here. https://www.niche.com/k12/benjamin-banneker-academic-high-school-washington-dc/academics/

That's slightly above average for college-bound seniors and it reflects the fact that Banneker accepts students who range from at grade level all the way up. Schools with significantly higher SATs have an entering student body which is more selected, either via actual tests or via something else (like parental income/education), or they have students leaving before SAT time. It doesn't tell you much about how well the school is instructing students.

Its concerning that a test in honors school is taking kids at grade level at all.

Why? There are many schools with a test-in component which take a significant range of students. I understand you think there should be an elite, test-in high school, but the existence of Banneker is not why that school does not exist. These are separate issues. And where would you put those students? They're not going to be well-served in most of the DCPS zoned high schools, and even if they are zoned for Wilson, that's a big school that's not for everyone.

[Anonymous]

White people! I don’t want my high achieving black son to go to any racist Ivy school! Another thing all black people aren’t “at risk” and all black people aren’t low income!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the parents of Banneker kids: what type of hw do they get? How many assignments per night? Are the kids stressed out? I have eperiences with Walls and the kids were stressed out. That is what I want to compare. Walls also did not provide good counseling and have a warm atmosphere. But there were positives too, like good college preparation. and a strong group of peers.

My son is junior at Banneker and gets a lot of homework. He usually works until 1:00 or 2:00 am and averages 5 or so assignments each day. The students do get stressed out. But, I can't compare it to other places.

He took the PSAT 8/9 in freshman year, PSAT in sophomore, and PSAT and SAT in junior year. He took a summer SAT prep class at Banneker. He scored a 1500 on his SAT.

He'll take 6 AP classes before he's finished. He scored a 5 on the AP World History exam sophomore year. His AP teachers did a lot of prep work including taking mock exams on Saturdays. He will be in AP calculus next year.

The college counseling isn't much to brag about.

I have been pleased with the school. The teachers are good, believe in the school, and push the students hard.

I'm blown away at how the school is discussed on this website. I'm Black and I straddle two worlds having grown up in DC and attending a white, top 25 universoty. I don't understand the "affirmative action" criticism in this thread. The school doesn't make excuses, sets high expectations for students, and can get students with negative social determinants to good places. Each student must choose IB or an AP track. If more white people applied, there would be more white students.

I'm not saying that it's the best school around. But, if you're considering the school, don't decide based on what you're reading on this website. Look for yourself.