Banneker HS - College and Score Outcomes

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up DCPS SAT scores. I think on the DCPS site. There's a spreadsheet. You can also find AP scores. Walls is the only school that's just across the board higher. JR is obviously huge and high-variance.

Thanks. Found the SAT (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat) and AP (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets) spreadsheets. The averages are indeed as you say. I would have expected Banneker to do better but I take it that there is a very long thread from a few years back on that topic.

Why do you think your child will score in line with others? I have a Banneker student who has scored 5 on APs and 1540 on SATs. You’re aware this is a Title 1 school. The kids are all very studious and bright but there are some kids who have tough home lives. If your kid doesn’t have these challenges, s/he will score high. Test score track HHI closely.

My personable Asian 8th grader who finds 10th grade math/Trigonometry easy at a DC charter, scored 600s on the SAT for admission to a Johns Hopkins CTY STEM camp and has a 3.9 GPA wasn't so much as waitlisted at Banneker. I'm left with the impression that Banneker doesn't knock itself out on the STEM achievement front. We're staying at the charter, which the kid isn't wild about, with new appreciation for it.

Banneker is a Humanities focused school so no you won't get the STEM feel you want. It's not hard to figure out. I'd look at moving if you feel like your kid needs more of a challenge. TJ would probably be great..Blair also.

Do you not understand the residency requirements that apply to public schools across the country or are you trying to make a different point about where you would like people from certain backgrounds to move to? I'm genuinely curious.

DP who referenced TJ, Blair and RMIB. No, it has nothing to do with race. Just making a point about how annoying parents are when they declare nothing is possibly good enough for their “advanced” child. Ok friend, try your hand at the VERY selective and demanding public programs just a short move away. Oh, Larlo won’t get into TJ? You don’t say …

They didn't get into Banneker. Banneker decided the kid wasn't good enough for them, not the other way around. And it wasn't because they had a long line of more academically-advanced kids trying to get in.

+1. What a joke. When a pleasant, diligent 8th grader does HS math two or three years ahead of grade level and destroyed both mandatory sections of the SAT at age 14 but can't even get waitlisted at Banneker, the system is broken. Everybody's sure that not being low SES or AA was irrelevant in the case? I'm far from convinced. I note that Banneker's average SAT scores for 17–18-year-olds are still just a little above the national average, in the low 500s.

They don't look at PARCC scores or what math class the kid is taking, much less SAT, and they're explicit about that. I think that's a huge mistake. But I don't think you need an additional explanation on top of that. It's basically random.

What an outrage. Why in the hell can't DC support a single world-class public high school with transparent admissions or an elite school-within-a-school program like other big US cities do here in 2024? High time for DC voters to demand more.

Walls, BASIS, Banneker, J-R, Latin, DCI, none of them are half as good as Boston Latin or Cambridge Rindge and Latin (although Boston and DC are very close in population size). All of our best public high schools either support middling academics, weak facilities or both. All of them essentially admit by lottery, or by real estate. None of them even aspire to be in the same league as the Blair Montgomery magnets, TJ, or Richard Montgomery or Washington-Liberty IB Diploma, here in the DMV. High time for DC to up its game.

While I agree with much of this, why is it that Walls, for example, gets a rating of 2nd best Metro-area school, after TJ? It's not any of the MoCo schools. BTW I'm a MoCo school product and don't believe I received some kind of superior education to the masses.

Walls' USNWR rating is set to drop under bad new leadership. Do you have kids in DCPS? I used to teach AP humanities at BCC in MoCo. We can't take another year low-capacity DCPS, with Mathnasium teaching the math and a tutor teaching the writing. Good thing we applied to parochial high schools for my 8th grader. She and longtime pals, academic stars who win essays competitions and work one or two years ahead in math, have been shut out of both Banneker and Walls. The masses in DC public and the masses in MCPS, v. different things.

What's wrong with Walls' leadership? You sound bitter just because your kid didn't get admitted.

NP. I'm not bitter. My kid was admitted. The current head of Walls is dim-witted and ineffectual, period. The kids don't respect her, the parents don't respect her, the teachers don't respect her. Do you need more?

I really do since my kid is a student already. So give some concrete examples of what you "heard" or "think" you know?

If the leadership is so bad, why trust your kid in the environment?

Where exactly are you supposed to go in DC? There are not exactly a plethora of stellar choices

BS, people relocate everyday. Things are what they are and won't change the exact moment you want them to. If you didn't assess the situation before deciding where to live, own it and take what comes. People seem to think that it will all work out for "me" but are shocked when it doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up
DCPS SAT scores. I think on the DCPS site. There's a spreadsheet. You can also find AP scores. Walls is the only school that's just across the board higher. JR is obviously huge and high-variance.

Thanks. Found the SAT (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat) and AP (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets) spreadsheets. The averages are indeed as you say. I would have expected Banneker to do better but I take it that there is a very long thread from a few years back on that topic.

Why do you think your child will score in line with others? I have a Banneker student who has scored 5 on APs and 1540 on SATs. You’re aware this is a Title 1 school. The kids are all very studious and bright but there are some kids who have tough home lives. If your kid doesn’t have these challenges, s/he will score high. Test score track HHI closely.

My personable Asian 8th grader who finds 10th grade math/Trigonometry easy at a DC charter, scored 600s on the SAT for admission to a Johns Hopkins CTY STEM camp and has a 3.9 GPA wasn't so much as waitlisted at Banneker. I'm left with the impression that Banneker doesn't knock itself out on the STEM achievement front. We're staying at the charter, which the kid isn't wild about, with new appreciation for it.

Banneker is a Humanities focused school so no you won't get the STEM feel you want. It's not hard to figure out. I'd look at moving if you feel like your kid needs more of a challenge. TJ would probably be great..Blair also.

Do you not understand the residency requirements that apply to public schools across the country or are you trying to make a different point about where you would like people from certain backgrounds to move to? I'm genuinely curious.

DP who referenced TJ, Blair and RMIB. No, it has nothing to do with race. Just making a point about how annoying parents are when they declare nothing is possibly good enough for their “advanced” child. Ok friend, try your hand at the VERY selective and demanding public programs just a short move away. Oh, Larlo won’t get into TJ? You don’t say …

They didn't get into Banneker. Banneker decided the kid wasn't good enough for them, not the other way around. And it wasn't because they had a long line of more academically-advanced kids trying to get in.

+1. What a joke. When a pleasant, diligent 8th grader does HS math two or three years ahead of grade level and destroyed both mandatory sections of the SAT at age 14 but can't even get waitlisted at Banneker, the system is broken. Everybody's sure that not being low SES or AA was irrelevant in the case? I'm far from convinced. I note that Banneker's average SAT scores for 17–18-year-olds are still just a little above the national average, in the low 500s.

They don't look at PARCC scores or what math class the kid is taking, much less SAT, and they're explicit about that. I think that's a huge mistake. But I don't think you need an additional explanation on top of that. It's basically random.

What an outrage. Why in the hell can't DC support a single world-class public high school with transparent admissions or an elite school-within-a-school program like other big US cities do here in 2024? High time for DC voters to demand more.

Walls, BASIS, Banneker, J-R, Latin, DCI, none of them are half as good as Boston Latin or Cambridge Rindge and Latin (although Boston and DC are very close in population size). All of our best public high schools either support middling academics, weak facilities or both. All of them essentially admit by lottery, or by real estate. None of them even aspire to be in the same league as the Blair Montgomery magnets, TJ, or Richard Montgomery or Washington-Liberty IB Diploma, here in the DMV. High time for DC to up its game.

While I agree with much of this, why is it that Walls, for example, gets a rating of 2nd best Metro-area school, after TJ? It's not any of the MoCo schools. BTW I'm a MoCo school product and don't believe I received some kind of superior education to the masses.

Walls and Banneker used to have a more rigorous selection processes and have built their reputations on the student bodies they attracted as a result. As other threads attest to, those selection processes have been torn asunder in recent years by doing away with PARCC scores and testing and basing admissions decisions entirely on GPA (despite wide variation within and between DCPS schools in grading standards), subjective letters of recommendation, interviews, and an essay (application for Banneker, in-person for Walls). As a result, selection has become more akin to a lottery, which will inevitably impinge upon the preparedness of the students and the quality of learning at the schools. The proposed funding cuts to DCPS won't help matters either. Which is a long way of saying that while these DC selective schools have good reputations, they are probably heading in the wrong direction.

I think you are being dramatic and perhaps resentful. My child, and the others in their cohort who got into Walls and Banneker, are all high-achieving, high GPA's and 4's & 5's on PARCC, and read and math above grade level. Yes, they made it in under the subjective letters of rec, interview, and essay, but those don't negate the objective merits that helped get them in. The bottom line is, there are not enough spots for all the kids who deserve them, as has been said hundreds of time before. So it has to come down to luck at some point. I do believe that the '09-'10 babies were a boom in the city and changed the demographics forever more. Unfortunately it's only going to be harder for the coming cohorts to get into these schools. Hopefully though, the likes of McKinley, DCI, and others will benefit from the onslaught of more high-achieving students and things will start equaling out a bit with more better HS options in DC (plus the intro of MacArthur into the mix).

If you define "qualified" as "good grades and testing at grade level", then yes, there are too many qualified kids. But that's not the full range of ways we have of evaluating students no matter how many times someone says it. When a kid who's already testing in the 600s on each section of the SAT can't get into a school where the high school seniors on average are doing less well, it's not because there are too many high-achieving students, it's because the admissions process doesn't look at achievement beyond a certain point. And that bar doesn't even include being at grade level any more. Of course a lot of the kids who get in are still good. But that's a function of the applicant pool, not the admissions process.

And this is where it comes down to luck, I’m sorry to say. That sounds like an outlier situation as I’m sure there is not a massive number of middle-schoolers scoring like that on the SAT’s (or even taking the SATs yet?)

I'm not even sure how the school would be aware of one's SATs for this to even be a factor. If it was mentioned in interview, it was probably off-putting.

It's not a factor. Whether you do advanced coursework is also not a factor. Whether you test at grade level is not a factor. The whole point is that *none of these are factors*, so kids who are too advanced for their EOTP zoned high schools (which in some cases really just means being at grade level) have no way to differentiate themselves in the admissions process for Banneker or Walls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up
DCPS SAT scores. I think on the DCPS site. There's a spreadsheet. You can also find AP scores. Walls is the only school that's just across the board higher. JR is obviously huge and high-variance.

Thanks. Found the SAT (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat) and AP (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets) spreadsheets. The averages are indeed as you say. I would have expected Banneker to do better but I take it that there is a very long thread from a few years back on that topic.

Why do you think your child will score in line with others? I have a Banneker student who has scored 5 on APs and 1540 on SATs. You’re aware this is a Title 1 school. The kids are all very studious and bright but there are some kids who have tough home lives. If your kid doesn’t have these challenges, s/he will score high. Test score track HHI closely.

My personable Asian 8th grader who finds 10th grade math/Trigonometry easy at a DC charter, scored 600s on the SAT for admission to a Johns Hopkins CTY STEM camp and has a 3.9 GPA wasn't so much as waitlisted at Banneker. I'm left with the impression that Banneker doesn't knock itself out on the STEM achievement front. We're staying at the charter, which the kid isn't wild about, with new appreciation for it.

Banneker is a Humanities focused school so no you won't get the STEM feel you want. It's not hard to figure out. I'd look at moving if you feel like your kid needs more of a challenge. TJ would probably be great..Blair also.

Do you not understand the residency requirements that apply to public schools across the country or are you trying to make a different point about where you would like people from certain backgrounds to move to? I'm genuinely curious.

DP who referenced TJ, Blair and RMIB. No, it has nothing to do with race. Just making a point about how annoying parents are when they declare nothing is possibly good enough for their “advanced” child. Ok friend, try your hand at the VERY selective and demanding public programs just a short move away. Oh, Larlo won’t get into TJ? You don’t say …

They didn't get into Banneker. Banneker decided the kid wasn't good enough for them, not the other way around. And it wasn't because they had a long line of more academically-advanced kids trying to get in.

+1. What a joke. When a pleasant, diligent 8th grader does HS math two or three years ahead of grade level and destroyed both mandatory sections of the SAT at age 14 but can't even get waitlisted at Banneker, the system is broken. Everybody's sure that not being low SES or AA was irrelevant in the case? I'm far from convinced. I note that Banneker's average SAT scores for 17–18-year-olds are still just a little above the national average, in the low 500s.

They don't look at PARCC scores or what math class the kid is taking, much less SAT, and they're explicit about that. I think that's a huge mistake. But I don't think you need an additional explanation on top of that. It's basically random.

What an outrage. Why in the hell can't DC support a single world-class public high school with transparent admissions or an elite school-within-a-school program like other big US cities do here in 2024? High time for DC voters to demand more.

Walls, BASIS, Banneker, J-R, Latin, DCI, none of them are half as good as Boston Latin or Cambridge Rindge and Latin (although Boston and DC are very close in population size). All of our best public high schools either support middling academics, weak facilities or both. All of them essentially admit by lottery, or by real estate. None of them even aspire to be in the same league as the Blair Montgomery magnets, TJ, or Richard Montgomery or Washington-Liberty IB Diploma, here in the DMV. High time for DC to up its game.

While I agree with much of this, why is it that Walls, for example, gets a rating of 2nd best Metro-area school, after TJ? It's not any of the MoCo schools. BTW I'm a MoCo school product and don't believe I received some kind of superior education to the masses.

Walls and Banneker used to have a more rigorous selection processes and have built their reputations on the student bodies they attracted as a result. As other threads attest to, those selection processes have been torn asunder in recent years by doing away with PARCC scores and testing and basing admissions decisions entirely on GPA (despite wide variation within and between DCPS schools in grading standards), subjective letters of recommendation, interviews, and an essay (application for Banneker, in-person for Walls). As a result, selection has become more akin to a lottery, which will inevitably impinge upon the preparedness of the students and the quality of learning at the schools. The proposed funding cuts to DCPS won't help matters either. Which is a long way of saying that while these DC selective schools have good reputations, they are probably heading in the wrong direction.

I think you are being dramatic and perhaps resentful. My child, and the others in their cohort who got into Walls and Banneker, are all high-achieving, high GPA's and 4's & 5's on PARCC, and read and math above grade level. Yes, they made it in under the subjective letters of rec, interview, and essay, but those don't negate the objective merits that helped get them in. The bottom line is, there are not enough spots for all the kids who deserve them, as has been said hundreds of time before. So it has to come down to luck at some point. I do believe that the '09-'10 babies were a boom in the city and changed the demographics forever more. Unfortunately it's only going to be harder for the coming cohorts to get into these schools. Hopefully though, the likes of McKinley, DCI, and others will benefit from the onslaught of more high-achieving students and things will start equaling out a bit with more better HS options in DC (plus the intro of MacArthur into the mix).

If you define "qualified" as "good grades and testing at grade level", then yes, there are too many qualified kids. But that's not the full range of ways we have of evaluating students no matter how many times someone says it. When a kid who's already testing in the 600s on each section of the SAT can't get into a school where the high school seniors on average are doing less well, it's not because there are too many high-achieving students, it's because the admissions process doesn't look at achievement beyond a certain point. And that bar doesn't even include being at grade level any more. Of course a lot of the kids who get in are still good. But that's a function of the applicant pool, not the admissions process.

And this is where it comes down to luck, I’m sorry to say. That sounds like an outlier situation as I’m sure there is not a massive number of middle-schoolers scoring like that on the SAT’s (or even taking the SATs yet?)

I'm not even sure how the school would be aware of one's SATs for this to even be a factor. If it was mentioned in interview, it was probably off-putting.

It's not a factor. Whether you do advanced coursework is also not a factor. Whether you test at grade level is not a factor. The whole point is that *none of these are factors*, so kids who are too advanced for their EOTP zoned high schools (which in some cases really just means being at grade level) have no way to differentiate themselves in the admissions process for Banneker or Walls.

Outside of grades, you have essays, recs, and possibly an interview to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up
DCPS SAT scores. I think on the DCPS site. There's a spreadsheet. You can also find AP scores. Walls is the only school that's just across the board higher. JR is obviously huge and high-variance.

Thanks. Found the SAT (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat) and AP (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets) spreadsheets. The averages are indeed as you say. I would have expected Banneker to do better but I take it that there is a very long thread from a few years back on that topic.

Why do you think your child will score in line with others? I have a Banneker student who has scored 5 on APs and 1540 on SATs. You’re aware this is a Title 1 school. The kids are all very studious and bright but there are some kids who have tough home lives. If your kid doesn’t have these challenges, s/he will score high. Test score track HHI closely.

My personable Asian 8th grader who finds 10th grade math/Trigonometry easy at a DC charter, scored 600s on the SAT for admission to a Johns Hopkins CTY STEM camp and has a 3.9 GPA wasn't so much as waitlisted at Banneker. I'm left with the impression that Banneker doesn't knock itself out on the STEM achievement front. We're staying at the charter, which the kid isn't wild about, with new appreciation for it.

Banneker is a Humanities focused school so no you won't get the STEM feel you want. It's not hard to figure out. I'd look at moving if you feel like your kid needs more of a challenge. TJ would probably be great..Blair also.

Do you not understand the residency requirements that apply to public schools across the country or are you trying to make a different point about where you would like people from certain backgrounds to move to? I'm genuinely curious.

DP who referenced TJ, Blair and RMIB. No, it has nothing to do with race. Just making a point about how annoying parents are when they declare nothing is possibly good enough for their “advanced” child. Ok friend, try your hand at the VERY selective and demanding public programs just a short move away. Oh, Larlo won’t get into TJ? You don’t say …

They didn't get into Banneker. Banneker decided the kid wasn't good enough for them, not the other way around. And it wasn't because they had a long line of more academically-advanced kids trying to get in.

+1. What a joke. When a pleasant, diligent 8th grader does HS math two or three years ahead of grade level and destroyed both mandatory sections of the SAT at age 14 but can't even get waitlisted at Banneker, the system is broken. Everybody's sure that not being low SES or AA was irrelevant in the case? I'm far from convinced. I note that Banneker's average SAT scores for 17–18-year-olds are still just a little above the national average, in the low 500s.

They don't look at PARCC scores or what math class the kid is taking, much less SAT, and they're explicit about that. I think that's a huge mistake. But I don't think you need an additional explanation on top of that. It's basically random.

What an outrage. Why in the hell can't DC support a single world-class public high school with transparent admissions or an elite school-within-a-school program like other big US cities do here in 2024? High time for DC voters to demand more.

Walls, BASIS, Banneker, J-R, Latin, DCI, none of them are half as good as Boston Latin or Cambridge Rindge and Latin (although Boston and DC are very close in population size). All of our best public high schools either support middling academics, weak facilities or both. All of them essentially admit by lottery, or by real estate. None of them even aspire to be in the same league as the Blair Montgomery magnets, TJ, or Richard Montgomery or Washington-Liberty IB Diploma, here in the DMV. High time for DC to up its game.

While I agree with much of this, why is it that Walls, for example, gets a rating of 2nd best Metro-area school, after TJ? It's not any of the MoCo schools. BTW I'm a MoCo school product and don't believe I received some kind of superior education to the masses.

Walls and Banneker used to have a more rigorous selection processes and have built their reputations on the student bodies they attracted as a result. As other threads attest to, those selection processes have been torn asunder in recent years by doing away with PARCC scores and testing and basing admissions decisions entirely on GPA (despite wide variation within and between DCPS schools in grading standards), subjective letters of recommendation, interviews, and an essay (application for Banneker, in-person for Walls). As a result, selection has become more akin to a lottery, which will inevitably impinge upon the preparedness of the students and the quality of learning at the schools. The proposed funding cuts to DCPS won't help matters either. Which is a long way of saying that while these DC selective schools have good reputations, they are probably heading in the wrong direction.

I think you are being dramatic and perhaps resentful. My child, and the others in their cohort who got into Walls and Banneker, are all high-achieving, high GPA's and 4's & 5's on PARCC, and read and math above grade level. Yes, they made it in under the subjective letters of rec, interview, and essay, but those don't negate the objective merits that helped get them in. The bottom line is, there are not enough spots for all the kids who deserve them, as has been said hundreds of time before. So it has to come down to luck at some point. I do believe that the '09-'10 babies were a boom in the city and changed the demographics forever more. Unfortunately it's only going to be harder for the coming cohorts to get into these schools. Hopefully though, the likes of McKinley, DCI, and others will benefit from the onslaught of more high-achieving students and things will start equaling out a bit with more better HS options in DC (plus the intro of MacArthur into the mix).

If you define "qualified" as "good grades and testing at grade level", then yes, there are too many qualified kids. But that's not the full range of ways we have of evaluating students no matter how many times someone says it. When a kid who's already testing in the 600s on each section of the SAT can't get into a school where the high school seniors on average are doing less well, it's not because there are too many high-achieving students, it's because the admissions process doesn't look at achievement beyond a certain point. And that bar doesn't even include being at grade level any more. Of course a lot of the kids who get in are still good. But that's a function of the applicant pool, not the admissions process.

And this is where it comes down to luck, I’m sorry to say. That sounds like an outlier situation as I’m sure there is not a massive number of middle-schoolers scoring like that on the SAT’s (or even taking the SATs yet?)

I'm not even sure how the school would be aware of one's SATs for this to even be a factor. If it was mentioned in interview, it was probably off-putting.

The SATs are typically how kids used to qualify for CTY, though I think they accept more tests now (back in my past, I think my school administered it for a number of kids, and two of us qualified). I think the PP is mentioning it because in other cities with application high school, a kid who qualified for CTY would be very likely to qualify, because there is a test to get in, similar to how they qualified for this program. But in DC, the system doesn't work that way and is missing those kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Look up
DCPS SAT scores. I think on the DCPS site. There's a spreadsheet. You can also find AP scores. Walls is the only school that's just across the board higher. JR is obviously huge and high-variance.

Thanks. Found the SAT (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat) and AP (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets) spreadsheets. The averages are indeed as you say. I would have expected Banneker to do better but I take it that there is a very long thread from a few years back on that topic.

Why do you think your child will score in line with others? I have a Banneker student who has scored 5 on APs and 1540 on SATs. You’re aware this is a Title 1 school. The kids are all very studious and bright but there are some kids who have tough home lives. If your kid doesn’t have these challenges, s/he will score high. Test score track HHI closely.

My personable Asian 8th grader who finds 10th grade math/Trigonometry easy at a DC charter, scored 600s on the SAT for admission to a Johns Hopkins CTY STEM camp and has a 3.9 GPA wasn't so much as waitlisted at Banneker. I'm left with the impression that Banneker doesn't knock itself out on the STEM achievement front. We're staying at the charter, which the kid isn't wild about, with new appreciation for it.

Banneker is a Humanities focused school so no you won't get the STEM feel you want. It's not hard to figure out. I'd look at moving if you feel like your kid needs more of a challenge. TJ would probably be great..Blair also.

Do you not understand the residency requirements that apply to public schools across the country or are you trying to make a different point about where you would like people from certain backgrounds to move to? I'm genuinely curious.

DP who referenced TJ, Blair and RMIB. No, it has nothing to do with race. Just making a point about how annoying parents are when they declare nothing is possibly good enough for their “advanced” child. Ok friend, try your hand at the VERY selective and demanding public programs just a short move away. Oh, Larlo won’t get into TJ? You don’t say …

They didn't get into Banneker. Banneker decided the kid wasn't good enough for them, not the other way around. And it wasn't because they had a long line of more academically-advanced kids trying to get in.

+1. What a joke. When a pleasant, diligent 8th grader does HS math two or three years ahead of grade level and destroyed both mandatory sections of the SAT at age 14 but can't even get waitlisted at Banneker, the system is broken. Everybody's sure that not being low SES or AA was irrelevant in the case? I'm far from convinced. I note that Banneker's average SAT scores for 17–18-year-olds are still just a little above the national average, in the low 500s.

They don't look at PARCC scores or what math class the kid is taking, much less SAT, and they're explicit about that. I think that's a huge mistake. But I don't think you need an additional explanation on top of that. It's basically random.

What an outrage. Why in the hell can't DC support a single world-class public high school with transparent admissions or an elite school-within-a-school program like other big US cities do here in 2024? High time for DC voters to demand more.

Walls, BASIS, Banneker, J-R, Latin, DCI, none of them are half as good as Boston Latin or Cambridge Rindge and Latin (although Boston and DC are very close in population size). All of our best public high schools either support middling academics, weak facilities or both. All of them essentially admit by lottery, or by real estate. None of them even aspire to be in the same league as the Blair Montgomery magnets, TJ, or Richard Montgomery or Washington-Liberty IB Diploma, here in the DMV. High time for DC to up its game.

While I agree with much of this, why is it that Walls, for example, gets a rating of 2nd best Metro-area school, after TJ? It's not any of the MoCo schools. BTW I'm a MoCo school product and don't believe I received some kind of superior education to the masses.

Walls and Banneker used to have a more rigorous selection processes and have built their reputations on the student bodies they attracted as a result. As other threads attest to, those selection processes have been torn asunder in recent years by doing away with PARCC scores and testing and basing admissions decisions entirely on GPA (despite wide variation within and between DCPS schools in grading standards), subjective letters of recommendation, interviews, and an essay (application for Banneker, in-person for Walls). As a result, selection has become more akin to a lottery, which will inevitably impinge upon the preparedness of the students and the quality of learning at the schools. The proposed funding cuts to DCPS won't help matters either. Which is a long way of saying that while these DC selective schools have good reputations, they are probably heading in the wrong direction.

I think you are being dramatic and perhaps resentful. My child, and the others in their cohort who got into Walls and Banneker, are all high-achieving, high GPA's and 4's & 5's on PARCC, and read and math above grade level. Yes, they made it in under the subjective letters of rec, interview, and essay, but those don't negate the objective merits that helped get them in. The bottom line is, there are not enough spots for all the kids who deserve them, as has been said hundreds of time before. So it has to come down to luck at some point. I do believe that the '09-'10 babies were a boom in the city and changed the demographics forever more. Unfortunately it's only going to be harder for the coming cohorts to get into these schools. Hopefully though, the likes of McKinley, DCI, and others will benefit from the onslaught of more high-achieving students and things will start equaling out a bit with more better HS options in DC (plus the intro of MacArthur into the mix).

If you define "qualified" as "good grades and testing at grade level", then yes, there are too many qualified kids. But that's not the full range of ways we have of evaluating students no matter how many times someone says it. When a kid who's already testing in the 600s on each section of the SAT can't get into a school where the high school seniors on average are doing less well, it's not because there are too many high-achieving students, it's because the admissions process doesn't look at achievement beyond a certain point. And that bar doesn't even include being at grade level any more. Of course a lot of the kids who get in are still good. But that's a function of the applicant pool, not the admissions process.

And this is where it comes down to luck, I’m sorry to say. That sounds like an outlier situation as I’m sure there is not a massive number of middle-schoolers scoring like that on the SAT’s (or even taking the SATs yet?)

I'm not even sure how the school would be aware of one's SATs for this to even be a factor. If it was mentioned in interview, it was probably off-putting.

It's not a factor. Whether you do advanced coursework is also not a factor. Whether you test at grade level is not a factor. The whole point is that *none of these are factors*, so kids who are too advanced for their EOTP zoned high schools (which in some cases really just means being at grade level) have no way to differentiate themselves in the admissions process for Banneker or Walls.

This. The process clearly isn't designed to identify the most capable or hardest-working 8th grade students who apply to either Walls or Banneker. If it were, an appropriate entrance exam would obviously be used to screen applicants, like the SSAT in NYC, the Boston Latin entrance exam, or the PSAT 8/9 (common high school magnet entrance exam around the country). It's painfully clear that Banneker and Walls don't favor academic highfliers over weaker students in admissions. If they did, applicants who work years ahead of grade level in math and English would be admitted over those who don't, period. What a travesty.

[Anonymous]

Who cares about Banneker? They don't want diversity. If they did, they'd go with an entrance exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who cares about Banneker? They don't want diversity. If they did, they'd go with an entrance exam.

This is a DCPS thing, not specifically a Banneker thing. No DCPS school currently use standardized testing to admit students either into the school as a whole or into a specific program. I think it is unclear -- certainly it's unclear to me -- whether a principal could even change that if they wanted.

[Anonymous]

What do you mean diversity? All of DC’s communities are at Banneker?.

[Anonymous]

Walls had an entrance exam for at least 15 years. Apparently, the only way DCPS could get rid of it was to can the principal. In my 25 years in the district following ed issues, I've never heard of Bannekers admins pushing for an exam or instating one.

All DC's communities are at Banneker? Sure, not even 1% Asian and only around 5% white in a city that's close to half white.

Meanwhile, Fairfax saw the need to beat back majority Asian TJ (in a county that's 20% Asian).

Our best schools aren't even 2nd rate in the DMV. They're 3rd or 4th rate.

[Anonymous]

All the application schools, including Banneker, used PARCC scores through the 2020 cycle.

[Anonymous]

Which was better than nothing but didn't last. At that point, Banneker was 2% white and 0% Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walls had an entrance exam for at least 15 years. Apparently, the only way DCPS could get rid of it was to can the principal. In my 25 years in the district following ed issues, I've never heard of Bannekers admins pushing for an exam or instating one.

All DC's communities are at Banneker? Sure, not even 1% Asian and only around 5% white in a city that's close to half white.

Meanwhile, Fairfax saw the need to beat back majority Asian TJ (in a county that's 20% Asian).

Our best schools aren't even 2nd rate in the DMV. They're 3rd or 4th rate.

Can you elaborate on that?

What about the Eastern IB program or the early college programs (Bard, Coolidge)? Do you know anything about discussions re: test scores for those?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Look up
DCPS SAT scores. I think on the DCPS site. There's a spreadsheet. You can also find AP scores. Walls is the only school that's just across the board higher. JR is obviously huge and high-variance.

Thanks. Found the SAT (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat) and AP (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets) spreadsheets. The averages are indeed as you say. I would have expected Banneker to do better but I take it that there is a very long thread from a few years back on that topic.

Why do you think your child will score in line with others? I have a Banneker student who has scored 5 on APs and 1540 on SATs. You’re aware this is a Title 1 school. The kids are all very studious and bright but there are some kids who have tough home lives. If your kid doesn’t have these challenges, s/he will score high. Test score track HHI closely.

My personable Asian 8th grader who finds 10th grade math/Trigonometry easy at a DC charter, scored 600s on the SAT for admission to a Johns Hopkins CTY STEM camp and has a 3.9 GPA wasn't so much as waitlisted at Banneker. I'm left with the impression that Banneker doesn't knock itself out on the STEM achievement front. We're staying at the charter, which the kid isn't wild about, with new appreciation for it.

Banneker is a Humanities focused school so no you won't get the STEM feel you want. It's not hard to figure out. I'd look at moving if you feel like your kid needs more of a challenge. TJ would probably be great..Blair also.

Do you not understand the residency requirements that apply to public schools across the country or are you trying to make a different point about where you would like people from certain backgrounds to move to? I'm genuinely curious.

DP who referenced TJ, Blair and RMIB. No, it has nothing to do with race. Just making a point about how annoying parents are when they declare nothing is possibly good enough for their “advanced” child. Ok friend, try your hand at the VERY selective and demanding public programs just a short move away. Oh, Larlo won’t get into TJ? You don’t say …

They didn't get into Banneker. Banneker decided the kid wasn't good enough for them, not the other way around. And it wasn't because they had a long line of more academically-advanced kids trying to get in.

+1. What a joke. When a pleasant, diligent 8th grader does HS math two or three years ahead of grade level and destroyed both mandatory sections of the SAT at age 14 but can't even get waitlisted at Banneker, the system is broken. Everybody's sure that not being low SES or AA was irrelevant in the case? I'm far from convinced. I note that Banneker's average SAT scores for 17–18-year-olds are still just a little above the national average, in the low 500s.

They don't look at PARCC scores or what math class the kid is taking, much less SAT, and they're explicit about that. I think that's a huge mistake. But I don't think you need an additional explanation on top of that. It's basically random.

What an outrage. Why in the hell can't DC support a single world-class public high school with transparent admissions or an elite school-within-a-school program like other big US cities do here in 2024? High time for DC voters to demand more.

Walls, BASIS, Banneker, J-R, Latin, DCI, none of them are half as good as Boston Latin or Cambridge Rindge and Latin (although Boston and DC are very close in population size). All of our best public high schools either support middling academics, weak facilities or both. All of them essentially admit by lottery, or by real estate. None of them even aspire to be in the same league as the Blair Montgomery magnets, TJ, or Richard Montgomery or Washington-Liberty IB Diploma, here in the DMV. High time for DC to up its game.

While I agree with much of this, why is it that Walls, for example, gets a rating of 2nd best Metro-area school, after TJ? It's not any of the MoCo schools. BTW I'm a MoCo school product and don't believe I received some kind of superior education to the masses.

Walls and Banneker used to have a more rigorous selection processes and have built their reputations on the student bodies they attracted as a result. As other threads attest to, those selection processes have been torn asunder in recent years by doing away with PARCC scores and testing and basing admissions decisions entirely on GPA (despite wide variation within and between DCPS schools in grading standards), subjective letters of recommendation, interviews, and an essay (application for Banneker, in-person for Walls). As a result, selection has become more akin to a lottery, which will inevitably impinge upon the preparedness of the students and the quality of learning at the schools. The proposed funding cuts to DCPS won't help matters either. Which is a long way of saying that while these DC selective schools have good reputations, they are probably heading in the wrong direction.

I think you are being dramatic and perhaps resentful. My child, and the others in their cohort who got into Walls and Banneker, are all high-achieving, high GPA's and 4's & 5's on PARCC, and read and math above grade level. Yes, they made it in under the subjective letters of rec, interview, and essay, but those don't negate the objective merits that helped get them in. The bottom line is, there are not enough spots for all the kids who deserve them, as has been said hundreds of time before. So it has to come down to luck at some point. I do believe that the '09-'10 babies were a boom in the city and changed the demographics forever more. Unfortunately it's only going to be harder for the coming cohorts to get into these schools. Hopefully though, the likes of McKinley, DCI, and others will benefit from the onslaught of more high-achieving students and things will start equaling out a bit with more better HS options in DC (plus the intro of MacArthur into the mix).

If you define "qualified" as "good grades and testing at grade level", then yes, there are too many qualified kids. But that's not the full range of ways we have of evaluating students no matter how many times someone says it. When a kid who's already testing in the 600s on each section of the SAT can't get into a school where the high school seniors on average are doing less well, it's not because there are too many high-achieving students, it's because the admissions process doesn't look at achievement beyond a certain point. And that bar doesn't even include being at grade level any more. Of course a lot of the kids who get in are still good. But that's a function of the applicant pool, not the admissions process.

And this is where it comes down to luck, I’m sorry to say. That sounds like an outlier situation as I’m sure there is not a massive number of middle-schoolers scoring like that on the SAT’s (or even taking the SATs yet?)

I'm not even sure how the school would be aware of one's SATs for this to even be a factor. If it was mentioned in interview, it was probably off-putting.

It's not a factor. Whether you do advanced coursework is also not a factor. Whether you test at grade level is not a factor. The whole point is that *none of these are factors*, so kids who are too advanced for their EOTP zoned high schools (which in some cases really just means being at grade level) have no way to differentiate themselves in the admissions process for Banneker or Walls.

This. The process clearly isn't designed to identify the most capable or hardest-working 8th grade students who apply to either Walls or Banneker. If it were, an appropriate entrance exam would obviously be used to screen applicants, like the SSAT in NYC, the Boston Latin entrance exam, or the PSAT 8/9 (common high school magnet entrance exam around the country). It's painfully clear that Banneker and Walls don't favor academic highfliers over weaker students in admissions. If they did, applicants who work years ahead of grade level in math and English would be admitted over those who don't, period. What a travesty.

Does anyone know if there has been any talk of bringing back tests within DCPS? Surely they know the other cities have done it. Is this just an inertia thing?

[Anonymous]

I am mystified as to why this one poster seems to believe DCPS has some kind of moral obligation to produce a test-in school that is more Asian than TJ (which is 70% Asian). And I am even more mystified as to why they think posting on DCUM is the way to achieve that goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am mystified as to why this one poster seems to believe DCPS has some kind of moral obligation to produce a test-in school that is more Asian than TJ (which is 70% Asian). And I am even more mystified as to why they think posting on DCUM is the way to achieve that goal.

I think the idea is that there should be more opportunities for high-achieving students purely based on merit who are not zoned for JR or win the charter lottery. That used to be via the Walls test, but they got rid of that.