Student Stratification at Selective High Schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It just seems like "bring the test back to Walls" is such a doable request that makes a ton of sense, would be easy for them to implement (because they used to) and seems to have near unanimous support here. Can we just push for that?

Push away. Beat your head against a wall if you wish. But Bowser won't bring the test back, or an external standardized test score (PARCC, PSAT 8/9) with an application either. The problem is that UMC-fueled political pushback can't amount to much without the demographics to build a critical mass of political support. This says to me that tests in DCPS HS magnet admissions won't be back as long as our current mayor is in office, or during the tenure of a crony who succeeds her either, if that's in the cards.

Bringing back the test makes large swaths of kids ineligible for the school. Keeping Walls open to the whole city where most schools aren't preparing kids to do well on any standardized test including math is a better political move than bringing back tests and restricting Walls to a handful of UMC schools.

It is a f***g magnet school with selective admissions.

UVA is a highly-regarded university with selective admissions; they still turn away high-scoring kids from Fairfax to make room for lower-scoring kids from rural counties, to maintain political support in the Virginia legislature. Same with UMD turning away high-scoring kids from Montgomery County.

Just because a school has selective admissions does not make it exempt from political reality.

Then why does pretty much every big urban center except for Washington DC have magnet schools that administer an entrance exam?

Is NYC exempt from political reality? New York? Chicago? Philadelphia? Boston?

Stop making excuses. And stop making dumb comparisons. Comparing School Without Walls Magnet High School to the University of Virginia and not to, say, the NYC magnet high schools schools is just idiotic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It just seems like "bring the test back to Walls" is such a doable request that makes a ton of sense, would be easy for them to implement (because they used to) and seems to have near unanimous support here. Can we just push for that?

Push away. Beat your head against a wall if you wish. But Bowser won't bring the test back, or an external standardized test score (PARCC, PSAT 8/9) with an application either. The problem is that UMC-fueled political pushback can't amount to much without the demographics to build a critical mass of political support. This says to me that tests in DCPS HS magnet admissions won't be back as long as our current mayor is in office, or during the tenure of a crony who succeeds her either, if that's in the cards.

Bringing back the test makes large swaths of kids ineligible for the school. Keeping Walls open to the whole city where most schools aren't preparing kids to do well on any standardized test including math is a better political move than bringing back tests and restricting Walls to a handful of UMC schools.

It is a f***g magnet school with selective admissions.

UVA is a highly-regarded university with selective admissions; they still turn away high-scoring kids from Fairfax to make room for lower-scoring kids from rural counties, to maintain political support in the Virginia legislature. Same with UMD turning away high-scoring kids from Montgomery County.

Just because a school has selective admissions does not make it exempt from political reality.

That's true, but it's also true that DC's harsh political reality is extreme where magnet high school admissions are concerned. There's no bona fide elected school board here, essentially unheard of in this country. And there are few Asian immigrant families in DCPS (around 1% across middle schools, not even 7% at Walls). Asian students comprise more than 70% of Stuyvesant students and roughly 30% at Boston Latin in cities where Asian percentages as a whole are in the low teens (NYC) and high single digits (Boston). Call me names but looks to me that without much stronger Asian immigrant family representation at Walls, a political impossibility, the school can't begin to compete with the best elsewhere, even in this Metro area (TJ).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It just seems like "bring the test back to Walls" is such a doable request that makes a ton of sense, would be easy for them to implement (because they used to) and seems to have near unanimous support here. Can we just push for that?

Why just Walls? Why not Banneker, McKinley, etc. also? G&T programs don't start in HS. Most on this board assume their kid will be admitted to Walls. That's why it's always some reason why it didn't happen and the blame game starts. If you want buy in, go all the way.

Great point. But we all know why no one on this forum is concerned about a test for Banneker or McKinley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It just seems like "bring the test back to Walls" is such a doable request that makes a ton of sense, would be easy for them to implement (because they used to) and seems to have near unanimous support here. Can we just push for that?

Why just Walls? Why not Banneker, McKinley, etc. also? G&T programs don't start in HS. Most on this board assume their kid will be admitted to Walls. That's why it's always some reason why it didn't happen and the blame game starts. If you want buy in, go all the way.

Great point. But we all know why no one on this forum is concerned about a test for Banneker or McKinley.

And that's exactly why there will be no movement in the direction they want! In order to get any traction, you have to appeal to middle and upper-middle class Black families. Going private is the default and has been for decades. Actually, the push will have to come from Black families to have any chance of succeeding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It just seems like "bring the test back to Walls" is such a doable request that makes a ton of sense, would be easy for them to implement (because they used to) and seems to have near unanimous support here. Can we just push for that?

Push away. Beat your head against a wall if you wish. But Bowser won't bring the test back, or an external standardized test score (PARCC, PSAT 8/9) with an application either. The problem is that UMC-fueled political pushback can't amount to much without the demographics to build a critical mass of political support. This says to me that tests in DCPS HS magnet admissions won't be back as long as our current mayor is in office, or during the tenure of a crony who succeeds her either, if that's in the cards.

Bringing back the test makes large swaths of kids ineligible for the school. Keeping Walls open to the whole city where most schools aren't preparing kids to do well on any standardized test including math is a better political move than bringing back tests and restricting Walls to a handful of UMC schools.

It is a f***g magnet school with selective admissions.

UVA is a highly-regarded university with selective admissions; they still turn away high-scoring kids from Fairfax to make room for lower-scoring kids from rural counties, to maintain political support in the Virginia legislature. Same with UMD turning away high-scoring kids from Montgomery County.

Just because a school has selective admissions does not make it exempt from political reality.

Then why does pretty much every big urban center except for Washington DC have magnet schools that administer an entrance exam?

Is NYC exempt from political reality? New York? Chicago? Philadelphia? Boston?

Stop making excuses. And stop making dumb comparisons. Comparing School Without Walls Magnet High School to the University of Virginia and not to, say, the NYC magnet high schools schools is just idiotic.

+1000. We have the demographics, the high-achieving students and the demand just not the political will or good governance to support at least one world-class high school magnet here in DC. We also have a small army of well-intentioned UMC liberal apologists for lack of DCPS ambition for its most promising poor minority students.

Somebody's about to jump on pointing out that NYC has 8 million people while DC has a mere 800,000, letting DCPS off the hook for Walls' mediocrity. The problem with that argument is that Boston has Boston Latin with a population no larger than DC's. Boston Latin generally gets more grads into Ivies than any other magnet, or private school for that matter. They've been doing it for 300 years.

The dumb comparisons aren't just hackneyed, they're sick.

[Anonymous]

I actually don’t think we have the demand pull for this - privates have fulfilled this need for a long time.

[Anonymous]

What benefit does an entrance exam publicly funded school serve the wider community and what is the return on investing tax dollars in that versus anything else? Have there been any studies done?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I actually don’t think we have the demand pull for this - privates have fulfilled this need for a long time.

Don't agree and I've lived in Ward 6 since the early 90s. What used to happen in DC was that UMC families, mostly government employees, would buy a house for a few hundred thousand dollars, leaving them with the dough for privates. Now, a time when any decent halfway decent 3-bedroom house in Georgetown, or AU Park, or Capitol Hill etc. runs you more than a million dollars, things are different. Privates where tuition is 30-45K and fi aid generally isn't available for parents earning six figures has put these programs out of reach for a much higher % of DC families than 30 years ago. Moreover, far more UMC families of teens are staying in the city than did in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, especially EotP. Droves of parents who wouldn't have touched DCPS past elementary school just 10 years ago are taking the leap. A steady rise in applications not just to Walls but to Banneker and Ellington in the last decade is proof of these trends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What benefit does an entrance exam publicly funded school serve the wider community and what is the return on investing tax dollars in that versus anything else? Have there been any studies done?

https://magnet.edu/getinvolved/grassroots-action-center/key-facts-about-magnet-schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don’t think we have the demand pull for this - privates have fulfilled this need for a long time.

Don't agree and I've lived in Ward 6 since the early 90s. What used to happen in DC was that UMC families, mostly government employees, would buy a house for a few hundred thousand dollars, leaving them with the dough for privates. Now, a time when any decent halfway decent 3-bedroom house in Georgetown, or AU Park, or Capitol Hill etc. runs you more than a million dollars, things are different. Privates where tuition is 30-45K and fi aid generally isn't available for parents earning six figures has put these programs out of reach for a much higher % of DC families than 30 years ago. Moreover, far more UMC families of teens are staying in the city than did in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, especially EotP. Droves of parents who wouldn't have touched DCPS past elementary school just 10 years ago are taking the leap. A steady rise in applications not just to Walls but to Banneker and Ellington in the last decade is proof of these trends.

I think this is correct but it’s also the reason that bringing back the exam at Walls is not the answer. Walls is just too small to satisfy the kind of increased demand this poster is talking about. And what’s more, these parents aren’t seeking the super-elite, majority-Asian, mini TJ/Stuyvesant magnet school that some posters on this thread seem to dream of. The DC parents just want a decent college prep program. That’s what Walls was, before gentrification. But now there’s more demand for college prep programs, and Walls can’t expand. So right now, an exam that funnels the highest-scoring 8th graders into one tiny school would undercut efforts to expand college prep capacity elsewhere, while also excluding a lot of solid college-bound students from Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don’t think we have the demand pull for this - privates have fulfilled this need for a long time.

Don't agree and I've lived in Ward 6 since the early 90s. What used to happen in DC was that UMC families, mostly government employees, would buy a house for a few hundred thousand dollars, leaving them with the dough for privates. Now, a time when any decent halfway decent 3-bedroom house in Georgetown, or AU Park, or Capitol Hill etc. runs you more than a million dollars, things are different. Privates where tuition is 30-45K and fi aid generally isn't available for parents earning six figures has put these programs out of reach for a much higher % of DC families than 30 years ago. Moreover, far more UMC families of teens are staying in the city than did in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, especially EotP. Droves of parents who wouldn't have touched DCPS past elementary school just 10 years ago are taking the leap. A steady rise in applications not just to Walls but to Banneker and Ellington in the last decade is proof of these trends.

I think this is correct but it’s also the reason that bringing back the exam at Walls is not the answer. Walls is just too small to satisfy the kind of increased demand this poster is talking about. And what’s more, these parents aren’t seeking the super-elite, majority-Asian, mini TJ/Stuyvesant magnet school that some posters on this thread seem to dream of. The DC parents just want a decent college prep program. That’s what Walls was, before gentrification. But now there’s more demand for college prep programs, and Walls can’t expand. So right now, an exam that funnels the highest-scoring 8th graders into one tiny school would undercut efforts to expand college prep capacity elsewhere, while also excluding a lot of solid college-bound students from Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

A rec league teammate was telling me his dad lied about residency to go to McKinley back in the day, its reputation used to be a lot stronger. Heck Dunbar used to be incredible in the 50s (and was gutted for Banneker). DC has some pretty seriously under enrolled high schools they can use to create strong college prep courses and maybe lessen the load on JR, Walls, and Banneker.

Given Dunbars latest reworking of the curriculum this path seems unlikely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually don’t think we have the demand pull for this - privates have fulfilled this need for a long time.

Don't agree and I've lived in Ward 6 since the early 90s. What used to happen in DC was that UMC families, mostly government employees, would buy a house for a few hundred thousand dollars, leaving them with the dough for privates. Now, a time when any decent halfway decent 3-bedroom house in Georgetown, or AU Park, or Capitol Hill etc. runs you more than a million dollars, things are different. Privates where tuition is 30-45K and fi aid generally isn't available for parents earning six figures has put these programs out of reach for a much higher % of DC families than 30 years ago. Moreover, far more UMC families of teens are staying in the city than did in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, especially EotP. Droves of parents who wouldn't have touched DCPS past elementary school just 10 years ago are taking the leap. A steady rise in applications not just to Walls but to Banneker and Ellington in the last decade is proof of these trends.

I think this is correct but it’s also the reason that bringing back the exam at Walls is not the answer. Walls is just too small to satisfy the kind of increased demand this poster is talking about. And what’s more, these parents aren’t seeking the super-elite, majority-Asian, mini TJ/Stuyvesant magnet school that some posters on this thread seem to dream of. The DC parents just want a decent college prep program. That’s what Walls was, before gentrification. But now there’s more demand for college prep programs, and Walls can’t expand. So right now, an exam that funnels the highest-scoring 8th graders into one tiny school would undercut efforts to expand college prep capacity elsewhere, while also excluding a lot of solid college-bound students from Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

A rec league teammate was telling me his dad lied about residency to go to McKinley back in the day, its reputation used to be a lot stronger. Heck Dunbar used to be incredible in the 50s (and was gutted for Banneker). DC has some pretty seriously under enrolled high schools they can use to create strong college prep courses and maybe lessen the load on JR, Walls, and Banneker.

Given Dunbars latest reworking of the curriculum this path seems unlikely.

McKinley was always a STEM school and that's part of why it was excellent -- I know someone who went in the 60s (right after desegregation, when it flipped quickly from being all-white to all-black) and she said it was one of the only schools where you could take advanced math and science classes.

Dunbar was also a MUCH better school before desegregation, and used to send their black graduates to excellent colleges. Learning all that history was a little radicalizing for me. How can progress move backwards like that?

[Anonymous]

FYI, Boston Latin (and other former exam schools in Boston) have changed how they select, and now do a combination of standardized test scores, grades, geographic diversity (i.e. making sure they accept from the poorer elementary schools in the city, and being in foster care, homeless, or public housing gets you a boost. https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/site/Default.aspx?PageID=9035

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYI, Boston Latin (and other former exam schools in Boston) have changed how they select, and now do a combination of standardized test scores, grades, geographic diversity (i.e. making sure they accept from the poorer elementary schools in the city, and being in foster care, homeless, or public housing gets you a boost. https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/site/Default.aspx?PageID=9035

Wow, that’s a complex system. Scores, grades, random numbers, and 10 SES tiers, plus ranked preference among the 3 exam schools and capped waitlists that are also subdivided by tiers. Might work for Walls, Banneker, and McKinley, but all three schools would have to give up a lot of independence. DCPS seems to be pretty decentralized compared to Boston (or NYC).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI, Boston Latin (and other former exam schools in Boston) have changed how they select, and now do a combination of standardized test scores, grades, geographic diversity (i.e. making sure they accept from the poorer elementary schools in the city, and being in foster care, homeless, or public housing gets you a boost. https://www.bostonpublicschools.org/site/Default.aspx?PageID=9035

Wow, that’s a complex system. Scores, grades, random numbers, and 10 SES tiers, plus ranked preference among the 3 exam schools and capped waitlists that are also subdivided by tiers. Might work for Walls, Banneker, and McKinley, but all three schools would have to give up a lot of independence. DCPS seems to be pretty decentralized compared to Boston (or NYC).

One thing I learned when I was graduate teaching was to make the evaluation as complex as possible so people couldn’t contest the results (mostly, a hefty curve that set the median at 80, a B-). It’s also good when you have a predetermined outcome in mind to keep the process opaque through complexity.