How things change in a decade!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

If the shoe fits, wear it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

No, the stats cited in the longer post well above demonstrated, by several measures, that Banneker's numbers are going up as a part of a twenty year trend. Then one poster read through a thorough post and cherry picked one number that supposedly "proved" that Banneker has low stats while ignoring the point of the entire post.

The poster is clearly not really basing their opinions on their overall analysis, which demonstrates that Banneker is attracting top students and educating them well. They are simply deciding that it's an inferior school based on cherry picking statistics they probably haven't fully analyzed. The responding poster was right to point out that their analysis is imcomplete at best and faulty at worst.

There’s also an assumption baked in here, which is that test scores are indicators of whether children are being adequately educated, and whether they will be successful. Clearly, there are many parents across the city who do not think that test scores are the end alol be all of their child’s education. If you are a parent who feels that test scores are very important, thats fine but then Banneker is probably not a good fit for your family. And that’s fine. But I’m sick of this “low standards” crap. Some of us don’t think these standards measure anything important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

No, the stats cited in the longer post well above demonstrated, by several measures, that Banneker's numbers are going up as a part of a twenty year trend. Then one poster read through a thorough post and cherry picked one number that supposedly "proved" that Banneker has low stats while ignoring the point of the entire post.

The poster is clearly not really basing their opinions on their overall analysis, which demonstrates that Banneker is attracting top students and educating them well. They are simply deciding that it's an inferior school based on cherry picking statistics they probably haven't fully analyzed. The responding poster was right to point out that their analysis is imcomplete at best and faulty at worst.

There’s also an assumption baked in here, which is that test scores are indicators of whether children are being adequately educated, and whether they will be successful. Clearly, there are many parents across the city who do not think that test scores are the end alol be all of their child’s education. If you are a parent who feels that test scores are very important, thats fine but then Banneker is probably not a good fit for your family. And that’s fine. But I’m sick of this “low standards” crap. Some of us don’t think these standards measure anything important.

Sorry but you are wrong. The SAT and AP exams are an indicator if you are college ready and can succeed in college. They are not out to trick you and just test content knowledge.

The top schools did away with SAT and found that for URM they did worst in college , struggled, dropped out.

Now they are bringing back SAT in many of these schools.

Totally different playing field from high school to college, esp good college. These kids are behind and why so many top schooos offer a summer program to help them. That is the reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

No, the stats cited in the longer post well above demonstrated, by several measures, that Banneker's numbers are going up as a part of a twenty year trend. Then one poster read through a thorough post and cherry picked one number that supposedly "proved" that Banneker has low stats while ignoring the point of the entire post.

The poster is clearly not really basing their opinions on their overall analysis, which demonstrates that Banneker is attracting top students and educating them well. They are simply deciding that it's an inferior school based on cherry picking statistics they probably haven't fully analyzed. The responding poster was right to point out that their analysis is imcomplete at best and faulty at worst.

There’s also an assumption baked in here, which is that test scores are indicators of whether children are being adequately educated, and whether they will be successful. Clearly, there are many parents across the city who do not think that test scores are the end alol be all of their child’s education. If you are a parent who feels that test scores are very important, thats fine but then Banneker is probably not a good fit for your family. And that’s fine. But I’m sick of this “low standards” crap. Some of us don’t think these standards measure anything important.

The standards here are reading comprehension and basic math. Why would that not be important?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

This. It helps no one when you don’t acknowledge the data and low standards of DCPS. One of the best and most selective school in the city has an average SAT of 1100 and less than 50% pass rate of 3 or higher.

I’m sure many of these kids potentially could score much higher and get higher AP scores. But they can only do so much in 2-3 years to try to make up the large deficit of content knowledge and analysis, even when pushing kids academically at the cost of EC, etc.. It is too late to catch up by high school. The scores reflect this.

What you need is to identify these kids in elementary, put them in G & T and track them in middle school. Then go to Banneker and you will see higher stats.

That's because no DCPS high school is that selective. Including Walls, which doesn't even have an entrance exam anymore. These schools are selective in the sense you have to apply and not everyone gets in. But they aren't selective in the way TJ is, or the way Stuyvesant is in NYC. They are simply more selective than DCPS's non-application schools at all, which isn't hard because those are boundary schools and not selective at all. Walls and Banneker do not select students based on consistent metrics across the city. Selection is based on grades, teacher recs, and interviews. The process is *designed* to ensure that kids from the poorer parts of the city who are less likely to have high-SES or college grad parents have a shot at getting spots. There is some self-selection (and geographic selection) between Walls and Banneker that leads to Walls having more kids from higher income and more highly educated parents, which leads to a population that tests better. But the schools are not using a system for selection that would lead to populations of very high scoring kids. They could, they choose not to, because it would result in both schools nearly eliminating their at risk populations (and Walls already has a tiny at risk population, again due largely to self-selection and geography because I can guarantee you there is a great deal of effort at Wall in ensuring they are giving spots to at risk kids whenever possible).

If this bothers you, public school in DC is probably not for you. Most DCPS parents are fine with it even when it means the average test scores of their schools are lower than they would be otherwise. If they weren't, the system would be different. The people who are really bothered by it tend to leave the district, for private or for suburbs.

I dunno. I think a lot of parents think it's bullshit and would welcome a system with a lot more academic tracking and schools where kids have to test in. DCPS is a lowest common denominator system and that's great for kids at the bottom, but not so great for kids at the top. Schools should be educating all kids, even (gasp!) the really smart ones.

[Anonymous]

As true as that is, in a triage situation, really any situation with scarce resources, it's hard to see how we don't prioritize the high schoolers who could become carjackers and then the kindergarteners who are on their way to becoming the next generation of carjackers.

Knowing that most of the top-grade students that we've got in DC could just go to private schools or move just tells us that DC's not going to and shouldn't focus on our kids. It's gonna focus on the children of the poor.

The problem is that educators don't know how to turn the children of the poor into high performers. Even medium performers. At least for anything beyond adopting the kids away from their actual parents. Which causes its own harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

This. It helps no one when you don’t acknowledge the data and low standards of DCPS. One of the best and most selective school in the city has an average SAT of 1100 and less than 50% pass rate of 3 or higher.

I’m sure many of these kids potentially could score much higher and get higher AP scores. But they can only do so much in 2-3 years to try to make up the large deficit of content knowledge and analysis, even when pushing kids academically at the cost of EC, etc.. It is too late to catch up by high school. The scores reflect this.

What you need is to identify these kids in elementary, put them in G & T and track them in middle school. Then go to Banneker and you will see higher stats.

That's because no DCPS high school is that selective. Including Walls, which doesn't even have an entrance exam anymore. These schools are selective in the sense you have to apply and not everyone gets in. But they aren't selective in the way TJ is, or the way Stuyvesant is in NYC. They are simply more selective than DCPS's non-application schools at all, which isn't hard because those are boundary schools and not selective at all. Walls and Banneker do not select students based on consistent metrics across the city. Selection is based on grades, teacher recs, and interviews. The process is *designed* to ensure that kids from the poorer parts of the city who are less likely to have high-SES or college grad parents have a shot at getting spots. There is some self-selection (and geographic selection) between Walls and Banneker that leads to Walls having more kids from higher income and more highly educated parents, which leads to a population that tests better. But the schools are not using a system for selection that would lead to populations of very high scoring kids. They could, they choose not to, because it would result in both schools nearly eliminating their at risk populations (and Walls already has a tiny at risk population, again due largely to self-selection and geography because I can guarantee you there is a great deal of effort at Wall in ensuring they are giving spots to at risk kids whenever possible).

If this bothers you, public school in DC is probably not for you. Most DCPS parents are fine with it even when it means the average test scores of their schools are lower than they would be otherwise. If they weren't, the system would be different. The people who are really bothered by it tend to leave the district, for private or for suburbs.

I dunno. I think a lot of parents think it's bullshit and would welcome a system with a lot more academic tracking and schools where kids have to test in. DCPS is a lowest common denominator system and that's great for kids at the bottom, but not so great for kids at the top. Schools should be educating all kids, even (gasp!) the really smart ones.

THIS.

Don’t complain when families flock to charters because the teachers can actually teach at grade level content and content above grade level.

Tracking works as long as you give extra support to the bottom. No one wins when it’s a race to the bottom instead of upholding high standards for all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As true as that is, in a triage situation, really any situation with scarce resources, it's hard to see how we don't prioritize the high schoolers who could become carjackers and then the kindergarteners who are on their way to becoming the next generation of carjackers.

Knowing that most of the top-grade students that we've got in DC could just go to private schools or move just tells us that DC's not going to and shouldn't focus on our kids. It's gonna focus on the children of the poor.

The problem is that educators don't know how to turn the children of the poor into high performers. Even medium performers. At least for anything beyond adopting the kids away from their actual parents. Which causes its own harm.

In summary, if you have a high performing. kid, get out of DCPS.

The end

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

This. It helps no one when you don’t acknowledge the data and low standards of DCPS. One of the best and most selective school in the city has an average SAT of 1100 and less than 50% pass rate of 3 or higher.

I’m sure many of these kids potentially could score much higher and get higher AP scores. But they can only do so much in 2-3 years to try to make up the large deficit of content knowledge and analysis, even when pushing kids academically at the cost of EC, etc.. It is too late to catch up by high school. The scores reflect this.

What you need is to identify these kids in elementary, put them in G & T and track them in middle school. Then go to Banneker and you will see higher stats.

That's because no DCPS high school is that selective. Including Walls, which doesn't even have an entrance exam anymore. These schools are selective in the sense you have to apply and not everyone gets in. But they aren't selective in the way TJ is, or the way Stuyvesant is in NYC. They are simply more selective than DCPS's non-application schools at all, which isn't hard because those are boundary schools and not selective at all. Walls and Banneker do not select students based on consistent metrics across the city. Selection is based on grades, teacher recs, and interviews. The process is *designed* to ensure that kids from the poorer parts of the city who are less likely to have high-SES or college grad parents have a shot at getting spots. There is some self-selection (and geographic selection) between Walls and Banneker that leads to Walls having more kids from higher income and more highly educated parents, which leads to a population that tests better. But the schools are not using a system for selection that would lead to populations of very high scoring kids. They could, they choose not to, because it would result in both schools nearly eliminating their at risk populations (and Walls already has a tiny at risk population, again due largely to self-selection and geography because I can guarantee you there is a great deal of effort at Wall in ensuring they are giving spots to at risk kids whenever possible).

If this bothers you, public school in DC is probably not for you. Most DCPS parents are fine with it even when it means the average test scores of their schools are lower than they would be otherwise. If they weren't, the system would be different. The people who are really bothered by it tend to leave the district, for private or for suburbs.

I dunno. I think a lot of parents think it's bullshit and would welcome a system with a lot more academic tracking and schools where kids have to test in. DCPS is a lowest common denominator system and that's great for kids at the bottom, but not so great for kids at the top. Schools should be educating all kids, even (gasp!) the really smart ones.

I am one of these parents but I'm still baffled by the way that any praise of Banneker seems to infuriate people on this board. If you care about tracking and would prefer G&T programs, it's becaue you know that a school needs a sufficient cohort of high achievers to set up a gifted kid for success. There's no metric by which Banneker is missing that cohort. Smart, motivated kids are well served by the school, and scores and acceptances bear that out. The fact that some subset of students there are not acing the SAT or getting into MIT doesn't mean it's not a good school. The only way a subset of low achieving students can derail high achieving students is if they're violent or disruptive or have an outsized influence on the school's culture, and that is not a problem at Banneker.

But if anyone says that Banneker is a good school to consider alongside Walls, Basis, J-R, the gloves come off. It's very pointed and predictable.

[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:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

This. It helps no one when you don’t acknowledge the data and low standards of DCPS. One of the best and most selective school in the city has an average SAT of 1100 and less than 50% pass rate of 3 or higher.

I’m sure many of these kids potentially could score much higher and get higher AP scores. But they can only do so much in 2-3 years to try to make up the large deficit of content knowledge and analysis, even when pushing kids academically at the cost of EC, etc.. It is too late to catch up by high school. The scores reflect this.

What you need is to identify these kids in elementary, put them in G & T and track them in middle school. Then go to Banneker and you will see higher stats.

That's because no DCPS high school is that selective. Including Walls, which doesn't even have an entrance exam anymore. These schools are selective in the sense you have to apply and not everyone gets in. But they aren't selective in the way TJ is, or the way Stuyvesant is in NYC. They are simply more selective than DCPS's non-application schools at all, which isn't hard because those are boundary schools and not selective at all. Walls and Banneker do not select students based on consistent metrics across the city. Selection is based on grades, teacher recs, and interviews. The process is *designed* to ensure that kids from the poorer parts of the city who are less likely to have high-SES or college grad parents have a shot at getting spots. There is some self-selection (and geographic selection) between Walls and Banneker that leads to Walls having more kids from higher income and more highly educated parents, which leads to a population that tests better. But the schools are not using a system for selection that would lead to populations of very high scoring kids. They could, they choose not to, because it would result in both schools nearly eliminating their at risk populations (and Walls already has a tiny at risk population, again due largely to self-selection and geography because I can guarantee you there is a great deal of effort at Wall in ensuring they are giving spots to at risk kids whenever possible).

If this bothers you, public school in DC is probably not for you. Most DCPS parents are fine with it even when it means the average test scores of their schools are lower than they would be otherwise. If they weren't, the system would be different. The people who are really bothered by it tend to leave the district, for private or for suburbs.

I dunno. I think a lot of parents think it's bullshit and would welcome a system with a lot more academic tracking and schools where kids have to test in. DCPS is a lowest common denominator system and that's great for kids at the bottom, but not so great for kids at the top. Schools should be educating all kids, even (gasp!) the really smart ones.

I am one of these parents but I'm still baffled by the way that any praise of Banneker seems to infuriate people on this board. If you care about tracking and would prefer G&T programs, it's becaue you know that a school needs a sufficient cohort of high achievers to set up a gifted kid for success. There's no metric by which Banneker is missing that cohort. Smart, motivated kids are well served by the school, and scores and acceptances bear that out. The fact that some subset of students there are not acing the SAT or getting into MIT doesn't mean it's not a good school. The only way a subset of low achieving students can derail high achieving students is if they're violent or disruptive or have an outsized influence on the school's culture, and that is not a problem at Banneker.

But if anyone says that Banneker is a good school to consider alongside Walls, Basis, J-R, the gloves come off. It's very pointed and predictable.

DCUM loves to tear down good schools (Banneker, BASIS), and ignore the bigger problems with DCPS. If you want G&T programs, you need to stop voting for leftists who think G&T programs / academic tracking is racist.

[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:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

This. It helps no one when you don’t acknowledge the data and low standards of DCPS. One of the best and most selective school in the city has an average SAT of 1100 and less than 50% pass rate of 3 or higher.

I’m sure many of these kids potentially could score much higher and get higher AP scores. But they can only do so much in 2-3 years to try to make up the large deficit of content knowledge and analysis, even when pushing kids academically at the cost of EC, etc.. It is too late to catch up by high school. The scores reflect this.

What you need is to identify these kids in elementary, put them in G & T and track them in middle school. Then go to Banneker and you will see higher stats.

That's because no DCPS high school is that selective. Including Walls, which doesn't even have an entrance exam anymore. These schools are selective in the sense you have to apply and not everyone gets in. But they aren't selective in the way TJ is, or the way Stuyvesant is in NYC. They are simply more selective than DCPS's non-application schools at all, which isn't hard because those are boundary schools and not selective at all. Walls and Banneker do not select students based on consistent metrics across the city. Selection is based on grades, teacher recs, and interviews. The process is *designed* to ensure that kids from the poorer parts of the city who are less likely to have high-SES or college grad parents have a shot at getting spots. There is some self-selection (and geographic selection) between Walls and Banneker that leads to Walls having more kids from higher income and more highly educated parents, which leads to a population that tests better. But the schools are not using a system for selection that would lead to populations of very high scoring kids. They could, they choose not to, because it would result in both schools nearly eliminating their at risk populations (and Walls already has a tiny at risk population, again due largely to self-selection and geography because I can guarantee you there is a great deal of effort at Wall in ensuring they are giving spots to at risk kids whenever possible).

If this bothers you, public school in DC is probably not for you. Most DCPS parents are fine with it even when it means the average test scores of their schools are lower than they would be otherwise. If they weren't, the system would be different. The people who are really bothered by it tend to leave the district, for private or for suburbs.

I dunno. I think a lot of parents think it's bullshit and would welcome a system with a lot more academic tracking and schools where kids have to test in. DCPS is a lowest common denominator system and that's great for kids at the bottom, but not so great for kids at the top. Schools should be educating all kids, even (gasp!) the really smart ones.

I am one of these parents but I'm still baffled by the way that any praise of Banneker seems to infuriate people on this board. If you care about tracking and would prefer G&T programs, it's becaue you know that a school needs a sufficient cohort of high achievers to set up a gifted kid for success. There's no metric by which Banneker is missing that cohort. Smart, motivated kids are well served by the school, and scores and acceptances bear that out. The fact that some subset of students there are not acing the SAT or getting into MIT doesn't mean it's not a good school. The only way a subset of low achieving students can derail high achieving students is if they're violent or disruptive or have an outsized influence on the school's culture, and that is not a problem at Banneker.

But if anyone says that Banneker is a good school to consider alongside Walls, Basis, J-R, the gloves come off. It's very pointed and predictable.

Yes, that's true of Banneker but also perhaps more true of McKinley and MacArthur. Often of Basis also. I find it odd, because, by all measures, more parents are choosing DC public schools for high school, and those high schools are producing scholars with better outcomes in a larger variety of high schools. That's a good thing.

I think part of it's driven by an expectation that UMC families are entitled to be at either JR or SWW or something? Regardless of the reason, there's a stubborn few posters who seem to be arriving at this DC school discussion board with the conclusion that DC high schools are static and mostly bad, and they seem outraged when someone dares to make a point that contradicts that. Maybe they moved and want to prove they were right to do so? Maybe they plan on moving? I'm not sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For elementary schools, here's where the IB participation rate has increased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-Garrison 25% to 44%
-Hyde-Addison 63% to 81%
-Bancroft 60% to 75%
-Payne 37% to 50%
-John Lewis 22% to 33%

And where the IB participation rate decreased the most from SY19-20 to SY24-25 by percentage point change:
-John Francis 79% to 58%
-Leckie 28% to 15%
-Ross 87% to 76%
-Thomson 50% to 39%
-Cleveland 37% to 26%
-Tubman 39% to 29%
-Peabody/Watkins 62% to 52%

Some honorable mentions (based on percent change) at schools with low boundary participation rates:
-Whittier 19% to 26%
-Burroughs 21% to 26%

I imagine once Whittier has a new building that number will increase even further. Especially if Wells continues to improve. It was still a K-8 in 19-20.

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Anonymous wrote:My prediction: The list of the best schools in the city, at every level, will be increasingly dominated by charters.

Only for middle school.

DCPS is by far the leader for elementary. High School is split.

No for elementary EOTP. It’s the immersion charters. Families that don’t get in then settle for DCPS.

Nope. Definitely not true on Capitol Hill.

OK, CH may be the exception but it is a very, very small part of EOTP.

Some CH families do choose immersion over DCPS but not majority.

No, it's actually you who are focusing on one specific slice of EOTP. Other parts -- CH included -- have different stories, but few of them are immersion charter-focused. Shepherd, Ross, Reed, Bancroft, Maury, Brent, Ludlow-Taylor, Chisholm, Payne, Watkins and Van Ness are all schools where DCPSes are the preferred destinations (either the IB itself or a nearby one). EOTR few kids are in immersion and the ones that are are mostly in/hoping for Chisholm.

Folks in Brookland, Eckington, Brentwood, Edgewood are heading to immersion (and other, e.g., Lee) charters because they're the closest good options. The charters that folks EOTR attend are not immersion, but they choose them for the same reason. For anyone close enough to Capitol Hill or WOTP, those DCPSes are typically the closest good options and so the first choice. As CH has gentrified, there are now many more CH ESes on the list and so more good spots for OOBers; same thing with the DCPS ESes along the North Cap corridor.

As a general matter, I think most people think -- and the test scores certainly bear out -- that DPCSes are the best-performing ESes.

Yeah agree. I know US News is somehow debatable, but all 10 of the top elementary schools are DCPS, with 6 WOTP and 4 EOTP (Ross, Shepherd, Maury, Brent).

And if anyone looked at that "who is beating 3rd grade expectations" chart, charter schools like Yu Ying and LAMB that have very low poverty rates have startling low 3rd grade reading scores -- they are underperforming relative to demographics.


Middle school is a different story, because DCPS really doesn't seem to have that figured out, curricularly.

But they come back in high school, with many DCPS schools offering sufficient challenge (Walls, Banneker, JR, MacArthur and McKinley Tech)

Ok, well kids at those immersion schools are learning everything via a second language. When the teacher is teaching them about ecosystems or conjunctions or Native American history or whatever, the teacher is not doing it in English.

Former LAMB employee. The kids don't speak Spanish. Almost none of them. Teachers may speak in Spanish but everyone responds in English. Try talking to one of these students in Spanish for longer than 2 seconds and they'll look at you like you have lobsters crawling out of your ears.

Pro-tip: If you're going to lie about a school, it should at least be a little bit believable. This is like claiming kids at BASIS don't know how to add or subtract.

I actually don’t think this is made up. My neighbors go there and they are in upper grades and barely speak Spanish and their friends don’t either. I’m a native speaker. My kids go to another bilingual chapter and it’s the same. There are so many kids in 5th grade who barely speak Spanish.

You are a native Spanish speaker and a former teacher at a bilingual school and your kids barely speak Spanish?

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Anonymous wrote:As the OP of this thread pointed out, times are changing.

Here are the 9th-to-10th grade retention rates for Banneker over the past decade or so, based on OSSE data. (https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment)

* Class of 2016, 88/108, 81%
* Class of 2017, 114/142, 80%
* Class of 2018, 128/167, 77%
* Class of 2019, 133/155, 86%
* Class of 2020, 115/135, 85%
* Class of 2021, 125/142, 88%
* Class of 2022, 135/151, 89%
* Class of 2023, 157/187, 89%
* Class of 2024, 139/161, 86%
* Class of 2025, 135/145, 93%
* Class of 2026, 162/168, 96%
* Class of 2027, 232/245, 95%
* Class of 2028, 179/188, 95%

Note the gradual rise from the Classes of 2016-18, when only 4 out of every 5 students returned for sophomore year, to the Classes of 21-23, when nearly 9 in 10 returned, and then the final jump to the current period, when we have 19 out of 20 returning. Old timers who remember “counseling out” as a major feature at Banneker aren’t lying, but they are out of date. Current families aren’t noticing the phenomenon because it isn’t happening anymore.

Some other indications of change at Banneker:

GPA. My recollection is that when my student started at Banneker, there was a minimum GPA required to return. I went looking for it and couldn’t find it in the current handbook. But I did find evidence that the average GPA at Banneker is rising. The GPA cutoff for NHS used to be 3.2 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=261782&type=d). It’s currently 3.7. For the Class of 2029, it’s going up to 3.9 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/m/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=382211&type=d) (page 10).

SAT scores. Banneker is reporting that the average SAT for the Class of 2025 was 1127 (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up 20 points from even the 23-24 number reported by DCPS (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/dcps-data-set-sat).

AP scores. Similarly, Banneker is reporting that the AP pass rate for the 24-25 school year was 70% (https://www.benjaminbanneker.org/ourpages/auto/2025/10/21/27554456/25-26%20Banneker%20Information%20Resources.pdf?rnd=1761072180399), up from the 23-24 figure of 57% (https://dcps.dc.gov/publication/ap-score-data-sets).

That’s FOUR discrepancies in the data, all tied to the Class of 2025 and subsequent classes: increased retention, increased GPA, increased average SAT score, and increased AP pass rate.

The Class of 2025 was also the first class admitted to high school after Walls dropped the exam. It looks to me like the most banal and predictable result possible: Walls used to use an exam to cherry pick students who are good at taking exams. Take away that exam, and more of those students wind up at Banneker (some because Walls is rejecting a lot of high-scoring students these days, and others because, knowing that Walls now rejects a lot of high-scoring students, they cast a broader net and decide they prefer Banneker). And the result is that the student body at Banneker is performing better on a variety of metrics than it was in the past.

Very informative. Thank you for this. That link also lists all the college destinations, which readers might be interested in.

And for a PP who asked, Walls' AP pass rate was 91 percent for the past two years that DCPS reported.

Oof. The DCPS AP pass rate definition is very soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations. Students with at least one pass score over students who did APs. So if you took 7 APs and passed 1, you count in the numerator. Unless I completely misinterpreted it.

The other factor, though, is that DC schools often require you to take AP classes and the exam as part of that class, so far more students are taking the exam than in some other states.

USNews profiles have the more rigorous stat of % of AP exams taken with a score of 3 or higher. SWW is at 86% and Banneker is 45%. Jackson-Reed is at 56%.

Wow that is really low for Banneker. 3 is a low bar too. It is more informative % of 4 and 5.

This is so tiresome. If Banneker is not good enough for your child, then don’t apply and be quiet. The school has been pumping out successful graduates for decades now and does not need a bunch of entitled white parents who think their mere presence of their children improves things. If you feel like a 1450 average SAT is what your kid needs to be around, then best of luck to you with your Walls and Cathedral school apps.

Someone cites stats and you rage bait them as an “entitled white parent” ….

This. It helps no one when you don’t acknowledge the data and low standards of DCPS. One of the best and most selective school in the city has an average SAT of 1100 and less than 50% pass rate of 3 or higher.

I’m sure many of these kids potentially could score much higher and get higher AP scores. But they can only do so much in 2-3 years to try to make up the large deficit of content knowledge and analysis, even when pushing kids academically at the cost of EC, etc.. It is too late to catch up by high school. The scores reflect this.

What you need is to identify these kids in elementary, put them in G & T and track them in middle school. Then go to Banneker and you will see higher stats.

That's because no DCPS high school is that selective. Including Walls, which doesn't even have an entrance exam anymore. These schools are selective in the sense you have to apply and not everyone gets in. But they aren't selective in the way TJ is, or the way Stuyvesant is in NYC. They are simply more selective than DCPS's non-application schools at all, which isn't hard because those are boundary schools and not selective at all. Walls and Banneker do not select students based on consistent metrics across the city. Selection is based on grades, teacher recs, and interviews. The process is *designed* to ensure that kids from the poorer parts of the city who are less likely to have high-SES or college grad parents have a shot at getting spots. There is some self-selection (and geographic selection) between Walls and Banneker that leads to Walls having more kids from higher income and more highly educated parents, which leads to a population that tests better. But the schools are not using a system for selection that would lead to populations of very high scoring kids. They could, they choose not to, because it would result in both schools nearly eliminating their at risk populations (and Walls already has a tiny at risk population, again due largely to self-selection and geography because I can guarantee you there is a great deal of effort at Wall in ensuring they are giving spots to at risk kids whenever possible).

If this bothers you, public school in DC is probably not for you. Most DCPS parents are fine with it even when it means the average test scores of their schools are lower than they would be otherwise. If they weren't, the system would be different. The people who are really bothered by it tend to leave the district, for private or for suburbs.

I dunno. I think a lot of parents think it's bullshit and would welcome a system with a lot more academic tracking and schools where kids have to test in. DCPS is a lowest common denominator system and that's great for kids at the bottom, but not so great for kids at the top. Schools should be educating all kids, even (gasp!) the really smart ones.

I mean, I think a lot of parents, me included, would like to go to something like the French grand ecole system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MacArthur will be the top public high school in the city 10 years from now.

100% this