Banneker HS - College and Score Outcomes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test scores are more of a correlation with SES than intelligence

Then stratify by SES and at least take the smarter UMC kids over the dumber ones.

No thanks. You have private school for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s great CTY will take PARCC now, but in that case why are we talking about CTY at all? Just cut out the middleman and say DCPS application schools should be allowed to look at PARCC scores.

Walls and Banneker absolutely should. Time to put pressure on the Chancellor and Mayor to bring it back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test scores are more of a correlation with SES than intelligence

Then stratify by SES and at least take the smarter UMC kids over the dumber ones.

No thanks. You have private school for that.

Right, exactly, case in point.

[Anonymous]

OK so what kid is not getting into these two popular application schools because they can’t just “win” via testing without having to interview well, get recommendations, or write an essay? And which kid is getting in who wouldn’t have because of the test?

When I think about those marginal cases, I at least don’t favor the test. (Even though I am a nerdy test-kid, all grown up.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK so what kid is not getting into these two popular application schools because they can’t just “win” via testing without having to interview well, get recommendations, or write an essay? And which kid is getting in who wouldn’t have because of the test?

When I think about those marginal cases, I at least don’t favor the test. (Even though I am a nerdy test-kid, all grown up.)

DCPS should be trying to provide academically appropriate options for all students. Because DCPS is not interested in or able to educate kids who are above grade level at their non-JR neighborhood schools, the only way they can do this is to offer those kids slots at selective high schools. The reason to use tests is because they give you the best information about whether the kid is going to benefit from the coursework available at the selective high schools. It's not about liking these kids more as human beings or whatever, it's about thinking they should be in schools which can educate them. Essays and recommendations and interviewing well do not tell you, is this the kid who is going to need the classes that their neighborhood school doesn't have?

There should also be schools for kids who are hard-working but not academically ahead -- and there are! McKinley, the Coolidge early college program, Bard: they're all providing opportunities for motivated kids who aren't (mostly) at grade level. But there should be at least one school in DC where if you're the kid who is really ahead, you will get in and they will educate you. It doesn't need to be Banneker. I don't really care which one it is. But there should be one of these.

[Anonymous]

So it sounds like you would like a school for kids who grind on homework, do well on tests, and are pretty softspoken or otherwise impress.

This sounds like BASIS to me. Maybe you’d like a DCPS like it?

I kind of get the impression that you’d like the cachet/social capital to flow to these students rather than the types now at SWW or Banneker, and perhaps to have the highest testing students make up their student bodies first, with students who impress on those other metrics taking the scraps.

Which would you prefer? Banneker/SWW as test-primary, pushing their current student profile out? BASIS for your accelerated kid? A new school? New for your kid or for the other?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

You clearly do not see that your privilege is a factor here. Did your children grow up in D.C. public schools? If so, then you would know that DC does not value the concept of working ahead of grade level. Most of those "several grade level ahead kids" are supplemented by tutors or are ahead of grade level because their parents' have attained a higher education (can do better on standardized tests due to wider vocabulary, grammar, etc.), eat regular healthy meals vs fast food/snacks so can focus, and do not typically have the same stresses as everyday D.C. public school kids (unavailable parent due to work schedule, gang violence, incarcerated parent, poverty, etc). My child goes to school with several homeless children. DCPS values those kids as much as they value mine. And they want to make it so that those kids have the same opportunities. In fact, I think that if a kid who is food insecure and has no home is able to come to school and make As, they deserve a shot at whatever school they want. The DC system is set up to recognize that all kids are equally capable. There is no concept of academic competition or getting ahead. It is about growth of all individuals. UMC families want that growth to be accelerated and their kid to be on top, but that is just not the goal of D.C. schools. Parents who know this are usually bought into the idea of "community" and all boats rise with the tide. The questions you are asking and the comments you are making seem foreign to me and most of the people I know with kids in D.C. Public Schools. They sound very elitist. But I understand they are common outside of D.C. Again, which is why I don't think you came up in D.C. Public Schools.

Whole lotta stereotyping going on here. Sorry, sweetie. Most kids who do poorly in school aren't dodging bullets all day. They just don't give a shit about school.

This and they are not homeless or hungry.

DC is obsessed with whatever advantages or disadvantages people supposedly have, but doing well in school is most closely correlated with trying really, really hard to do well in school.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK so what kid is not getting into these two popular application schools because they can’t just “win” via testing without having to interview well, get recommendations, or write an essay? And which kid is getting in who wouldn’t have because of the test?

When I think about those marginal cases, I at least don’t favor the test. (Even though I am a nerdy test-kid, all grown up.)

Was your life changed dramatically for having attended a well-established test-in high school program as a teen, then an Ivy? Let me guess, no.

This New Yorker from an immigrant family, recent arrivals without good English, prepped like mad for the SHSAT (New York city's magnet high school entrance exam) throughout middle school. Looking back, I'm grateful that I had a high academic bar to clear to ace the test because I learned a great deal of vocabulary and math in preparation (mostly at a free City test prep center in the evenings and on weekends) that I wouldn't have bothered with otherwise. I was able to attend of of the famous NYC magnet high schools, primarily as a result of having done well on the tough entrance exam.

I don't know anybody who went to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech etc. from a low SES family who thinks the SHSAT should go by the wayside in this century, like the Walls admissions test and PARCC score for admissions have in DCPS. You can think all you want about the Walls test, but unless you have direct experience with a transparent, clear, life-altering admissions process catering to hard workers that's stood the test of time, why should we listen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test scores are more of a correlation with SES than intelligence

That's inaccurate. Scores are correlated with both, but you have the order backwards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So it sounds like you would like a school for kids who grind on homework, do well on tests, and are pretty softspoken or otherwise impress.

This sounds like BASIS to me. Maybe you’d like a DCPS like it?

I kind of get the impression that you’d like the cachet/social capital to flow to these students rather than the types now at SWW or Banneker, and perhaps to have the highest testing students make up their student bodies first, with students who impress on those other metrics taking the scraps.

Which would you prefer? Banneker/SWW as test-primary, pushing their current student profile out? BASIS for your accelerated kid? A new school? New for your kid or for the other?

It doesn't matter to me what DCPS school this is, except the metro-accessibility piece. It's just about having this as an option in DC. And Walls was closer to being this prior to COVID than it is now, so just returning to what they did earlier would not be some kind of major historical departure.

BASIS is not allowed to do selective admissions, so it's even more of a lottery, although I'm glad it exists. But if DCPS were showing up in this area, BASIS would find it difficult to compete because of both the admissions issue and having fewer resources.

[Anonymous]

Does the "status" part matter to you? That's the only part I feel like I want to probe here. Is it that SWW is seen as high-status, and you want test-in to be equivalent to high-status? Or do you really just want advanced material?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does the "status" part matter to you? That's the only part I feel like I want to probe here. Is it that SWW is seen as high-status, and you want test-in to be equivalent to high-status? Or do you really just want advanced material?[/quote


In other cities, the application schools are FULL of low-mid SES kids who are hard working and intelligent. Many immigrant kids. The private schools are for high SES.


DC is a weird city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does the "status" part matter to you? That's the only part I feel like I want to probe here. Is it that SWW is seen as high-status, and you want test-in to be equivalent to high-status? Or do you really just want advanced material?

I do not care about the status. I do not care about what school this is at. The rest of DCPS can point and jeer and call them all nerds for all I care, but these kids should have material that's appropriate for them, regardless of where in DC they live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK so what kid is not getting into these two popular application schools because they can’t just “win” via testing without having to interview well, get recommendations, or write an essay? And which kid is getting in who wouldn’t have because of the test?

When I think about those marginal cases, I at least don’t favor the test. (Even though I am a nerdy test-kid, all grown up.)

And that's the irony. There are people who got to the point of interview and didn't make it on the waiting list. Test scores would be irrelevant by then.

I truly think the bigger issue is supply and demand. I shudder to think of what would have happened if Macarthur hadn't recently opened and provided an additional option. My kid was probably the last to interview at both McKinley and Banneker and didn't meet the GPA cutoff for Walls (3.87). I wonder if DCPS read the tea leaves on enrollment trends or if it was coincidental.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son also got into CTY and didn't even get an interview at Banneker. I suspect these two aren't the only ones.

They aren't. We know two others from post 7th grade CTY who got the "ineligible" email from Banneker after interviewing (indicating no WL number granted).

CTY rocks, logical admissions system, high and transparent bar to clear.

Banneker's system is alternate universe diabolical.

Because they offer a test that you can pay to prep for?

Pay to take, too, right? No one offered my middle school student a free SAT.

Poor thing! That must make standardized testing completely invalid!

No it’s invalid because rich people can game it. It’s like the TOEFL (English language exam that foreign students must take to study in the U.S.) exam that so many Asian grad students aced but then couldn’t speak any English so the department had to scramble to find replacement GTA for them. Standardized tests are rich people affirmative action. Let’s get rid of all affirmative action!