McKinley Tech - a great school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

True enough.

Just for comparison, take a look at CAPE scores for Walls, another school with selective admissions but no tech/STEM emphasis.

At Walls, 32.2% are below grade level in math and 3% are below grade level in ELA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

True enough.

Just for comparison, take a look at CAPE scores for Walls, another school with selective admissions but no tech/STEM emphasis.

At Walls, 32.2% are below grade level in math and 3% are below grade level in ELA.

Again, that's not what this shows.

Interestingly, McKinley Tech is 35% English Language Learners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Ok, and? A school can't be a "strong public option" until it "convinces" UMC families to attend?

WTF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

True enough.

Just for comparison, take a look at CAPE scores for Walls, another school with selective admissions but no tech/STEM emphasis.

At Walls, 32.2% are below grade level in math and 3% are below grade level in ELA.

Again, that's not what this shows.

Interestingly, McKinley Tech is 35% English Language Learners.

Oops sorry, pulled from the wrong box. Only 5% ELLs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

328 took the CAPE last year in high school and only 71 were at grade level. The rest were below grade level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

PP. I would send my child to McKinley. I was responding to the person above who was making a more general statement about neighborhood schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

328 took the CAPE last year in high school and only 71 were at grade level. The rest were below grade level.

Take a look at the schools they are coming from and previous performance. For families that are involved enough to scope out high schools and do their research on good options, I'd be less concerned about those skills because their student is likely doing better already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

328 took the CAPE last year in high school and only 71 were at grade level. The rest were below grade level.

I'm not sure where you are getting that. I'm looking at the OSSE CAPE spreadsheets for 24-25. It shows 375 students taking an ELA CAPE (so about half the kids, as expected) and 280 meeting or exceeding.

For Math, since Algebra II mysteriously missing, it's hard to say. I see 300 taking a math CAPE and only 80 meeting or exceeding. Yes, that's not very good. But remember, what this shows is the students who are worst at math. The students who were better at math don't take the CAPE in high school. So this is very much not a picture of McKinley Tech as a whole. Try very hard to wrap your head around that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

328 took the CAPE last year in high school and only 71 were at grade level. The rest were below grade level.

I'm not sure where you are getting that. I'm looking at the OSSE CAPE spreadsheets for 24-25. It shows 375 students taking an ELA CAPE (so about half the kids, as expected) and 280 meeting or exceeding.

For Math, since Algebra II mysteriously missing, it's hard to say. I see 300 taking a math CAPE and only 80 meeting or exceeding. Yes, that's not very good. But remember, what this shows is the students who are worst at math. The students who were better at math don't take the CAPE in high school. So this is very much not a picture of McKinley Tech as a whole. Try very hard to wrap your head around that.

Most 9th graders still take a math test. I like to look at the 9th grade scores and separate by subject tested.

But CAPE is definitely a less useful metric at the HS level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

328 took the CAPE last year in high school and only 71 were at grade level. The rest were below grade level.

I'm not sure where you are getting that. I'm looking at the OSSE CAPE spreadsheets for 24-25. It shows 375 students taking an ELA CAPE (so about half the kids, as expected) and 280 meeting or exceeding.

For Math, since Algebra II mysteriously missing, it's hard to say. I see 300 taking a math CAPE and only 80 meeting or exceeding. Yes, that's not very good. But remember, what this shows is the students who are worst at math. The students who were better at math don't take the CAPE in high school. So this is very much not a picture of McKinley Tech as a whole. Try very hard to wrap your head around that.

Most 9th graders still take a math test. I like to look at the 9th grade scores and separate by subject tested.

But CAPE is definitely a less useful metric at the HS level.

Well yes, but some would have taken Algebra II and I don't see it.

Is grade levels in high school an option in this year's data?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

Wow are you me? Because especially for MS this is the same conversation I as a UMC white person have with other UMC white people often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Ok, and? A school can't be a "strong public option" until it "convinces" UMC families to attend?

WTF.

Honestly, grow up. Of course, a strong DC public high school option isn't truly that without significant buy-in from UMC families, though I might make an exception for DC Prep, Seed and the KIPP schools. By significant, I mean at least at the MacArthur level, where a good-sized cohort of UMC families jumps in every fall.

You send your teen to a struggling DC public high school where most students don't work at grade level or above, say Eastern? If you do, you're foolish, if you don't, pipe down. Spare us the silly, holier-than-though performative indignation. Save it for MAGAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

My UMC white kid visited and liked it but we are zoned for JR and the commute at normal school times would have been brutal.

Also, JR offers all the STEM classes and STEM ECs as McKinley so there really wasn’t much reason to deal with the commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK, so why isn't this great school far more diverse? Why is it 3% white in a city where whites are more than 40% of the population these days? Just poor PR? Serious question.

Glad your teens are happy there thus far but I'm skeptical. You can shout "strong public options!" all you want. But the inconvenient truth is that few UMC families are convinced.

Original poster here. I had not wanted to get into this but feel I need to address this. As a UMC white mom myself, i was struck that my white friends had almost no info/personal insights on the school while all my AA friends highly recommended it, and rightly so. The only thing I can think, sadly, is the a) frankly bigoted and sadly engrained assumption/fear of being singled out as the “only white kid” has kept white people away and the racist view that majority black schools in NE aren’t safe/good and b) so many kids want to only go to schools with their friends and there is a clustering effect around the same public and charter schools. I’m sorry to be that blunt but otherwise I struggle to understand a rationale that makes sense. Certainly it’s a STEM school and that doesn’t attract all kids. But I struggle to see that as the key reason for the demographic composition.

Overall I just think the school (and the kids that attend) deserve recognition and I had wanted to just flag it for parents who struggled as I did to get sufficient information on it in this forum.

This +100. And it’s true of many other schools in DC. Schools get stuck in a chicken or egg scenario of there aren’t enough white kids, so white parents wont send their kids there, so then there’s never “enough” white kids for those families to feel comfortable. Meanwhile, they’re adding hours to their commute or paying private school tuition when they likely would have had a good experience at that school—as well as gaining the benefits of a stronger local school community and having your kid exposed to a broader range of people. As a UMC white mom of a child at another predominantly Black school, the amount of conversations I have with white parents who say “we wish we could go there, it’s just not there yet” is tiresome.

How much is this about race and how much is it about class?

I want to send my child to schools that have a cohort (at least 25%) of students working at or above grade level in both ELA and math. This almost universally does not happen at schools that are majority at-risk.

McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged, which is not the same thing as at-risk technically, but same basic idea. It's not a Title I.

The CAPE scores for ELA show a large majority of students on or above grade level. The math scores aren't as good, but they do have a lot of kids scoring a 3 so near grade level, and you have to remember that the best math students don't take the math CAPE because they took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school. Weirdly the Algebra II CAPE isn't shown, that's strange.

Last year's CAPE scores, show that 79.4% of McKinley Tech students are BELOW grade level in math and 48% are BELOW grade level in ELA.

Not particularly impressive, especially for a school that has selective admissions and a tech/STEM emphasis.

That's not what the scores show at all! Look at the numbers of students taking each test and you will see that it's pretty small. That's because a lot of the students took Algebra I and Geometry in middle school so they don't take any CAPE test in high school. You need to stop thinking this shows "grade level".

328 took the CAPE last year in high school and only 71 were at grade level. The rest were below grade level.

I'm not sure where you are getting that. I'm looking at the OSSE CAPE spreadsheets for 24-25. It shows 375 students taking an ELA CAPE (so about half the kids, as expected) and 280 meeting or exceeding.

For Math, since Algebra II mysteriously missing, it's hard to say. I see 300 taking a math CAPE and only 80 meeting or exceeding. Yes, that's not very good. But remember, what this shows is the students who are worst at math. The students who were better at math don't take the CAPE in high school. So this is very much not a picture of McKinley Tech as a whole. Try very hard to wrap your head around that.

People say this a lot and it's not true. The number of students in DCPS who are so advanced in math as to not take any math CAPE in high school is tiny. Walls is the only school where it's even worth counting. By 10th grade, there are a few more schools where it might be changing the numbers slightly. Look at last year's McKinley numbers if you don't believe me. Or look at their curriculum. If they had a ton of freshman ready for precalculus, wouldn't they offer a few more years of math?