McKinley Tech - a great school

[Anonymous]

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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?

The most advanced 9th and 10th graders take the Algebra II CAPE. Which for McKinley is not shown and I don't know why. They can't not teach Algebra II. But after Algebra II (which for some kids is 9th grade) then they stop taking any math CAPE at all. So about half of McKinley's students don't take any math CAPE at all. Basically all of the 12th graders and most of the 11th graders don't take a math CAPE. So you're only seeing the data for the lower-performing half of the students, most of them the younger ones. I agree it still isn't great. But let's be clear about who is being tested, as best we can.

[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.

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.

Ya, it doesn't make sense for anyone Ward 3 to really consider the school.

It makes a ton of sense for those of us who are within a couple miles of the school to consider it.

Looking at demographic housing data, this makes the racial demographics of McKinley make a little more sense.

[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.

You're a moron. Sure the city as a whole is 40 percent white, but DCPS is only 17 percent white. The only public schools in DC that are 40 percent white or more are a handful of elementary schools in upper NW.

The white population of DC of 40 percent is skewed by the large number of young, single, white -- and childless -- professionals.

[Anonymous]

Last year's CAPE spreadsheet has grade levels. I'm sad that it isn't part of the current year's data.

Last year, McKinley Tech also doesn't have Algebra II CAPE scores. They did have 111 9th graders take the Algebra I CAPE, and 78 9th graders take the Geometry CAPE. So that's basically all the 9th graders. And also 139 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE. I would think the remaining 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE in 9th grade. Nobody in 11th and 12th grades took math CAPE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Last year's CAPE spreadsheet has grade levels. I'm sad that it isn't part of the current year's data.

Last year, McKinley Tech also doesn't have Algebra II CAPE scores. They did have 111 9th graders take the Algebra I CAPE, and 78 9th graders take the Geometry CAPE. So that's basically all the 9th graders. And also 139 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE. I would think the remaining 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE in 9th grade. Nobody in 11th and 12th grades took math CAPE.

+1. There are basically no 9th graders there not taking a math CAPE. This is not what's driving the overall numbers.

[Anonymous]

I think McKinley Tech is a great school and I wish that my kid had been more interested in it. He was turned off by the tech focus.

On test scores, it's pretty easy to create a proxy for those "higher math kids who don't take the CAPE."

A total of 375 kids took an ELA test. 280 were proficient. Assume that is the N for all 9th/10th graders. (For the record, this is a HUGE proficiency increase since last year, like 20%.)

A total of 300 kids took Algebra 1 or Geometry. 80 were proficient on those tests. So the number of "missing" kids is 75. If we assume all of those kids are the math high-fliers, the top number of 9th/10th graders proficient in math (per CAPE) is 155 (41%).

I actually think that the number of kids testing proficient is was more important than the overall rate of proficiency. What the data shows me is that there are likely at least 50 kids per grade who are on grade level in math and ELA. I think that is solid.

[Anonymous]

This data dive is such an unnecessary tangent. CAPE is not a reliable indicator of school quality, and being predominantly Black doesn't make a school bad.

The families with kids actually attending--and alumni and staff--say the school is great. Let's keep it to that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year's CAPE spreadsheet has grade levels. I'm sad that it isn't part of the current year's data.

Last year, McKinley Tech also doesn't have Algebra II CAPE scores. They did have 111 9th graders take the Algebra I CAPE, and 78 9th graders take the Geometry CAPE. So that's basically all the 9th graders. And also 139 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE. I would think the remaining 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE in 9th grade. Nobody in 11th and 12th grades took math CAPE.

+1. There are basically no 9th graders there not taking a math CAPE. This is not what's driving the overall numbers.

Well, it becomes a question of what's considered "grade level" for the different math courses in different grades. A 4 or 5 on the Algebra I CAPE is grade level for a 9th grader, that is clear. What if a 9th grader gets a 3 on the Geometry CAPE? Presumably they're in Geometry because already passed Algebra I. Is a 3 on the Geometry CAPE grade level for a 9th grader even though it isn't for a 10th grader?

[Anonymous]

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.

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.

Ya, it doesn't make sense for anyone Ward 3 to really consider the school.

It makes a ton of sense for those of us who are within a couple miles of the school to consider it.

Looking at demographic housing data, this makes the racial demographics of McKinley make a little more sense.

If McKinley offered the classes and facilities that TJ offered, it would be massively in demand.

It serves a purpose in DC, but is far different than any other STEM magnet/application school in any other locality.

[Anonymous]

Can we start incorporating the FACTS into this conversation?

1)McKinley Tech was 4.7% white in 2024-2025.
It was also 4.7% white in 2023-2024

That's more than 50% higher than 3%, so please stop repeating that false number.

2) There are UMC students who attend that school.
Few UMC WHITE students attend, but quite a few UMC black students do.

In DC shorthand, we know that generally, white students in DC are UMC but that does not mean that no black students are UMC. Stop equating the two.

I know that because, well, McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged. That means the majority of students do not fall into that category. Some, in fact at least 20% I would guess, are at least UMC (you've got to include the 4.7% of white students plus a decent share of the others). If UMC wasn't so predominantly black, you wouldn't assume this. So don't, because it's not true.

3) McKinley Tech's stats are already similar to both Duke Ellington and Banneker's.

It's fine with me if you don't want to send your kid there for whatever reason: location, demographics, academic offering. Just don't act like it's because it's an inherently inferior school when it's really because you don't want your kid to be ia school where they are one of the 5% of white students.

Also, McKinley Tech's CAPE scores (which won't be reflected on the MySchool DC page went up 22% in English last year. So, even if CAPE scores are your main objection, you should keep in mind that they are a moving target and headed in the right direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can we start incorporating the FACTS into this conversation?

1)McKinley Tech was 4.7% white in 2024-2025.
It was also 4.7% white in 2023-2024

That's more than 50% higher than 3%, so please stop repeating that false number.

2) There are UMC students who attend that school.
Few UMC WHITE students attend, but quite a few UMC black students do.

In DC shorthand, we know that generally, white students in DC are UMC but that does not mean that no black students are UMC. Stop equating the two.

I know that because, well, McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged. That means the majority of students do not fall into that category. Some, in fact at least 20% I would guess, are at least UMC (you've got to include the 4.7% of white students plus a decent share of the others). If UMC wasn't so predominantly black, you wouldn't assume this. So don't, because it's not true.

3) McKinley Tech's stats are already similar to both Duke Ellington and Banneker's.

It's fine with me if you don't want to send your kid there for whatever reason: location, demographics, academic offering. Just don't act like it's because it's an inherently inferior school when it's really because you don't want your kid to be ia school where they are one of the 5% of white students.

Also, McKinley Tech's CAPE scores (which won't be reflected on the MySchool DC page went up 22% in English last year. So, even if CAPE scores are your main objection, you should keep in mind that they are a moving target and headed in the right direction.

Should be "If McKinley wasn't predominantly black but had these same poverty statistics"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we were doing the lottery application I found limited info on McKinley Tech High school from this forum. (Lots of opinions seem to be focused on Banneker, Basis, JR, etc). So with a new McKinley Tech freshman, I wanted to just really encourage people to look at it if looking into schools for next year. So far, we are really happy with it. Teachers seem great, class sizes are small/medium, and overall has been a positive experience for our kiddo. Obviously this is only week 2 but thought I would share.

Fun Fact: The co-inventor of the electronic digital computer was a graduate of McKinley Tech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mauchly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can we start incorporating the FACTS into this conversation?

1)McKinley Tech was 4.7% white in 2024-2025.
It was also 4.7% white in 2023-2024

That's more than 50% higher than 3%, so please stop repeating that false number.

2) There are UMC students who attend that school.
Few UMC WHITE students attend, but quite a few UMC black students do.

In DC shorthand, we know that generally, white students in DC are UMC but that does not mean that no black students are UMC. Stop equating the two.

I know that because, well, McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged. That means the majority of students do not fall into that category. Some, in fact at least 20% I would guess, are at least UMC (you've got to include the 4.7% of white students plus a decent share of the others). If UMC wasn't so predominantly black, you wouldn't assume this. So don't, because it's not true.

3) McKinley Tech's stats are already similar to both Duke Ellington and Banneker's.

It's fine with me if you don't want to send your kid there for whatever reason: location, demographics, academic offering. Just don't act like it's because it's an inherently inferior school when it's really because you don't want your kid to be ia school where they are one of the 5% of white students.

Also, McKinley Tech's CAPE scores (which won't be reflected on the MySchool DC page went up 22% in English last year. So, even if CAPE scores are your main objection, you should keep in mind that they are a moving target and headed in the right direction.

Where do you see the 4.7% figure?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can we start incorporating the FACTS into this conversation?

1)McKinley Tech was 4.7% white in 2024-2025.
It was also 4.7% white in 2023-2024

That's more than 50% higher than 3%, so please stop repeating that false number.

2) There are UMC students who attend that school.
Few UMC WHITE students attend, but quite a few UMC black students do.

In DC shorthand, we know that generally, white students in DC are UMC but that does not mean that no black students are UMC. Stop equating the two.

I know that because, well, McKinley Tech is 38.1% economy disadvantaged. That means the majority of students do not fall into that category. Some, in fact at least 20% I would guess, are at least UMC (you've got to include the 4.7% of white students plus a decent share of the others). If UMC wasn't so predominantly black, you wouldn't assume this. So don't, because it's not true.

3) McKinley Tech's stats are already similar to both Duke Ellington and Banneker's.

It's fine with me if you don't want to send your kid there for whatever reason: location, demographics, academic offering. Just don't act like it's because it's an inherently inferior school when it's really because you don't want your kid to be ia school where they are one of the 5% of white students.

Also, McKinley Tech's CAPE scores (which won't be reflected on the MySchool DC page went up 22% in English last year. So, even if CAPE scores are your main objection, you should keep in mind that they are a moving target and headed in the right direction.

Where do you see the 4.7% figure?

By looking directly at the enrollment audit data here:
https://osse.dc.gov/enrollment
and then calculating the percentage of white-non-hispanic students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last year's CAPE spreadsheet has grade levels. I'm sad that it isn't part of the current year's data.

Last year, McKinley Tech also doesn't have Algebra II CAPE scores. They did have 111 9th graders take the Algebra I CAPE, and 78 9th graders take the Geometry CAPE. So that's basically all the 9th graders. And also 139 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE. I would think the remaining 10th graders took the Geometry CAPE in 9th grade. Nobody in 11th and 12th grades took math CAPE.

+1. There are basically no 9th graders there not taking a math CAPE. This is not what's driving the overall numbers.

Well, it becomes a question of what's considered "grade level" for the different math courses in different grades. A 4 or 5 on the Algebra I CAPE is grade level for a 9th grader, that is clear. What if a 9th grader gets a 3 on the Geometry CAPE? Presumably they're in Geometry because already passed Algebra I. Is a 3 on the Geometry CAPE grade level for a 9th grader even though it isn't for a 10th grader?

You could drive yourself crazy doing those calculations for every school and it still wouldn't change the order of schools, because schools with higher math scores also have more students in advanced math. And McKinley by all accounts is serving advanced students well, which matters more than exactly how many they have.