Reply to 2017 "Most Challenging" High Schools List (Wash Post/Jay Mathews) is out

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Reply to "2017 "Most Challenging" High Schools List (Wash Post/Jay Mathews) is out"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As far as I can tell, they don't give Banneker a shot for the very same reasons there are few whites at historically black colleges.  Even a great school like Howard attracts very few whites.  Banneker's traditions are outside the orbit of whites and other races.  [/quote]

I think for some, it's about having more of a traditional high school experience. DS is bi-racial and would not consider Banneker because he wanted to play basketball, go to football games, play in the band, etc. Had nothing to do with race. Our friend's child, same age is white and loves Banneker. [/quote]

NP.  But if "traditional HS experience" is a driving factor, why is Wash Latin 1/3 white while Banneker has just 1 white student total (at least according to the NAEP reports and some DCPS reports)?  Does Wash Latin have a football team and a band?  I honestly don't know.

The question of why more white families don't apply to Banneker (and to Ellington) has long mystified me too.  They're essentially an opportunity for the sort of G&T program that white Ward 3 families often clamor for, and a way to escape the overcrowding at other Ward 3 schools.

My only guess is that Banneker (and to a lesser extent Ellington) are largely promoted at historically black institutions, designed and maintained primarily for DC's black community, so any white student applying would be looked at with suspicion (or not admitted) unless he could show some genuine cultural link to the black community.  I even thought that Banneker was explicitly designed as a black school, and enrollment was limited to only male black students (sort of like DCPS's Empowering Males of Color program).  I know, I know, that's silly and uninformed, and my impression was obviously way off base on lots of facts, but that was the impression I got when I moved to DC many years ago and began hearing and reading about them in passing, and I had no children then so I had no need to investigate whether what I'd heard was true or not.

And even if my uninformed impression from years ago was justified, I don't understand why more white families (who are better informed than I was) haven't taken advantage of Banneker.  Still confuses me.[/quote]

Another person here who once thought Benneker was expressly for blacks only.

Ellington is not academically rigorous, that's why it was a non-starter for this family.[/quote]

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