Reply to Why don't white students go to Banneker?

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Reply to "Why don't white students go to Banneker?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm not convinced that the black students at School Without Walls have lower SAT scores than those at Banneker. [/quote]

Don't know about SAT scores, but black students at Banneker do have slightly better DC CAS scores than at Walls. Neither have any meaningful percentage who are below basic or basic, but Banneker has a majority of advanced students and Walls does not.[/quote]

According to http://profiles.dcps.dc.gov/Compare.aspx?tab=1&school=402,466 you are right in math, but not in reading. In reading, 100% of black kids at Walls and 99% of black kids at Banneker score proficient or better, but 59% at Walls scored advanced and only 51% did at Banneker.

There are not huge differences--and I know that they are not the reason families choose one school over another--but we may as well be accurate.

I think part of it is that there just are not that many white (non-Hispanic) high schoolers in DCPS. Some moved out of the District; others attend private and charters. Using the school enrollment and demographic data DCPS just published, I see about:

447 at Wilson
218 at SWW
42 at Duke Ellington
23 at Cardozo
14 at CHEC
8 at Ballou
6 at McKinley Tech (it could be interesting to talk with some of these kids...Tech is putting out some great test scores and they certainly could have something to say about being in school with smart kids who are largely of a different race)
5 at Roosevelt
0 at Coolidge, Dunbar, Eastern, and Anacostia

So under 800 kids total, most of whom live in the Wilson boundary or have a right to attend Wilson because they went to a feeder school. An out-of-bounds family that sent their kid across town to Deal or Hardy for years (and probably for elementary school too) is clearly invested in that feeder pattern and may want to keep their kids with the same group of friends. Some of the remaining couple hundred live closer to SWW or Ellington, or prefer those curricula. Some might not want to be the "only." Some might not have passed Banneker's entrance exam (that would be an interesting point for the article--who applied and didn't get in? or did they get in and a different school instead?). But overall, the set of kids who are white, attend DCPS, and didn't have Wilson as an option is a really small group.  I do think if more white families stay in the District as their kids age (which seems likely) some will apply to Banneker, get in, and choose to attend...especially since there are more white families who are spending so much on housing outside of the Wilson district that they won't be able to afford private school! [/quote]

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