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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've been interviewing Banneker students for my Ivy for 15 years. The odd student gets in. I speak to the school's IB Diploma coordinator from time to time, mainly to ask how students are scoring. To my knowledge, 6s and 7s on IBP exams are really rare at Banneker. Their IBD pass points total hovers in the mid 20s (on a pass scale of 24-45 points) and a good third of the kids who pursue the IBD fail to pass. Their model is clearly to provide a springboard for low SES AA and Latino students to reach top colleges.

No, Banneker does not teach Cal BC, or, for that matter, Physics 2 (called Physics BC until 2014), Physics C: Electronics and Magnetism, or Physics C: Mechanics. Moreover, they haven't produced a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist in a decade.  If you're high SES and your student is white or Asian, top Banneker STEM scores are really unlikely to fly at top colleges. Perhaps you could supplement to bridge the gap.

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why would you assume your "stem kid" would do so much differently at Banneker than Wilson (leaving aside the course offerings?) I feel like people are constantly moving the goal posts. "My sweet, book hungry kid can't possibly go to class with all those kids at Jefferson who have 20% proficiency rates and come from the projects!!"

"what about banneker which is full of bright hard working kids with great results?"

"they never had a national merit finalist!!"

just say it. [/quote]

My low income, predominantly African American high school  in California offered AP Calculus BC and AP Chemistry 30 years ago.  If you are from a college educated home, top colleges expect 5s on those tests or scores of 6/7 on the analogous IB exams.[/quote]

We have the word of one person that interviews some Banneker kids. Nobody really knows what these kids are scoring. We do know they are killing PARCC and going to top colleges. What else is there to want to know? In every measure, it's a better school than Latin, yet there are fewer than 5 white kids that want to go there.[/quote]

Actually, the International Baccalaureate Program in Geneva keeps stats on average points totals by certified HS. You can contact them and dig in their on-line archives to find the data. Banneker's IBD points totals are in the mid 20s, sort of a C-. Meanwhile, Richard Montgomery HS in Rockville, and other Metro area programs, posts point totals in the high 30s, an A-.  The HS PARCC is just testing 8th and 9th grade math, and few low SES families opt out of state standardized tests (while many high SES kids have been blowing off the PARCC), helping explain why the Banneker students are "killing it."  Many Banneker kids go to top colleges partly because low SES AA students with decent SAT scores (600s) are in huge demand at such colleges.  They don't need to score in the 700s like whites and Asians who aren't recruited athletes to access the same colleges.  I'm not saying that Banneker's a bad school, but whites seldom attend historically black high schools or colleges for obvious reasons.  To attract whites, Banneker will need to change and do outreach.

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Thanks for those IB stats. We're years away and I'm just learning. Do you have any idea what the scores are for the Eastern HS IB program? And sorry this is off track, but are there other IB HSes in DC?

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DCI is planning to offer the IB high school program. They only have 9th graders at this point, and their program hasn't yet been approved by the IBO.

I think that comparing the IBD scores of Banneker and Richard Montgomery is meaningless unless you control for race and SES. Same as for the PARCC,  SAT scores and AP passing rates.

The question we should be asking is how the Banneker scores on all of the above compare to similar students at SWW, Wilson, Latin, BASIS and all the rest. 
 
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I don't think that's the question really, except in a thread about how to objectively rank DC high schools.  There's no question that Banneker is a high school with a TON going for it.  So the issue is why, in a city with a perceived lack of options for "advanced" students, Banneker is never in the mix.  At that point people will try to downplay Banneker and the question morphs from "where can a student get a rigorous education?" to "MY CHILD CANNOT THRIVE OUTSIDE OF A SCHOOL THAT ALREADY HAS A CLASS FULL OF 5s IN CALC BC".  Basically they won't be happy unless there's something that is tailor made for them from the outset.  [/quote]

I guess I'm not getting your point.  I think what folks want for their kids is a school with a good set of equally strong(er) peers - I want my kid to be challenged by classmates, not the big fish in a small pond (b/c when s/he gets to college it would be much bigger shock to the system).  And if Banneker kids' SATs are (seemingly) pretty low, that appears to be evidence that the peer group is not (very) strong enough.[/quote]

Right, you're moving the goal posts.  At first the discussion is about having "a strong cohort" as the reason Jefferson will never work.  Next, the definition of "strong cohort" gets changed to "super duper advanced students."  OK fine, so if the only school that will work for you in DC is a school where there are THEE BEST students, then you should probably go private or to VA and try for TJ. This is a discussion about how to create reasonable options for kids in DC, but somehow the options that involve a majority of black students always get discounted.  Also I'm guessing that the Banneker kids strengths and eventual success has a LOT more to it than their SAT scores.  There are many more personal & moral characteristics that probably animate the school than that.  [/quote]

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