Reply to Banneker vs. Walls

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Guys, Banneker is a minority choice for every demographic in the city. So is BASIS and Latin and DCI and Duke and Walls etc. Surely we understand how school choice works by now? Just because a school doesn’t appeal to absolutely everyone  doesn’t mean it needs to change. [/quote]

Ivy League interviewer who gave up on Banneker here who disagrees strongly. There are many very bright, hard-working, ambitious, super talented students in the Banneker building who are poorly served by hidebound admins whose college admissions advice emanates from a bygone era, a previous generation.  Banneker may be fine for the UMC families who can provide a lot of their own enrichment and college admissions inputs. Not so hot for the rest. If I were a low SES minority family reaching for the stars for college, I'd head to Basis, Latin or Walls if possible, vs. Banneker.  Banneker operates in too much of an affirmative action cocoon these days. The leadership isn't moving with the times.[/quote]

So the low SES Banneker kids posting on Instagram yesterday about their full rides to top 20 schools should actually be upset with the results? What more is some other school going to do for them, get Harvard to pay them $100,000 to attend?[/quote]. [b]Banneker rests on is laurels[/b] far too much in college admissions. The Supreme Court will come at affirmative action next year. possibly hard. Banneker doesn’t seem to have heard the wake-up call. Time for the school to up its game and broaden its reach.[/quote]

I think you don't understand what the phrase "rests on its laurels" means. The post to which you replied referenced the most current graduating class's successes. If we are not judge a school on its most recent performance then what measure would you suggest? [/quote]

Recent performance doesn't impress me terribly because Banneker relies heavily on our country's 60-year-old tradition of affirmative action admissions, whose days are probably numbered due to Trump's SC appointments. Deeply average SAT and AP scores belie the mediocrity of academics overall, although I'm aware that a tiny minority of students overcome obstacles to cracks colleges admitting in the single digits.  I'd be impressed if Banneker attracted a high-performing AND reasonably diverse student body, and their SAT and AP scores knocked it out the park for the demographic.
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You are SOOO full of it. First of all, Banneker does not get many white applicants so I don't understand your affirmative action statement. Secondly, when my son was at Banneker, he got a D in latin. He went to Gonzaga for summer school. The teacher told him he did not understand how he got a D b/c my son knew more latin then the Latin II students at Gonzaga. Banneker has lots of incredibly bright students who do not come from a background that is able to game the system and pay for lots of SAT supports.[/quote]

Ivy League interviewer here who wishes I was actually full of it.

While none of the Banneker students I interviewed for my alma mater was offered a spot at my Ivy, many told me that they got spots at other elite colleges with a few AP scores of 3 and 4 and SATs in the 500s and 600s. In the same situation, an Asian applicant at the same place on the socioeconomic spectrum would almost certainly have needed half a dozen AP scores of 5 and SATs in the 700s to be admitted to the same elite colleges. I know this because I used to interview for my alma mater in NYC, where low SES Asian applicants enrolled in test-in magnet schools like Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science, Hunter College and Stuyvesant with high scores were routinely turned down by the same elite colleges Banneker students get into. However, if Banneker applicants had brought the sort of scores the low SES Asian students in NYC do to the table, they would probably have made the cut at my super selective alma mater.

I see affirmative action withering on the vine in the coming years, leaving me to wish that Banneker admins, teachers and parents and DCPS leaders would get the message that future students are going to need better support to get into elite colleges. Above all, I wish that DC would set up serious GT programming at the ES and MS level to serve future Banneker students.  In NYC, low SES minority students get a big head start in scoring high on APs and SAT as compared to Banneker students, because they come up through full-time GT programs from a young age. I know that NYC recently changed their GT system, but least they still have one, unlike the District.  [/quote]

Bronx Science and Stuyvesant have, combined, about 6,000 students relative to less than 500 at Banneker, and yet Banneker still has more total black students. If DC had a competitive exam school, it would not look like Banneker and it would serve a different group of students. Which maybe it should have, but these are separate issues. [/quote]

The group of students would probably be very diverse. DC has the most educated African-American population in the country. However, a lot of the kids are in private schools. A lot of those kids would be in a true magnet program if offered in ES and MS. In fact, DC has the largest percentage of kids in private schools in the country. With forward thinking leadership, a really good GT program could be in place. Plenty of models to follow. Chicago seems to have a good one. Just takes will and that has to come from parents. Complaining and whining on DCUM won't get it done ..[/quote]

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