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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][Quote] It's extremely frustrating having to put your hand down "so someone else can have a chance to answer" most of your life. Also, it's prohibitive to one's development to never feel challenged in class. I think that schools like Walls and Banneker provide a sanctuary where a lot of us can do our best to make up for lost time during the last four years before college, although by then, for some, it's already too late. [/quote]

I'm sorry that you had such a hard time.  Can you tell me why Bannker's average SAT scores languish BELOW the national average, in the low 500s, year after year?  Too much lost time to make up?  Not nearly enough upper-middle-class peers (with whites shunning the school almost to a parent?) pushing the school to up its game?   I've interviewed a dozen Banneker students applying to my Ivy as an alum volunteer in the last 5 years and not one has come close to making the grade, and not for lack of ambition, hard work or talent.   Same with Walls and Wilson.  The prep at these schools seems sadly lacking - too few kids taking more than a handful of AP classes/exams and getting high scores (4s and 5s) on them.  I've found it all a bit hearbreaking, these are good kids with big dreams.  They just aren't benefitting from ES and MS talented and gifted programs, great teaching, and highly selective admissions like suburban counterparts. Not to suggest that Banneker doesn't offer a better quality education than the other DCPS high schools.

[/quote]Pp, I won't argue with the facts as you present them and I appreciate your good intentions but your post comes across as a bit condescending. It almost sounds like you're saying, poor thing, too bad you didn't have more upper middle class students, especially white ones, or you'd have been smarter. Surely you don't mean that, right? Besides, there are thousands upon thousands of students who don't get accepted to Ivy League schools who have worked hard and have gone to excellent K-12 schools. There just isn't room in the Ivy League for everyone who wants to go there. But many of them go on to get good educations and have good careers nevertheless. [/quote]

1.) Well..., I don't know about your Ivy, but at least one 2011 graduate I know from Banneker went to one.

2.) The above is anecdotal of of course. What I think the graduate who posted earlier was trying to say, and I think said it quite clearly, is that she was not supported by her peers/community until she got to Banneker. Yes, achievement can happen anywhere. She managed to do that with challenges many of you and your kin have not and will not experience.[/quote]

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