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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Agree that Banneker will start to attract more of those who would have only considered Walls. Plus, the facility blows Walls out of the water.[/quote]

Seriously, I'm a Bloomingdale parent questioning whether Walls is enough better to justify the longer commute. Yes the stats are stronger, but both are good overall, so why should my DC spend so much time on the bus?[/quote]

[b]I have a bias towards the old school mentality at Banneker but I bet if you did a proper matched comparison between Banneker and Walls students they wouldn’t be significantly different [/b][/quote]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here. For instance, the Walls SAT scores are MUCH better than Banneker; these are not the same quality of student. That does not mean that the same kid at Walls and Banneker wouldn't do equivalently well and that the teaching might not even be better at Banneker (while the cohort is sufficient for adequate challenge). So if you mean "matched comparison" of kid to equivalent kid looking at outcome, I agree. But if you mean Banneker and Walls students themselves "wouldn't significantly different," you are very wrong.[/quote]

Given the socioeconomic edge of Walls families over those at Banneker, I question whether the higher SAT scores reflect a higher caliber student overall, or better/earlier test prep, which tends to be more common among upper income white and Asian families. I would be more interested in metrics like number of APs and scores on APs and college matriculation stats. SAT scores can be a good 1:1 measure when the populations are broadly similar and have similar test prep experiences, but it can offer wonky comparisons when you are talking about different populations with different SES and cultural attitudes towards test prep.[/quote]

What socio-economic edge? DCRC has the percent of economically disadvantaged at Walls at 7%, while it still just 24% at Banneker. Both seem like good options based on that key metric. [/quote]

I agree both are good options. But they have very different school populations based on SES.

Not only does Banneker have fully 25% of its populations coming from an economically disadvantaged background, but among the student population outside that designation, Walls students are much more likely to come from families with significantly higher incomes or generational wealth. Banneker has traditionally served middle class and UMC black families who view the school as the best public option for high achieving black kids. Kids who aspire to Banneker but don't get in often wind at less expensive parochial high schools because their IB options are usually not viable options for high achieving kids and parents are unlikely to be able to afford tuition at competitive private schools. A major reason the female to male option at Banneker skews so heavily female is that there are fewer affordable options for parochial HS for girls in this area.

Walls families, however, skew wealthier and are significantly more likely to live in Ward 3, with the priciest real estate in the city and the one boundary high school that offers real opportunities to high achieving students (and which is impossible to lottery into at the HS level). However many Walls families don't really even consider J-R as a backup to Walls, and will send their kids to competitive (and $$$ private schools) if their kids didn't get into Walls. Alternatively, they might move into one of the more expensive parts of the MD or VA suburbs in order to take advantage of HS there, which also have much higher average SES than Banneker.

This isn't in the numbers provided by the district because for a variety of reasons, the district is never going to parse middle class, upper middle class, or wealthy families in the district -- they only measure economically disadvantaged students who receive some kind of assistance. But that doesn't mean it's not true or obvious to people who are paying attention.

This may change over the next 10-20 years as even UMC families are priced out of competitive privates and housing costs continue to spiral upward making it harder to buy into the best schools without true wealth.[/quote]

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