I’m not sure I understand why the city is making this such a big deal. Banneker is 98% AA and SWW is 60% AA. Why are they acting like white kids are taking over the magnet schools

Why exactly did DCPS just open Bard and Coolidge Early College when kids don’t have the foundation to even get into Phelps or McKinley Tech

This will make admissions even less transparent than it is now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given the trends, specifically the rapid increase in the number of white students at schools like Walls, I'm not sure this loosening of requirements will make much of a difference. They're still going to trend more white and affluent in the future; I think the city is just trying to mitigate this so that DC's poor black students aren't left behind in quite so dramatic a fashion as current trends would suggest.

Don't forget that Walls has the interview phase. So if a few high scoring kids are deemed a "poor fit" it could make some room for kids who passed but were closer to that line.

Yep, it’s pretty obvious they are going to take the poorer performing at risk kid than the kid who did better.

It is meant to be a holistic admissions process, but I think they will only take those who do well enough on the test to succeed there. I'm not convinced that a white student who scores a 93, for example, is more deserving of a seat than a black student from ward 7 who scores an 84.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Given the trends, specifically the rapid increase in the number of white students at schools like Walls, I'm not sure this loosening of requirements will make much of a difference. They're still going to trend more white and affluent in the future; I think the city is just trying to mitigate this so that DC's poor black students aren't left behind in quite so dramatic a fashion as current trends would suggest.

Don't forget that Walls has the interview phase. So if a few high scoring kids are deemed a "poor fit" it could make some room for kids who passed but were closer to that line.

Yep, it’s pretty obvious they are going to take the poorer performing at risk kid than the kid who did better.

Anonymous wrote:Given the trends, specifically the rapid increase in the number of white students at schools like Walls, I'm not sure this loosening of requirements will make much of a difference. They're still going to trend more white and affluent in the future; I think the city is just trying to mitigate this so that DC's poor black students aren't left behind in quite so dramatic a fashion as current trends would suggest.

Don't forget that Walls has the interview phase. So if a few high scoring kids are deemed a "poor fit" it could make some room for kids who passed but were closer to that line.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The failure of middle schools to adequately prepare students for high school should be Ferebee's focus rather than reducing admission requirements at selective schools.

This is really it. The bottom line is that the city has created more "selective" seats than it has students and is now hard pressed to try to figure out a way to fill those selective seats. I would rather have seen a loosening of the standards to a 3, 4, or 5 on PARCC rather than eliminating them all together. Kids who get a 3 should not be precluded from the selective high schools, but I do think there should be a threshold of some sort - if not based on PARCC, maybe top 20% of middle school cohort. Or something.

My guess is that this new policy won't have much of an impact at Banneker and SWW (both of which are generally able to fill their available seats), but will really be felt at Phelps, McKinley Tech, etc. Though honestly, if there was a back door to get into those schools without the required scores all along and that back door was not well known to everyone, at least now the standard will be transparent.

There was only a 1-2 year back door. That's when PARCC proficiency was used as an entrance requirement. Back when we had DC-CAS, proficiency scores on that were used. But as has been noted, PARCC is a more difficult and controversial test.

Anonymous wrote:link?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/does-every-dc-child-have-a-fair-shot-at-attending-an-elite-high-school-the-city-is-trying/2019/12/01/f0be55e0-f01b-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html

Given the trends, specifically the rapid increase in the number of white students at schools like Walls, I'm not sure this loosening of requirements will make much of a difference. They're still going to trend more white and affluent in the future; I think the city is just trying to mitigate this so that DC's poor black students aren't left behind in quite so dramatic a fashion as current trends would suggest.

Anonymous wrote:The failure of middle schools to adequately prepare students for high school should be Ferebee's focus rather than reducing admission requirements at selective schools.

This is really it. The bottom line is that the city has created more "selective" seats than it has students and is now hard pressed to try to figure out a way to fill those selective seats. I would rather have seen a loosening of the standards to a 3, 4, or 5 on PARCC rather than eliminating them all together. Kids who get a 3 should not be precluded from the selective high schools, but I do think there should be a threshold of some sort - if not based on PARCC, maybe top 20% of middle school cohort. Or something.

My guess is that this new policy won't have much of an impact at Banneker and SWW (both of which are generally able to fill their available seats), but will really be felt at Phelps, McKinley Tech, etc. Though honestly, if there was a back door to get into those schools without the required scores all along and that back door was not well known to everyone, at least now the standard will be transparent.

How in the hell are students at an engineering-focused school not passing math? The failure of middle schools to adequately prepare students for high school should be Ferebee's focus rather than reducing admission requirements at selective schools.

"Among members of the 2017-2018 freshman class at Phelps ACE High School, an engineering-focused application campus, only two students passed the math portion of their standardized exam in middle school, according to data obtained through a public information request."

Just do away with selective schools and be done with it. That will be the outcome of all this watering down. Just cut to the chase.

The standards at these schools will inevitably be lowered. There's no away around that. Academic rigor is being thrown out the window in favor of diversity for diversity's sake. The goal is no longer providing an education suited to students that demonstrate the appropriate level of preparedness. The goal has become simply admissions.

link?

The Post wrote about the city's plan to remove PARCC scores, disregard middle school attendance records and lower minimum GPAs to apply to city application high schools. Surprised they didn't interview, or quote parents who are afraid of "watering down" the experience. Two excerpts that leapt off the page to me.

Re PARCC:

"...The chancellor’s announcement comes just a year after the District mandated that students wanting to attend most of the city’s application high schools had to pass a national standardized test administered to D.C. middle-schoolers.

But the implications of that requirement swiftly became evident. So few D.C. students, especially teenagers from low-income families, passed the test that city leaders acknowledged the requirement was largely ignored at most application high schools.

In Wards 7 and 8 — the poorest swath of the city — only 45 students attending neighborhood middle schools passed both the English and math portions of the standardized exam, according to city data. At one middle school, three students passed. At another, four did. ..."

Re SWW demographic shifts:

"Since the 2014-2015 academic year, the 600-student campus has enrolled an average of 16 additional white students each year and enrolled 16 fewer black students, according to city data. That has resulted in a 37 percent increase of white students during that time, and a 35 percent decrease in black students.

The school system said that since 2015, the number of students applying from Ward 3, the wealthiest corner of the city, has jumped nearly 50 percent. And applications from Ward 6, another area with wealthy families, have increased by 20 percent."