Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone,

I'm a reporter with the Washington City Paper, and I'm working on a story on a question that has been raised several times on this forum: Why don't white students go to Banneker? I'm interested in speaking with parents who fall under one of these categories:

- You have (or recently have) a child at Banneker
- You're considering Banneker
- You opted not to apply to Banneker, or got in but decided not to go there

If you match the description, please feel free to send me an email at awiener (at) washingtoncitypaper (dot) com.

Thanks very much!
Aaron

Because its Majority Black and located in Georgia Avenue near Howard University. Whites will not send their kids to majority black schools regardless of the test scores. People will say "Wilson" but lets be honest the "honor courses" or "humanities program" are Majority white and a school within a school where whites are the majority

Then how do explain all of the sudden interest in Cleveland Elementary School right down the street? White people just discovered it. It frequently appeared on this year's DCUM lottery threads.

(I'm black and didn't mention Cleveland to a soul until my kids got in. It's golden. Also one of the things I loved about Cleveland is that is majority AA/Latino, so my kids get to experience a strong minority populated educational setting, where all of the high achievers and school leadership looked like them.)

Wow, that's racist

Nope, it is not. It is countering a racist society that has a preschool to prison pipeline for Black children. Please stop calling black people racists for trying to counter institutional racism. It is not cute.

That's what you say. I'm sure white supremacists explain their racism in similar ways, as in "It is countering a politically correct society that is being assaulted by waves of non-English-speaking immigrants who don't share our values and distract teachers from teaching"...

Racism is racism, regardless of who practices it.

*didn't finish thought but you get the drift.

Anonymous wrote:I would like to add that most high achiving kids and their high achieving parents, have already been tracked into Basis and Latin by 5th grade (if they aren't at Deal or Hardy or private). So a kid doing well at a math focused school like Basis, that actually is diverse (and becoming the defacto Cap hill middle school) is not going to leave to go to Bannekar in 9th grade now that Basis is adding grades.

Dear journalist, you will see many posts like this that don't do well at explaining all. They will touch a few places with their brush, but they

1403 is the total average SAT score for black students in Montgomery County (1766 for white students). Banneker average is 1488. Why would you not think your white student can score higher than MoCo average for white scores at Banneker?

Anonymous wrote:Aaron - this idea might not catch on with current DCPS parents of teenagers, but I think there are many in the next wave/those with elementary students, particularly who settled east of Rock Creek Park and want to really see DCPS succeed, who are interested in Banneker. There's also a complicated dynamic with the neighborhood high schools as well. What if I want Coolidge or Eastern or Roosevelt to succeed? Should my middle class white DC kid go there instead of Banneker? It's enough to make a liberal's bleeding heart and brain explode.

+1. I'd love to see a successful bilingual program at Roosevelt (or at Banneker, if there was a clear plan there to attract and integrate white and hispanic students)

It's socioeconomic too. Many of you do not seem to realize that there is a large contingent of high SES AA families that opt out of DCPS and charters after ES and go private.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi everyone,

I'm a reporter with the Washington City Paper, and I'm working on a story on a question that has been raised several times on this forum: Why don't white students go to Banneker? I'm interested in speaking with parents who fall under one of these categories:

- You have (or recently have) a child at Banneker
- You're considering Banneker
- You opted not to apply to Banneker, or got in but decided not to go there

If you match the description, please feel free to send me an email at awiener (at) washingtoncitypaper (dot) com.

Thanks very much!
Aaron

Because its Majority Black and located in Georgia Avenue near Howard University. Whites will not send their kids to majority black schools regardless of the test scores. People will say "Wilson" but lets be honest the "honor courses" or "humanities program" are Majority white and a school within a school where whites are the majority

Then how do explain all of the sudden interest in Cleveland Elementary School right down the street? White people just discovered it. It frequently appeared on this year's DCUM lottery threads.

(I'm black and didn't mention Cleveland to a soul until my kids got in. It's golden. Also one of the things I loved about Cleveland is that is majority AA/Latino, so my kids get to experience a strong minority populated educational setting, where all of the high achievers and school leadership looked like them.)

Wow, that's racist

Nope, it is not. It is countering a racist society that has a preschool to prison pipeline for Black children. Please stop calling black people racists for trying to counter institutional racism. It is not cute.

Aaron - this idea might not catch on with current DCPS parents of teenagers, but I think there are many in the next wave/those with elementary students, particularly who settled east of Rock Creek Park and want to really see DCPS succeed, who are interested in Banneker. There's also a complicated dynamic with the neighborhood high schools as well. What if I want Coolidge or Eastern or Roosevelt to succeed? Should my middle class white DC kid go there instead of Banneker? It's enough to make a liberal's bleeding heart and brain explode.

I would like to add that most high achiving kids and their high achieving parents, have already been tracked into Basis and Latin by 5th grade (if they aren't at Deal or Hardy or private). So a kid doing well at a math focused school like Basis, that actually is diverse (and becoming the defacto Cap hill middle school) is not going to leave to go to Bannekar in 9th grade now that Basis is adding grades.

I think the "only white kid" point is also true. Banneker is literally 0% white. I thought for the first few years I lived in DC white kids weren't even eligible to attend. I think that plenty of white parents would send their kids to a majority black school, but there is a difference between being 0% white and being even 10 or 15%.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not convinced that the black students at School Without Walls have lower SAT scores than those at Banneker.

Don't know about SAT scores, but black students at Banneker do have slightly better DC CAS scores than at Walls. Neither have any meaningful percentage who are below basic or basic, but Banneker has a majority of advanced students and Walls does not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a topic that should be addressed in your piece – SAT scores. How does a selective admission school score below the national average on the SAT?

Below is data taken directly from the Banneker web site:
http://benjaminbanneker.k12.dc.us/about_bbahs.html

READING
DCPS 473
Banneker 496
National 496

MATH
DCPS 466
Banneker 506
National 514

WRITING
DCPS 461
Banneker 486
National 488

Those Banneker scores seem surprisingly low. If true, well, that answers the reporter's question.

Apples to apples, statistics class anyone? The fact that Banneker is WAY above national black SATs and almost on par with all races nationally, is very compelling. This topic gets raised all the time and parents always site the SATs knowing damn well it's not apples to apples and there is an obvious racial gap when it comes to testing and Banneker does an excellent job bridging that gap.

National Black SATs
Reading: 428
Math: 428
Writing: 417

Interesting indeed, and IRRELEVANT to OP's question.

Why don't white students go to Banneker? Because their SAT scores are surprisingly low for a selective admission school, clearly lower than other alternatives white students have.

(I prefer to avoid race-specific thinking and metrics, but this is the only way to answer a race-specific question)

How do you not get it? The black students at Banneker do better than DCPS and their black peers nationally (by a large margin). Logically speaking, there is no reason not to believe that your white student won't do better than his peers nationally. It doesn't answer OP's question but it certainly counters anyone's answer that SATs aren't up to par.

I don't think the bolded statement is at all true. In any case, the SAT scores still answer the question; a large percentage of white parents are using the amount that test scores are above national average as an important proxy in deciding where to send their kids. I think this includes a lot of white parents who are nominally pro-diversity. I think a fairly common position is "I want to send my kid to a school with high test scores, and if that school is also diverse, that's a nice plus."

+1. Previous PP is surprisingly dense. Imagine DC had a new selective admission school, with majority Native American student body, and these SAT results:

Reading: 328
Math: 328
Writing: 317

Do you believe current Banneker parents would send their kids there? Do you believe they would even care whether those results are higher or lower than national Native American SAT scores?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a topic that should be addressed in your piece – SAT scores. How does a selective admission school score below the national average on the SAT?

Below is data taken directly from the Banneker web site:
http://benjaminbanneker.k12.dc.us/about_bbahs.html

READING
DCPS 473
Banneker 496
National 496

MATH
DCPS 466
Banneker 506
National 514



WRITING
DCPS 461
Banneker 486
National 488

Those Banneker scores seem surprisingly low. If true, well, that answers the reporter's question.

I was thinking the same thing. For a test in school, the scores aren't anything special. It would be helpful to compare them to Wilson and TJ in Va, a real test in school. As for parents not sending their white kids to a majority AA school, that really oversimplifies the issues. its that a white kid would likely be the ONLY white kid in the entire school. I would worry about bullying, exclusion etc if that were my kid. No one wants to be the ONLY. Most white parents have their elem kids in majority non white elem schools but parents worry less about elem. By middle and high school, parents with high achieving kids (And also likely higher income), know its time to really buckle down and get hard core into academics, IB, AP and honors. Also, middle and HS is when the really serious behvaviroal and violent issues start to play out as the kids get older. The challenges of very low income kids really becomes a different reality at that age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a topic that should be addressed in your piece – SAT scores. How does a selective admission school score below the national average on the SAT?

Below is data taken directly from the Banneker web site:
http://benjaminbanneker.k12.dc.us/about_bbahs.html

READING
DCPS 473
Banneker 496
National 496

MATH
DCPS 466
Banneker 506
National 514

WRITING
DCPS 461
Banneker 486
National 488

Those Banneker scores seem surprisingly low. If true, well, that answers the reporter's question.

Apples to apples, statistics class anyone? The fact that Banneker is WAY above national black SATs and almost on par with all races nationally, is very compelling. This topic gets raised all the time and parents always site the SATs knowing damn well it's not apples to apples and there is an obvious racial gap when it comes to testing and Banneker does an excellent job bridging that gap.

National Black SATs
Reading: 428
Math: 428
Writing: 417

Interesting indeed, and IRRELEVANT to OP's question.

Why don't white students go to Banneker? Because their SAT scores are surprisingly low for a selective admission school, clearly lower than other alternatives white students have.

(I prefer to avoid race-specific thinking and metrics, but this is the only way to answer a race-specific question)

How do you not get it? The black students at Banneker do better than DCPS and their black peers nationally (by a large margin). Logically speaking, there is no reason not to believe that your white student won't do better than his peers nationally. It doesn't answer OP's question but it certainly counters anyone's answer that SATs aren't up to par.

I don't think the bolded statement is at all true. In any case, the SAT scores still answer the question; a large percentage of white parents are using the amount that test scores are above national average as an important proxy in deciding where to send their kids. I think this includes a lot of white parents who are nominally pro-diversity. I think a fairly common position is "I want to send my kid to a school with high test scores, and if that school is also diverse, that's a nice plus."

I'm not convinced that the black students at School Without Walls have lower SAT scores than those at Banneker.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's a topic that should be addressed in your piece – SAT scores. How does a selective admission school score below the national average on the SAT?

Below is data taken directly from the Banneker web site:
http://benjaminbanneker.k12.dc.us/about_bbahs.html

READING
DCPS 473
Banneker 496
National 496

MATH
DCPS 466
Banneker 506
National 514

WRITING
DCPS 461
Banneker 486
National 488

Those Banneker scores seem surprisingly low. If true, well, that answers the reporter's question.

Apples to apples, statistics class anyone? The fact that Banneker is WAY above national black SATs and almost on par with all races nationally, is very compelling. This topic gets raised all the time and parents always site the SATs knowing damn well it's not apples to apples and there is an obvious racial gap when it comes to testing and Banneker does an excellent job bridging that gap.

National Black SATs
Reading: 428
Math: 428
Writing: 417

Interesting indeed, and IRRELEVANT to OP's question.

Why don't white students go to Banneker? Because their SAT scores are surprisingly low for a selective admission school, clearly lower than other alternatives white students have.

(I prefer to avoid race-specific thinking and metrics, but this is the only way to answer a race-specific question)

How do you not get it? The black students at Banneker do better than DCPS and their black peers nationally (by a large margin). Logically speaking, there is no reason not to believe that your white student won't do better than his peers nationally. It doesn't answer OP's question but it certainly counters anyone's answer that SATs aren't up to par.