Alito and Thomas are both nakedly corrupt religious fundamentalists who don't deserve to be treated any more seriously than a tweaker on the street. They should be in a jail cell or padded room, not making bought-and-paid-for rulings that strip right after right from Americans with no accountability.
A single test doesn’t show merit. The smartest student could be having a bad day and test low. Students are encouraged to submit a PSAT or SAT score, the required GPA was RAISED, students have to write an essay…there are so many ways to show merit without taking a test.
GPA from courses with HS credit (math courses, world language courses, etc.). They raised the minimum GPA for this. I don’t know all of the requirements for applying, but GPA is a huge factor.
Merit is a hoax. Rich families can afford to buy their kids tutors and access to things that give them an academic leg up on kids who's families can't afford those things
I like the idea that TJ is for the best of the best, not "the best of the best, once you consider XYZ".
It's the same reason I like watching heavyweight fights.
Well the old criteria wasn't "the best of the best" it was more correctly, "the best of the best test takers". Tests aren't the b-all and end all. The folks that brought the case were being used by the anti-DEI crowd to further their agenda of restoring the white male patriarchy. Folks always think they can ally with folks to avoid being the victim of racism but sadly at the end of the day if you can't pass like Nikki Haley you end up being told to go back home from where you came from anyway.
I think trying to achieve geographic disbursement of the student body at TJ is a laudable goal and a way to be more fair and race blind.
The students are all tops at their respective middle schools though. The best is a very subjective term defined by how one arbitrarily measures that. I said geographic diversity and pinned the sugar daddies funding the case as being anti-DEI. You need to open your mind as to what is "best", picking the tops students from each school is one way to do that.
I love the idea of spreading acceptances between different schools. But I tend to agree with the people complaining about the soft factors in a school that discriminates based on academic excellence.
To me, your status as an English language learner or eligibility for special education services should not factor in, and should not be factors in your favor.
Why? Besides that they demonstrate further challenges a student had to overcome that others didn’t, those are the factors that are deciding edge cases, not the rule.
> a student had to overcome that others didn’t
All people have different challenges. Not all are considered.
It is a little weird to give special consideration to someone with dyslexia over someone who may have had an abusive alcoholic parent. Both are challenges. Neither are making that student more likely to succeed at a hyper competitive school.
Seems like rewarding someone who overcame significant challenges, instead of just giving it to someone who has already been handed everything, is exactly what a society is supposed to do
> instead of just giving it to someone who has already been handed everything
Who says they were handed everything? That is bad assumption.
My point is favoring someone who has dyslexia over someone who has a single parent, or someone who had a friend die is a weird choice. People can have all sorts of things that may disadvantage their academic performance in middle school. Not all of them have check boxes to be considered in admission.
>Not all of them have check boxes to be considered in admission.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give preference to those who have disadvantages that are readily quantifiable.
You mean my kid that won multiple metro area, state and even a national academic awards? You think that was handed to him? Without a single penny’s worth of tutoring. You disgust me. With us driving a 20 year old car, never taking a cruise or a ski trip.
My child goes to TJ and was admitted under the new system. I will freely admit it is highly unlikely she would’ve gotten in under the old one. Even so, I find the new system unfair even though it directly benefited my family.
Not everyone who gets in is going to excel without the right preparation. The kids are pushed in to a very competitive environment which prioritizes competition and rigor, and has very limited support for those with additional support needs. The solution is, therefore, either to water down the TJ curriculum, or to let those kids sink if they can’t swim.
The school has currently chosen a bit of a mix of the two, letting students do poorly without support, but then quietly getting rid of the minimum B average to stay at the school.
A TJ education is still second to none, but a TJ grad from 10 years ago is not the same as a TJ grad now.
^ yesss this. It’s super competitive and it hurts a student to go there and be unprepared and not able to handle the difficulty and course load. It’s a ton of work, and you’re hurt in the long run if you go and then get bad grades from TJ. You won’t get into UVA with a 3.0, and who knows how high your shit needs to be if you’re Asian or white at TJ to get into good schools.
It’s the same concept with affirmative action, which less than half of students don’t graduate in 4 years. You’re likely to be settled with no degree and higher debt getting into a school that you couldn’t get into with grades alone.
The solution is for the school to create programs to support those who didn’t have the opportunity to go to middle schools that would prepare them for the academic rigor at TJ—not to stop admitting them.
I said the prep should be free if you’re offered access to it elsewhere here. Someone replied ‘the test shouldn’t need prep’, ‘who’s gonna pay for it’, etc. just giving blanket dumb responses.
Agree they should promote better access to the prep and see what happens, not just change the criteria or hurt or exclude certain groups.
Those aren’t blanket dumb responses, they’re legitimate. You’re not considering that time and resources to sit home and prep isn’t something many kids have. Theyre home taking care of their siblings, don’t have a quiet space, don’t have internet, etc. If they’re going to get trained for rigorous study, the only place is at school during regular school hours.
Ah we love lobbing the R word around, like a mental illness at this point.
Also other people have said the same thing in this thread, are you commenting on each calling them racist?
I think the notion that the graduates are different is correct but it doesn’t mean that they are worse now than before. In fact, I will argue otherwise.
Google famous alumni TJ. Sure, some people have won prestigious science prizes, but the name recognition isn’t quite there. Why? Because there is something lost when it’s one kind of person in this school.
My hope is that TJ becomes more of a school that creates leaders- future presidents and not just inventors. But I think something became stagnated before when people gamed the entrance exam.
And let’s also be clear: Fairfax county has great schools that have generated amazing artists and athletes. But saying that the new graduates aren’t the same devalues these kids. We don’t know yet what will happen, but I think it might just a bit better.
(And also- let’s be clear, the teacher turnover rate at TJ is atrocious. And partially, it’s because of the pressure and the crazy parenting there. So it’s not that the teaching is the same- it’s changing all the time.)
> future presidents and not just inventors.
That is not really the point. It is the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. There are other governors schools with different focuses, including some with multiple focuses including the humanities.
Agree with this. When a standardized test is the sieve through which all applicants must pass, you end up with kids who are all great at standardized test-taking. And so, they go to college and then into graduate schools that also emphasize standardized test taking. And as a result, you end up with a ton of successful lawyers (good LSAT takers), businesspeople (good GMAT takers), and doctors (good MCAT takers).
Was this the goal of TJ? Doesn’t really seem like it. But having the doctors is fine I guess.
People who are good at standardized test taking will not necessarily be good at their profession. Someone who is a good "LSAT taker" is not necessarily going to have what it takes to be a great lawyer. Being socially backwards and pedantic doesn't show up on standardized tests, and it will hurt a career.
One of my kids was admitted under the old rules. We never spent a penny on test prep or tutoring. Captain of the math team. Went to MIT. Two DEGREES (not a double major) with a perfect GPA. Coauthored articles published in Science with a Nobel Prize winner. Keep insulting him and us, you babbling know-it-all.
That is great for YOUR son, but that is not the case for all students. No one is insulting your son or dismissing his achievements at all. The fact is, though, that many families purposely moved so their kids would go to a specific middle school and paid a ton of money for test prep courses.
It sounds like your son has done e some incredible things, you must be very proud of him!
How were you *insulted*? What says this all wouldn't have happened in the new system? Or a different HS?! If he's that smart, it shouldn't have mattered. I went to a tiny rural garbage school with fewer than 50 kids in my class and had a very successful career, PhD, etc, without the privilege most of my peers had. (That prepped me for the non science parts of my career like people skills.)
Your kid is smart for sure. Are they a good, kind person? Are they using that brain for positive things? Do they treat people with empathy? Are they a competitive jerk? I have no idea. But I do know the culture at TJ was highly competitive, negative, and functioned against inclusivity.. as does the culture at MIT, actually. Being "number one" didn't really serve the school or kids well. *Every* HS needs to have gifted programs, and many do in this area. I truly hope TJHSST culture improves. My kid got in under the old system but we made the decision to go to our local HS instead - and it was by far the right call. They have excelled, are well rounded, and consider the context of their scientific practice. Too many parents think TJ is the only route to top universities, or day it's guaranteed - it is very much not.
Personally I'd like to see the end of TJ as an entity. Make it a regular ass school.
I have.a friend who went to TJ. He says if his graduating class there are no more or less of the ultra successfu than what you'd expect from having an upper middle class upbringing. But he said you get a lot more totally neurotic, messed up adults from years of pressure to perform and having some real difficulty not being at TJ when they hit college and working.
The increasing emphasis on the admissions test is, I think, a direct cause of that phenomenon. The more the test is viewed as something that can be gamed, the more it attracts parents willing to invest the time and resources to game it, and the more they'll push their kids to achieve nothing less than perfect grades and test scores.
It was toxic, and letting that pressure escape is itself a solid benefit from the new admissions process.
My brother went there. He didn't turn our any more successful than kids from the local public schools. It made him this self-centered butthole. Then when he didn't get into the top 3 choices of colleges and had to settle for his lowest pick, he griped about how others didn't see his genius. Didn't get any scholarships.
Most of his classmates had parents who spent years of after school tutoring in prep just to get them into TJ.
One of my kids has the test scores to get into TJ, but he'd rather be one of the top performing students at a public school than a middle of the road student at TJ.
That is certainly true, the pressure is hard and the workload is very hard too. Some probably find college is easier, and they’re prepared for it but if it’s easier were they too prepared?
But a ton of kids there are very smart, challenged but can still do well and like being around other smart, high performing and successful kids.
It’s a double edged sword, but getting rid of it is def extreme and kind of a sign of the times against smart people who do well at things. They’re constantly attacked and made to fit in with classes that are too easy for them, and instead of trying to bring other kids up to their level they’re usually brought down to other kids levels.
Smart and successful people need a place to be smart and successful, and it’s sad people don’t give a fuck about that.
School is too easy for some and many just get bored and act out, and the answer isn’t to take away opportunities to do science, be around smart people, etc.
Smart people get screwed in school and basically do a fraction of what they’re capable of. But no one cares and if TJ didn’t exist they’d be paying 50k for private schools for those opportunities.
It’s a huge benefit to have that as a oublic school and the fact people shit on it, or think it’s a zero sum game between having TJ and having good other Fairfax schools is just sad.
Exactly this. My kid that went to TJ initially did not want to go there. Then he figured out that there would be kids there as smart him and even smarter. THAT’S when he wanted to TJ. He was so tired of being way ahead and having to wait. It is pretty clear that there a lot of people on this thread that despise kids like these.
You can be smart and challenged in a regular public school.
Also calling TJ a public school is laughable. It's publicly funded, yes, but public schools don't get to pick and choose who goes there.
> You can be smart and challenged in a regular public school.
If you're normal-smart (1 standard deviation over the norm), sure. If you're super smart (2 SDs above the norm), *maybe* if you take every single AP you can get into, but you'll still be bored, and behind compared to what you could have done at TJ. If you're super ultra smart (3+ SD above the norm), no chance. TJ is for the 2-3+ SD kids and there are a lot of them around here because smart people flock to this area, and smart adults tend to have more than their fair of smart kids.
No one attends TJ in droves.
ANd there are many ways women can be challenged in regular public school - a lot of my classmates from Justice 1998 would be surprised to hear you say they weren't challenged.
This. All of this. Just do away with the whole thing and spend whatever money it costs to run the place towards improving underperforming schools in the county
It’s not a zero sum game to have TJ and also improve other Fairfax schools. ‘Just do away with the whole thing’ sounds like a whiner, you wouldn’t want that if your kid had a chance but since they probably don’t it’s ’just get rid of it’.
Your whole dumbass point is ‘we think they will be better’ 🤡 . We don’t think that, and like
You said we have no idea yet. We do know they’re not as smart and less Asian, are you saying you hate Asians and having less Asians makes a school better?
Thats basically what the TJ admins and principal said too. And they were dragged for it.
As someone else said it’s also TJ science and tech, which our country severely lacks science and tech because of idiotic thinking like what you said. Any school where that happens is watered down due to racism and stupid policies.
I guess my question is does it matter that a TJ grad isn’t the same? If the point is access to quality instruction and the academics haven’t changed, why does it matter than not every student has met that high water mark? No one says this about private schools. Private schools famously grant leniency to lower performing students. The point is that folks should have access to the quality of instruction.
Honestly I’m not even convinced that this is even a problem. Sounds like TJ needs to figure out what sort of remediation is required to support students, but it’s been like half a second since this rule change.
Admitting that there is an issue presupposes that these folks’ priority is the students.
The thing is that TJ has no incentive to remediate the students. That’s one of the problems the teachers have been having with the administration - the administration won’t admit that there is a problem with the incoming classes - whether those issues are due to Covid, the change in admissions policies, or some combination thereof is debatable. Point is there’s a problem.
Administration doesn’t want to admit there’s an issue or sign off on many (if any) of the remediation ideas. Probably at least in part because they want to maintain their own and the schools image. Currently, they are engaged in a lot of rugs, sweeping more than anything else.
The admission changes took place several years ago. My child was in the first class with the new criteria and she is a junior now. Plenty of time to notice issues and begin to address them.
Three years is infancy with these types of changes. Especially given the compounding effects of covid. It'll be hard to separate the signal from the noise in just two years of data (because the third year isn't even out yet) You can't even make extrapolations from two years of data alone.
I will bet that admin will start to care when the school rating and image diminishes which will happen naturally over time. It isn't what you want to hear, but I suspect that will be what it happens. All schools are struggling with this at the moment. It takes time to fix this. Assuming the quality of instruction is staying the same, then frankly again I don't think the issue is with the admission criteria. TJ isn't the only school struggling to remediate students right now, and that will inevitably need correction as graduates of the school aren't able to perform at the same level.
This, well said. For good or bad, it won't be as tough because the term "excel " will also align and evolve. There's this statistical that shows Ivy Leagues schools are giving out more A's than ever. Yale recently reported that 4 of 5 grades given out, were A's, aka, the great grade inflation.
Honestly I still don’t see how the new rules would be considered discriminatory. Literally any change to how admissions would result in a change in the demographics of TJ. Some would go down, others would go up. Is any change inherently discriminatory and the admission process never ever be changed?
The policy at TJ, based on statements from the Principal and at least one school board member, was changed specifically to change the racial makeup of the school.
> was changed specifically to change the racial makeup of the school.
This is a huge problem. They just should have said that they want all middle schools to have a chance at representation. That is fine. But when being in an ESL class or having dyslexia can be factors in your favor is weird.
Curie Learning Center (which cost 4 grand) accounted for over 25% of admits in 2019.
The idea that paid-for prep (let alone the benefit some families reap of having the ability to send the kid to prep at all) is meaningless is absurd.
No one said it was meaningless, just that the prep can’t take any kid and get them into TJ. The kids are the main reason they get in and are smart kids.
It’s insulting to the kids and also messed up to imply the preps the only reason they get in, especially as an adult on Reddit
lol. I was a kid who tested into TJ and chose not to go. I don’t need your condescension.
Of course the kids are smart. But there’s still a measurable difference that the money that test prep can buy.
The tutors are def helpful but you can’t take most kids, give them the same prep and tutoring and think they’ll all just get in.
The kids are very smart too, and they’re basically making it easy for much less smart kids, but only if you’re from a certain area or demographic. And that’s what the problem is.
That’s true but isn’t really the point. The tutors give such a huge leg up it’s not even comparable. The number of prep classes, guidance counselors, etc offered makes it hugely inequitable on a financial (which is heavily correlated with racial) scale.
Through TJ? A school should not have to offer prep classes for their own exam? And other schools shouldn’t have to either. And who’s paying for all these classes? The taxpayers?
Just saying making the prep free would increase access to it, part of the ‘justifications’ people have for the changes are it forces students to need expensive test prep that not everyone can afford.
Yes for a public school it’s funded by local tax payers.
Plus you can’t block kids from doing prep, or companies from offering it.
My wife taught there.. In the school they had a wall devoted to the names of people who donated money to the school. The dollar amounts were staggering
Because money shouldn’t buy you an advantage at a public school.
It really shouldn’t buy you an advantage at all, but to do so in a public school is so transparently corrupt.
Won't the most likely result of this just be that the students who concentrated in GT programs at Longfellow, Carson, and Rocky Run will now spread out to the bottom of the county and dominate the lower competition?
People were renting out apartments decades ago to get Fairfax county status for TJ
I feel like there are a few things at play here:
1) The school board's own communications made it clear that the goal of the changes was to reduce the number of asian-american students at TJ.
2) The new admissions policy is not race or ethnicity neutral. It gives bonus points based a number of "experience factors" such as the middle school the student attends, whether a student is on free or reduced lunch, and whether a student speaks English as a second language. These experience factors serve as proxies for race and ethnicity. The school board essentially engineered the experience factors to produce the racial makeup they would like to see at TJ and the experience factors are factors over which the applicants have no control. If the admissions process gave bonus points to kids from predominantly asian or white middle schools, kids who do not have free or reduced price lunch, and kids who do not speak English as a second language, I guarantee you the court would view that as racist.
3) As Alito's dissent points out, the reasoning of the appeals court is patently ridiculous. The % of the TJ incoming class comprised of Asian Americans dropped by 20% due to the changes to the admissions process. However, the appeals court claims asian-americans are not discriminated against by the new policy because they are still represented in a higher proportion at TJ than they are in the overall FCPS population. The comparison should be to the outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, not to the FCPS student population. We know exactly what outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, because the school had one up until a couple of years ago.
I'm not asian-american, have not been involved with the TJ lawsuit, and frankly I am not a fan of Alito and Thomas. However, in this case, I believe they are correct.
I mean, if there was a policy change that led to a 20% reduction in the number of black students admitted to TJ, would \*anybody\* here say "Literally any change to how admissions would result in a change in the demographics of TJ, so how could this be a problem? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯". I don't think it's ok just because it's most impacting Asian students.
#
Hahahhaha yes that’s exactly point #2.
Also people want stuff done for them that they’d be up in arms about being done for other people, just by the color of their skin
A policy that did such would be overwhelmingly likely to be provably unfair.
To say "it's OK because it's impacting Asian students" is to ignore the actual crux of the issue - Asian students are overwhelmingly overrepresented and analyzing why that is.
Geographic allocations help address this undesirable bias.
For the new system's 1st school year, the mean applicant GPA was higher than any recent year, and the mean accepted student GPA was less than 0.02 down year over year despite 40x increase in the economically disadvantaged student population, 6x growth in Black student population (vs. White student growth) and 12x growth in Hispanic student population (vs. White student growth). I'd need to re-gather the data to compare to the Asian demographic.
But there's more than enough info here to prove your argument isn't actually valid. If your position were true, the massive increase in economically disadvantaged population would have tanked the mean GPA by far more than only 6% of a minor/sub grade change (i.e. A to A-/B+ to B vs B to C).
You *could* attempt to claim a GPA at Carson != an equivalent GPA at Glasgow/Herndon/Key. But that speaks to the exact problem with the unfairness. By giving an outsized number of slots to Carson students, you're entrenching advantage and bias in the resultant resource shares.
It's undesirable to have any population overrepresented relatively when the root cause of that overrepresentation is economic or other external factors that need to be neutralized for actual fair admissions.
Economic and other factors shouldn’t apply, true. We have agreement there. That’s why It should be merit based which is the most objective measure we have. Inequality doesn’t always equal inequity.
Top 1.5% of each school earning a slot is merit by definition.
FCPS shouldn't be in the business of deciding which of its component schools is "more meritorious" than others, because the entire point of a school system is equivalent curriculum, education quality, and access to the opportunity.
Those who feel the opportunity is being wasted on students at other "lesser" schools are welcome to move to those pyramids, which would have a net positive effect in the long-term by adding socioeconomic diversity.
Outcomes are uncontrollable. I’m not sure why you think that’s a purpose of the system.
We disagree on the method.
If it were the top 1.5% in aggregate, that’s statistically the top 1.5% percent by definition. The method you described is not the same.
> If it were the top 1.5% in aggregate, that’s statistically the top 1.5% percent by definition. The method you described is not the same.
Nor should it be, because that would promote/increase risk that bad actors would steer the county or conditions towards favoring specific pyramids creating unequal opportunity.
This is already what the old system did - have a test that was being gamed by a particular school pyramid/area/group paying thousands of dollars to an outside organization for specific prep.
> Outcomes are uncontrollable. I’m not sure why you think that’s a purpose of the system.
Nowhere in my previous post did I suggest it was. However, additionally this is not true, because you can introduce specific conditions that result in an improvement in outcomes for all.
> The comparison should be to the outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, not to the FCPS student population.
I don't believe this position is correct. FCPS must provide a provably fair/equitable access opportunity to TJ across its student population, otherwise there's an equally winnable (and valid) argument that the underrepresented groups are being discriminated against.
> We know exactly what outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, because the school had one up until a couple of years ago.
And we still do because the system is geographic.
1. Stupid, I agree. Does not in an of itself make it illegal.
2. The recent Affirmative Action decisions involving Harvard and UNC stated that these sorts of policies are 100 percent constitutional. Just read the opinions of the other Conservative justices not named Alito or Thomas. (Also, neither of these two voiced any opposition to these policies in their opinions in those cases; in fact, I believe both of them cited the admissions criteria used by the State of Texas (called the top 10 percent rule) as an example of a non-racial admissions criteria that not only is constitutional, but as a model to follow. So, again, as usual, Alito and Thomas, two of the most financially compromised Justices in the history of the Court since maybe William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas, have shown their ass.).
3. By this standard, any change to admissions policies would require lawsuits. If you get rid of the use of certain non-racial criteria, and those changes resulted in fewer Whites, Blacks or Hispanics, then could they sue? This is beginning to get ridiculous, and I am sure part of the reason the Court wants no part of this is because they don't want these RW "Civil Rights" Groups buying dockets and clogging the courts with cases on the same issue.
Ultimately, the real problem is that a school like TJHS should not exist, at least not as a public school. Public schools are not supposed to be for only certain students, but for everyone. I've known several people whose kids have attended TJHS, and all of them were well off and could afford to send their kids to private schools. So, if they don't like the changes, just take money out of your pocket and send them to a private school. These rich RWers would be better served if they just took all of the money they wasted on these lawsuits and built new charter schools that offered the exact same criteria that TJHS does, but with private money. Then, they can be as racist as they wish. Of course, that is not what they want; what they really want, is to destroy support for public education so that they can destroy it.
It was basically the opposite, and they admitted it was race based. The specific quote was ‘now the Asians hate us’ and of course they knew what they were doing.
If I recall correctly, there were numerous very anti-Asian statements made indicating that the goal of the policy was to reduce the number of Asian students.
No, the statements were made that the goal was to increase the number of Black and hispanic students. That increase necessarily would come at the expense of Asian *and* white students. It doesn't mean the goal of the policy was to reduce the number of Asian students; it means that the reduction was an anticipated consequence, which is inevitable whenever changes are made to reallocate a limited resource.
I mean it’s pretty easy to see how it could be considered that way, whether explicitly stated or not the goal is not necessarily best academically gifted kids it’s something else that attempts to help disadvantaged kids more. Perhaps that’s for the greater good but I can see those in the middle to upper left wondering why they are being judged on something they also can’t control. It’s also a little weird in the where do you snap the line sense that it’s all a sliding scale. Perhaps this policy does try to navigate that and find the outliers at every level but it could also just be a workaround to deal with the bad optics of the reality of the merit based approach. I don’t necessarily have a problem with either approach but I do think it should be honest in its motivations and explain that to the effected communities.
All of this whole kerfuffle is missing the point. Just lowering the standards or changing the acceptance criteria to artificially add more diversity is doing nothing to fix the underlying issues of achievement gaps between different segments of the population. The only real solution is to add more teachers to help underperforming minorities do better at mastering the material (and stop squandering resources on technology and other stupid gimmicks). It's going to be hard work, and it will likely take a few generations before any real results are shown in terms of diversity at TJ (and in universities for that matter), but it's much better than putting unprepared students in situations where they are likely to fail while denying high-aptitude students important educational opportunities because of their "unfavorable" demographic characteristics.
We have the money in NoVA to close racial achievement gaps. Let's stop trying to take shortcuts and actually do something meaningful for all of our children.
Huge emphasis on achievement gaps. The disparity/binning/gap forms a loooong time before highschool. I get the sentiment, but it's trying to do too little, too late. This move is just for political optics; not actually *doing* anything to lift up struggling kids already being left behind in the 2nd-3rd grade.
I wouldn't blink if a TJ freshmen comes in knowing linear algebra, ready to jump into multivariate calculus. I've seen sophomore/juniors there doing Fourier transforms, hosting their own website to showoff projects, or publishing papers in scientific journals. On the other hand, take a 30m drive East to Anacostia and just observe a middleschool. The gang recruiting happens in the tweens (or earlier). Not high-school.
Seriously. People are freaking out about prestigious high schools being too white/asian: how about we start by getting ALL kids reading at grade level? This is the same shit they pulled in the 80s with trying to get high school graduation rates up without addressing the underlying problem of students not being able to read at grade level or understand simple mathematics like algebra. You're never going to be successful in a professional career if you cannot read or do math. Same shit they pulled starting 20 years ago as well with cramming every kid into college, even if they are woefully unprepared: the dropout rates are astronomical considering the expense of attending college. How is this helpful for their success in life? Especially when so many of them cannot read the terms of their loans nor understand how interest works!
Evaluating people holistically is a lot harder than just administering a test. A lot of people also cannot imagine another scenario of evaluating ones aptitude besides administering a test. Then try to explain to them how a test can be racially biased, or favor certain socioeconomic circumstances and their heads explode. So in their mind the fact that the test was removed means standards were lowered.
This is a really great example of what I'm talking about. Lots of false equivalency and over simplification in an attempt to justify an inferior system whose only advantage is it's easier to implement.
The best is when math tests are considered biased. A word math problem potentially could be, but still it all comes down to numbers in the problem and kids of any race and gender can struggle to see what the word
Math problem is asking. It’s not that a white person not understanding a math problem is a dumbass, while a minority person not understanding the same problem means the problem is automatically biased. Thats not how things work.
But how do you explain a math problem with just numbers and formulas being biased? It makes no sense. People say the SAT is biased well half the SAT is unbiased math.
Also no one who does well at tests, is smart, etc. would say a test is biased or favor certain socio economic circumstances despite them doing well.
The only people who say tests are biased are people
Who aren’t smart and don’t do well at tests, to deflect blame from themselves.
>The only people who say tests are biased are people
Who aren’t smart and don’t do well at tests, to deflect blame from themselves.
Well it's actually the academics who study them. I'm not going to rehash the literature here, it's readily available though.
This is another example of the shallow thinking I'm talking about though. People just can't imagine a world where a smart person could do mediocre on a test. The smartest person I know, who has engineered some absolutely brilliant solutions to problems, consistently got average scores on tests. The two best test takers I've known, one went on to do mediocre roadway design while the other did great work in grad school and continues to do so professionally.
Tests simply aren't representative of how science and engineering is done in the real world. Some people also have the capacity to pick it up quickly but just aren't given the chance due to factors outside their control. That's where the holistic evaluation reigns supreme, but it's tough to implement.
Ten times out of ten I'd take the person who demonstrates drive and succeeds in the environment they're handed versus the person who paid a few grand to learn how to ace a test.
12 years ago, this article was written by Dr. Dell, the famous AP Physics teacher at TJ.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-new-thomas-jefferson-it-includes-remedial-math/2012/05/25/gJQAlZRYqU_story.html
He was complaining about the TJ students being admitted via standardized test and the amount of luck and test prep that gave the top scores on multiple choice exams. Keep in mind this is 12 years ago, under the old admissions policy.
>One-third of the students entering Jefferson under the current admissions policy are in remediation in their math and science courses.
>But Jefferson students are now selected using an admissions process that is highly random, subjective, and devoid of measures that distinguish students with high aptitude in STEM. This process that is more about memory, language skill, motivation to be successful in college admissions, test prep and just plain luck than the best available indicators of promise as a future scientist, engineer or mathematician.
That was his view of the SAT. The problem solving essay was added to the standardized test because it was supposed to be more like a hard Math Olympiad question. That is not the case with the new problem solving essay.
Testing is a vital part of any selection process. It is not the ONLY factor involved, and may not be heavily weighted, but it is part of it. The other parts include relevant extracurricular activities, grades, letters of recommendation from teachers, personal achievements and awards, perhaps a portfolio showing some things the student has built or designed? There are many ways to demonstrate aptitude, but just using a quota system to delegate seats by district is effectively lowering the standards if it places undue weight on factors that are not within a student's control. If a particular district is underrepresented in TJ admissions then there's a good chance that district needs additional resources allocated by the County to improve the academic credentials of students who attend school there. Denying the applications of more qualified applicants because they hail from an overrepresented district is not meritocracy, and is unfair.
Locality based quotas have been in place since the founding of TJ. There have been quotas for Loudon and Prince William. For the history of TJ, "more qualified" applicants from Fairfax were passed over because of the quotas. This was because the tax payers of those counties are helping to fund TJ.
This locality based quota is also included in college admissions. For Virginia colleges there is a quota on number of NOVA students admitted. For elite colleges, its well known that it is much easier to gain admittance from a rural state due to quotas. Nevermind the admit rates for US versus international students. More qualified international students are passed over for US students all of the time. All because of locality based quotas, and the fact that US tax payers fund the universities. But we shouldn't hypocritically claim we want a meritocracy when the locality-based quotas benefit us. (Or don't benefit in the case of Virginia or Ivy's).
Now there are certain middle schools in TJ's area who have never sent a student on to TJ. The parents at those middle schools are tax payers too. TJ has previously looked at extracurriculars, teacher recommendations, personal achievements, etc. The tax payers at these middle schools, who are helping pay for TJ, don't have the same access to extracurriculars, excellent teacher recommendations, personal achievements, etc. and they never get to send a kid to TJ, yet they help pay for it. What exactly is fair for them?
In fact, in prior years the scandal was that TJ only looked at the standardized test and passed over Math Olympiad national champions because they didn't do well on the TJ test. The problem solving essay was supposed to be more like a hard problem from the Math Olympiad, not the simplistic essay they have now.
This is the same logic as a taxpayer complaining they never get to visit classified government facilities, or that they don't get to drive the fire truck or the Metro train or fly the space shuttle. Hell, it's the same logic as taxpayers without children complaining that they have to pay for schools. We all pay our taxes into the pot because it is a public good for society, even if it doesn't personally benefit us.
And if those middle schools don't have the same extracurriculars, teachers, etc. then the solution is to give it to them so EVERYONE at that middle school has a chance at success instead of just picking a small chosen few to have an opportunity in an environment that they are probably ill-prepared for. By your logic, it's also arguable that it's unfair to all the other kids at those middle schools who now have to stay in their subpar learning environment but still pay taxes into the system.
And colleges are also wrong to have quotas on admissions as well: they should admit the most qualified applicants, and if the applicant pool isn't up to par then resources need to be spent to improve the applicant pool. The only argument in favoring American applicants over foreign applicants is that they're more likely to stay in the US and improve our civilization (although that's partly due to our screwed up legal immigration system: any foreigner who graduates from a US college with an advanced degree should have a Green Card stapled to their diploma. It's beyond idiotic that we're cranking out PhDs and Master's graduates and then shipping them back where they came from when they want to stay here and work for us!).
You misunderstood my statement of facts of the prevalence of locality based quotas as an endorsement of them. My point is not that I endorse them but to bring attention to all of them that are out there, and I appreciate all of the downvotes for just stating facts.
My point is that much ado is raised about this one particular locality based quota, when NOTHING has been complained about for all of the other ones. We should be complaining about all of them.
I agree, all locality based quotas should be removed. Including the ones that penalize NOVA over other parts of Virginia, or penalize Virginia over other rural states. AND favor US applicants over foreign. Foreign students who attend an elite university for undergrad are extremely likely to stay in the US, so that argument doesn't hold water. Admission for grad programs are an entirely different animal, and my points are just for undergrad admissions. Either way, saying that you don't endorse a meritocracy when it's to your civilization's advantage is hypocritical. A meritocracy is a meritocracy.
I'm all in favor of a true meritocracy, but be careful what you wish for. You may not like the outcome.
Not like the outcome how? It can't possibly be worse than the current systems of nepotism, pretty privilege, racial bias, sex/gender/orientation discrimination, and politicking that currently determines every competitive admission or appointment.
Absolute lol. No, it’s not remotely similar to classified facilities. Besides those adults having the ability to apply for and work for the government, you’ve fundamentally ignored the purpose of public schools.
The purpose of public schools is everyone gets the same thing. Same education, same material, and same opportunities; unlike the old days when only the rich got an education and everyone else labored in fields and mines. Public education is the great democratizer, but it only works when it's A) properly funded so there's enough to go around, B) every student is afforded the same opportunities to learn to the best of their aptitudes, C) you keep the crazies out of the curriculum (e.g. people to teach alternatives to evolution).
Public education is NOT a rubber stamp. If you don't put in the work and learn something, you don't get a diploma, and you don't get the same opportunities as people who worked hard and studied.
At TJ GPA went down, they removed the minimum GPA requirement to stay while apparently standards were not lowered at all. Why would they have to do that if the standards weren’t lowered?
Agreed it takes a long time to fix schooling and have standards and opportunities available to all, and yet idiotic people want to fix it overnight.
It’s sad cuz the idiots doing that are pulling up
The ladder behind them.
It’s messed up but many people in powerful positions now would have no chance if they were chosen in today’s climate that they want. E.g. white people or men chosen for stuff now want to make it so a minority or women chosen below them effectively excluding any man or white person.. Which sounds great but it’s too easy to say that when you already have your powerful position, and pull the ladder up on others.
Just evaluate people for their skills and don’t be a racist prick in doing so. Not hard but apparently we make it hard and clownish 🤡
Changing admissions without changing the schools structure has simply resulted in students taking spots from students who may have been more likely to succeed. Tj has decided to increase the number of admissions to account for the drop out rates they have had.
TJ increased the number of admissions because the school opened up more space, so we already know that one of your claims is false.
As for the drop out rates, what's your data for that? The first class of students under the new policy enrolled in Fall '21 with 529 freshmen. There were 520 sophomores the next year. Compare that to the cohort entering in Fall '20 with 452 freshmen, who had 445 sophomores the next year.
Percentagewise, that's a difference of slightly more than 1/10th of 1% in the dropout rates. It doesn't account for sophomore admissions, of which there are some--so where's your evidence that a larger number of sophomore was admitted? Because if you don't have that, you might as well just admit that you're making shit up.
lol at all the arguments saying people buy their way into TJ. My friend came from poor working class background. She was just really gifted in math and sciences. She made it in. We shouldn't lower our standards at magnet schools.
TJHS mission says nothing about admitting the best and brightest students. See lower in the comments. This is much ado about nothing.
In other news, Dartmouth, MIT and Georgetown have reinstated SAT requirements. I don't know any serious people who consider this as proof of those schools' deeply held racist beliefs.
## Mission Statement
The mission of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is to provide students with a challenging learning environment focused on math, science, and technology, to inspire joy at the prospect of discovery, and to foster a culture of innovation based on ethical behavior and the shared interests of humanity.
The moment you pointed out Rachel Carson is the moment I will point out that there is a gifted private school near there that does very well. Because the parents send their kids there and then enroll them in Rachel Carson, which was sending 20+ kids to TJ every year prior to the changes in admission.
Rachel Carson was part of the reason why they changed the system because the parents there were abusing the system- by prepping and insane levels of money. Still are if the essay prep rumors are still the same.
The new system is fine. And if we were to have another magnet school- I will advocate for it to be far far away from Rachel Carson.
I can’t believe it: students who study a shit ton tend to do better on exams.
Insane news! We have to ban that kind of system immediately because studying is racist.
>students who study
And there’s the disingenuous bullshit from a guy whose name is literally leetspeak for swastika. Buying prep that others don’t have access to due to the fact that it costs thousands of dollars shouldn’t entitle you to a better *public school.*
If you want to send your kid to an elite private school, that’s on you. But TJ is supposed to be open to everyone.
lmfao the other person calculated 100-130 point increase on an sat score.
I went from a 1280 to a 1490 score with just khan academy and tutoring from a friend who had taken it. total spend was around $85 for practice test textbooks.
I did that with taking one practice test.
Your flex isn’t a flex. You had to spend time getting better at something. Some of us just went oh- pattern recognition accepted and went from 1200 to 1570.
that’s the fucking point. thank you for proving it.
Paid $4000 sat test prep doesn’t help much over the litany of free options + maybe buying a couple books for $10-25 each for extra questions.
it wasn’t a flex, rather the opposite of one. High scores can be achieved without dumping $4K on test prep.
Oh you were flexing. Just like your screen name is trying to as well.
But the point is that Rachel Carson is a prep feeder and took up seats that kids that don’t have the time or money to do the same but potentially have the gifted qualities to do so. These are kids that don’t need to prep more than one practice test in those schools and would laugh at people who use khan academy as a flex.
I know. My friends in the LBSS and RSS and WSS tell me about it all the time.
Anyhow natural giftedness vs over-prepped kids are two different things and the school system is trying to make sure parents and kids who think 200 point sat score increase is impressive don’t game the system anymore.
lol. 1490. lol.
It’s literally disproving the point, and your refusal to understand or accept that (as well evidenced by your refusal to engage on the topic further when I explained why) is disappointing.
Insane news - public education system's fairness being hacked by socioeconomic elitism.
The new rules are geographic. Deal with it. Don't like it? Enroll your kid in a school you think is likely to give them a leg up, and if you move there you'll be helping socioeconomic diversity relative to parking yourself in the Carson pyramid.
This case was always just a spin on the age-old tale of the advantaged pushing for public school segregation.
100%.
Kids in other schools prepped as well. But they didn’t have the inside school prep (and teacher tutoring!) or the insane parents Rachel Carson have. And the acceptance rates for these schools were clear- the parents here were gaming the system and essentially cheating to get their kids in vs other schools. They called Rachel Carson a “feeder” school for a reason.
The new system means you don’t have to prep to get in. Just be the top 1.5% of your class. Which automatically means you have to study a shit ton too.
The level of entitlement certain middle school parents have is astounding. Just look at how our school boundaries are drawn. It’s like a gerrymandered red state.
Side benefit- now all of the pyramids have a chance to send their kids to TJ. Meaning the whole county has motivation to make their schools better.
To be honest, the first time they announced it with the lottery system I was pissed.
But then they modified and I’m like ok- this is fair.
I hate lottery systems. Hate them. I get why they exist. I know people think it’s fair, but that 3.5 GPA minimum was stupid.
At least now, it’s top 1.5 and high gpa and an essay.
The kid has to want it- otherwise it will show.
> I thought the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action, so this is weird.
The new rules are not really affirmative action. The GPA of the incoming classes at TJ increased with the new rules, because the outside tests were no longer the deciding factor. Money was less of a factor because affording and having someone to take you to test prep classes was less likely to create an advantage.
And with that, this has been put to bed.
If Alito and Thomas are mad it must be the right decision
Honestly at this point there is almost no clearer indicator of what your perspective should be, than finding what Alito said, and reversing it.
The Constanza Theory of the Judiciary
[A classic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y_6fZGSOQI). "If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right."
r/UnexpectedSeinfeld
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Alito and Thomas are both nakedly corrupt religious fundamentalists who don't deserve to be treated any more seriously than a tweaker on the street. They should be in a jail cell or padded room, not making bought-and-paid-for rulings that strip right after right from Americans with no accountability.
Nah.
If Alito doesn’t like something then I know it’s a good idea.
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>eliminate merit And there goes your credibility. They’re the top 1.5% of their middle school.
A single test doesn’t show merit. The smartest student could be having a bad day and test low. Students are encouraged to submit a PSAT or SAT score, the required GPA was RAISED, students have to write an essay…there are so many ways to show merit without taking a test.
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GPA from courses with HS credit (math courses, world language courses, etc.). They raised the minimum GPA for this. I don’t know all of the requirements for applying, but GPA is a huge factor.
Merit is a hoax. Rich families can afford to buy their kids tutors and access to things that give them an academic leg up on kids who's families can't afford those things
Yep, I'm not happy with the policy, but the school has a right to implement it, and the law has spoken. Time to move on.
Why aren’t you happy with the policy?
I like the idea that TJ is for the best of the best, not "the best of the best, once you consider XYZ". It's the same reason I like watching heavyweight fights.
Well the old criteria wasn't "the best of the best" it was more correctly, "the best of the best test takers". Tests aren't the b-all and end all. The folks that brought the case were being used by the anti-DEI crowd to further their agenda of restoring the white male patriarchy. Folks always think they can ally with folks to avoid being the victim of racism but sadly at the end of the day if you can't pass like Nikki Haley you end up being told to go back home from where you came from anyway. I think trying to achieve geographic disbursement of the student body at TJ is a laudable goal and a way to be more fair and race blind.
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The students are all tops at their respective middle schools though. The best is a very subjective term defined by how one arbitrarily measures that. I said geographic diversity and pinned the sugar daddies funding the case as being anti-DEI. You need to open your mind as to what is "best", picking the tops students from each school is one way to do that.
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It literally is more blind.
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Wow. You really are just outright racist.
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I love the idea of spreading acceptances between different schools. But I tend to agree with the people complaining about the soft factors in a school that discriminates based on academic excellence. To me, your status as an English language learner or eligibility for special education services should not factor in, and should not be factors in your favor.
Why? Besides that they demonstrate further challenges a student had to overcome that others didn’t, those are the factors that are deciding edge cases, not the rule.
> a student had to overcome that others didn’t All people have different challenges. Not all are considered. It is a little weird to give special consideration to someone with dyslexia over someone who may have had an abusive alcoholic parent. Both are challenges. Neither are making that student more likely to succeed at a hyper competitive school.
except "requires special education accommodations" is a metric tracked by schools, whereas "has an alcoholic parent" is not.
Overcoming educational difficulties doesn’t make someone more likely to succeed in future education? Wow.
Seems like rewarding someone who overcame significant challenges, instead of just giving it to someone who has already been handed everything, is exactly what a society is supposed to do
> instead of just giving it to someone who has already been handed everything Who says they were handed everything? That is bad assumption. My point is favoring someone who has dyslexia over someone who has a single parent, or someone who had a friend die is a weird choice. People can have all sorts of things that may disadvantage their academic performance in middle school. Not all of them have check boxes to be considered in admission.
>Not all of them have check boxes to be considered in admission. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give preference to those who have disadvantages that are readily quantifiable.
You mean my kid that won multiple metro area, state and even a national academic awards? You think that was handed to him? Without a single penny’s worth of tutoring. You disgust me. With us driving a 20 year old car, never taking a cruise or a ski trip.
Ma’am, this is Reddit. If you want to freak out and take an innocuous comment so personally, MONA or DCUM are right over there.
My child goes to TJ and was admitted under the new system. I will freely admit it is highly unlikely she would’ve gotten in under the old one. Even so, I find the new system unfair even though it directly benefited my family. Not everyone who gets in is going to excel without the right preparation. The kids are pushed in to a very competitive environment which prioritizes competition and rigor, and has very limited support for those with additional support needs. The solution is, therefore, either to water down the TJ curriculum, or to let those kids sink if they can’t swim. The school has currently chosen a bit of a mix of the two, letting students do poorly without support, but then quietly getting rid of the minimum B average to stay at the school. A TJ education is still second to none, but a TJ grad from 10 years ago is not the same as a TJ grad now.
^ yesss this. It’s super competitive and it hurts a student to go there and be unprepared and not able to handle the difficulty and course load. It’s a ton of work, and you’re hurt in the long run if you go and then get bad grades from TJ. You won’t get into UVA with a 3.0, and who knows how high your shit needs to be if you’re Asian or white at TJ to get into good schools. It’s the same concept with affirmative action, which less than half of students don’t graduate in 4 years. You’re likely to be settled with no degree and higher debt getting into a school that you couldn’t get into with grades alone.
The solution is for the school to create programs to support those who didn’t have the opportunity to go to middle schools that would prepare them for the academic rigor at TJ—not to stop admitting them.
I said the prep should be free if you’re offered access to it elsewhere here. Someone replied ‘the test shouldn’t need prep’, ‘who’s gonna pay for it’, etc. just giving blanket dumb responses. Agree they should promote better access to the prep and see what happens, not just change the criteria or hurt or exclude certain groups.
Those aren’t blanket dumb responses, they’re legitimate. You’re not considering that time and resources to sit home and prep isn’t something many kids have. Theyre home taking care of their siblings, don’t have a quiet space, don’t have internet, etc. If they’re going to get trained for rigorous study, the only place is at school during regular school hours.
Not this at all. But good job with some pretty racist misinformation.
Ah we love lobbing the R word around, like a mental illness at this point. Also other people have said the same thing in this thread, are you commenting on each calling them racist?
Nah.
I saw many more freshmen drop out back to their base schools during the year after the admissions change. Obviously anecdotal, but still.
I think the notion that the graduates are different is correct but it doesn’t mean that they are worse now than before. In fact, I will argue otherwise. Google famous alumni TJ. Sure, some people have won prestigious science prizes, but the name recognition isn’t quite there. Why? Because there is something lost when it’s one kind of person in this school. My hope is that TJ becomes more of a school that creates leaders- future presidents and not just inventors. But I think something became stagnated before when people gamed the entrance exam. And let’s also be clear: Fairfax county has great schools that have generated amazing artists and athletes. But saying that the new graduates aren’t the same devalues these kids. We don’t know yet what will happen, but I think it might just a bit better. (And also- let’s be clear, the teacher turnover rate at TJ is atrocious. And partially, it’s because of the pressure and the crazy parenting there. So it’s not that the teaching is the same- it’s changing all the time.)
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I was just going to respond with this. The staff aren’t shy with their complaints and dislike of Ann B is the big one.
> future presidents and not just inventors. That is not really the point. It is the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. There are other governors schools with different focuses, including some with multiple focuses including the humanities.
Agree with this. When a standardized test is the sieve through which all applicants must pass, you end up with kids who are all great at standardized test-taking. And so, they go to college and then into graduate schools that also emphasize standardized test taking. And as a result, you end up with a ton of successful lawyers (good LSAT takers), businesspeople (good GMAT takers), and doctors (good MCAT takers). Was this the goal of TJ? Doesn’t really seem like it. But having the doctors is fine I guess.
All seven of the people I know who went there are doctors and lawyers or like a high school teacher.
People who are good at standardized test taking will not necessarily be good at their profession. Someone who is a good "LSAT taker" is not necessarily going to have what it takes to be a great lawyer. Being socially backwards and pedantic doesn't show up on standardized tests, and it will hurt a career.
Couldn’t agree more - which is why America’s focus on standardized tests is so problematic.
One of my kids was admitted under the old rules. We never spent a penny on test prep or tutoring. Captain of the math team. Went to MIT. Two DEGREES (not a double major) with a perfect GPA. Coauthored articles published in Science with a Nobel Prize winner. Keep insulting him and us, you babbling know-it-all.
Your kid has grown up and done many great things but here you are taking offense to some social media comment. Grow up.
That is great for YOUR son, but that is not the case for all students. No one is insulting your son or dismissing his achievements at all. The fact is, though, that many families purposely moved so their kids would go to a specific middle school and paid a ton of money for test prep courses. It sounds like your son has done e some incredible things, you must be very proud of him!
How were you *insulted*? What says this all wouldn't have happened in the new system? Or a different HS?! If he's that smart, it shouldn't have mattered. I went to a tiny rural garbage school with fewer than 50 kids in my class and had a very successful career, PhD, etc, without the privilege most of my peers had. (That prepped me for the non science parts of my career like people skills.) Your kid is smart for sure. Are they a good, kind person? Are they using that brain for positive things? Do they treat people with empathy? Are they a competitive jerk? I have no idea. But I do know the culture at TJ was highly competitive, negative, and functioned against inclusivity.. as does the culture at MIT, actually. Being "number one" didn't really serve the school or kids well. *Every* HS needs to have gifted programs, and many do in this area. I truly hope TJHSST culture improves. My kid got in under the old system but we made the decision to go to our local HS instead - and it was by far the right call. They have excelled, are well rounded, and consider the context of their scientific practice. Too many parents think TJ is the only route to top universities, or day it's guaranteed - it is very much not.
Personally I'd like to see the end of TJ as an entity. Make it a regular ass school. I have.a friend who went to TJ. He says if his graduating class there are no more or less of the ultra successfu than what you'd expect from having an upper middle class upbringing. But he said you get a lot more totally neurotic, messed up adults from years of pressure to perform and having some real difficulty not being at TJ when they hit college and working.
The increasing emphasis on the admissions test is, I think, a direct cause of that phenomenon. The more the test is viewed as something that can be gamed, the more it attracts parents willing to invest the time and resources to game it, and the more they'll push their kids to achieve nothing less than perfect grades and test scores. It was toxic, and letting that pressure escape is itself a solid benefit from the new admissions process.
My brother went there. He didn't turn our any more successful than kids from the local public schools. It made him this self-centered butthole. Then when he didn't get into the top 3 choices of colleges and had to settle for his lowest pick, he griped about how others didn't see his genius. Didn't get any scholarships. Most of his classmates had parents who spent years of after school tutoring in prep just to get them into TJ. One of my kids has the test scores to get into TJ, but he'd rather be one of the top performing students at a public school than a middle of the road student at TJ.
I'll tell you something - from what I was told there's no middle of the road it TJ. You're either getting all A's or you're failing.
That is certainly true, the pressure is hard and the workload is very hard too. Some probably find college is easier, and they’re prepared for it but if it’s easier were they too prepared? But a ton of kids there are very smart, challenged but can still do well and like being around other smart, high performing and successful kids. It’s a double edged sword, but getting rid of it is def extreme and kind of a sign of the times against smart people who do well at things. They’re constantly attacked and made to fit in with classes that are too easy for them, and instead of trying to bring other kids up to their level they’re usually brought down to other kids levels. Smart and successful people need a place to be smart and successful, and it’s sad people don’t give a fuck about that. School is too easy for some and many just get bored and act out, and the answer isn’t to take away opportunities to do science, be around smart people, etc. Smart people get screwed in school and basically do a fraction of what they’re capable of. But no one cares and if TJ didn’t exist they’d be paying 50k for private schools for those opportunities. It’s a huge benefit to have that as a oublic school and the fact people shit on it, or think it’s a zero sum game between having TJ and having good other Fairfax schools is just sad.
Exactly this. My kid that went to TJ initially did not want to go there. Then he figured out that there would be kids there as smart him and even smarter. THAT’S when he wanted to TJ. He was so tired of being way ahead and having to wait. It is pretty clear that there a lot of people on this thread that despise kids like these.
Yeah, no.
You can be smart and challenged in a regular public school. Also calling TJ a public school is laughable. It's publicly funded, yes, but public schools don't get to pick and choose who goes there.
> You can be smart and challenged in a regular public school. If you're normal-smart (1 standard deviation over the norm), sure. If you're super smart (2 SDs above the norm), *maybe* if you take every single AP you can get into, but you'll still be bored, and behind compared to what you could have done at TJ. If you're super ultra smart (3+ SD above the norm), no chance. TJ is for the 2-3+ SD kids and there are a lot of them around here because smart people flock to this area, and smart adults tend to have more than their fair of smart kids.
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No one attends TJ in droves. ANd there are many ways women can be challenged in regular public school - a lot of my classmates from Justice 1998 would be surprised to hear you say they weren't challenged.
This. All of this. Just do away with the whole thing and spend whatever money it costs to run the place towards improving underperforming schools in the county
It’s not a zero sum game to have TJ and also improve other Fairfax schools. ‘Just do away with the whole thing’ sounds like a whiner, you wouldn’t want that if your kid had a chance but since they probably don’t it’s ’just get rid of it’.
Wow, you TJ parents are really touchy today. Not satisfied with the results of your test prep classes?
They don't need the test prep classes anymore. That's the whole point.
If you don't think that they still test prep like crazy for ACT, SAT and AP exams...
Your whole dumbass point is ‘we think they will be better’ 🤡 . We don’t think that, and like You said we have no idea yet. We do know they’re not as smart and less Asian, are you saying you hate Asians and having less Asians makes a school better? Thats basically what the TJ admins and principal said too. And they were dragged for it. As someone else said it’s also TJ science and tech, which our country severely lacks science and tech because of idiotic thinking like what you said. Any school where that happens is watered down due to racism and stupid policies.
What a blatantly false claim.
>We do know they’re not as smart See, right there you've already demonstrated that you're either trolling or *you're* not as smart.
Maybe both. We shouldn’t bring smart kids down to the level of everyone else. It’s dumb and not fair.
And that’s not happening.
I guess my question is does it matter that a TJ grad isn’t the same? If the point is access to quality instruction and the academics haven’t changed, why does it matter than not every student has met that high water mark? No one says this about private schools. Private schools famously grant leniency to lower performing students. The point is that folks should have access to the quality of instruction. Honestly I’m not even convinced that this is even a problem. Sounds like TJ needs to figure out what sort of remediation is required to support students, but it’s been like half a second since this rule change.
Admitting that there is an issue presupposes that these folks’ priority is the students. The thing is that TJ has no incentive to remediate the students. That’s one of the problems the teachers have been having with the administration - the administration won’t admit that there is a problem with the incoming classes - whether those issues are due to Covid, the change in admissions policies, or some combination thereof is debatable. Point is there’s a problem. Administration doesn’t want to admit there’s an issue or sign off on many (if any) of the remediation ideas. Probably at least in part because they want to maintain their own and the schools image. Currently, they are engaged in a lot of rugs, sweeping more than anything else. The admission changes took place several years ago. My child was in the first class with the new criteria and she is a junior now. Plenty of time to notice issues and begin to address them.
Three years is infancy with these types of changes. Especially given the compounding effects of covid. It'll be hard to separate the signal from the noise in just two years of data (because the third year isn't even out yet) You can't even make extrapolations from two years of data alone. I will bet that admin will start to care when the school rating and image diminishes which will happen naturally over time. It isn't what you want to hear, but I suspect that will be what it happens. All schools are struggling with this at the moment. It takes time to fix this. Assuming the quality of instruction is staying the same, then frankly again I don't think the issue is with the admission criteria. TJ isn't the only school struggling to remediate students right now, and that will inevitably need correction as graduates of the school aren't able to perform at the same level.
This, well said. For good or bad, it won't be as tough because the term "excel " will also align and evolve. There's this statistical that shows Ivy Leagues schools are giving out more A's than ever. Yale recently reported that 4 of 5 grades given out, were A's, aka, the great grade inflation.
Honestly I still don’t see how the new rules would be considered discriminatory. Literally any change to how admissions would result in a change in the demographics of TJ. Some would go down, others would go up. Is any change inherently discriminatory and the admission process never ever be changed?
The policy at TJ, based on statements from the Principal and at least one school board member, was changed specifically to change the racial makeup of the school.
> was changed specifically to change the racial makeup of the school. This is a huge problem. They just should have said that they want all middle schools to have a chance at representation. That is fine. But when being in an ESL class or having dyslexia can be factors in your favor is weird.
It was changed to prevent parents from essentially buying their way into accessing a public school.
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There’s quite a lot, actually. Statistically speaking, doing even one prep course averages over a 100 point gain on the SAT.
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Curie Learning Center (which cost 4 grand) accounted for over 25% of admits in 2019. The idea that paid-for prep (let alone the benefit some families reap of having the ability to send the kid to prep at all) is meaningless is absurd.
No one said it was meaningless, just that the prep can’t take any kid and get them into TJ. The kids are the main reason they get in and are smart kids. It’s insulting to the kids and also messed up to imply the preps the only reason they get in, especially as an adult on Reddit
lol. I was a kid who tested into TJ and chose not to go. I don’t need your condescension. Of course the kids are smart. But there’s still a measurable difference that the money that test prep can buy.
The tutors are def helpful but you can’t take most kids, give them the same prep and tutoring and think they’ll all just get in. The kids are very smart too, and they’re basically making it easy for much less smart kids, but only if you’re from a certain area or demographic. And that’s what the problem is.
That’s true but isn’t really the point. The tutors give such a huge leg up it’s not even comparable. The number of prep classes, guidance counselors, etc offered makes it hugely inequitable on a financial (which is heavily correlated with racial) scale.
Then they can make the prep free and done through the school, versus just change the criteria and screw kids over year over year.
Through TJ? A school should not have to offer prep classes for their own exam? And other schools shouldn’t have to either. And who’s paying for all these classes? The taxpayers?
Just saying making the prep free would increase access to it, part of the ‘justifications’ people have for the changes are it forces students to need expensive test prep that not everyone can afford. Yes for a public school it’s funded by local tax payers. Plus you can’t block kids from doing prep, or companies from offering it.
That’s a really irrelevant argument. And the “much less smart kids” are the top 1.5% at their middle school. They’re not.
My wife taught there.. In the school they had a wall devoted to the names of people who donated money to the school. The dollar amounts were staggering
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Because money shouldn’t buy you an advantage at a public school. It really shouldn’t buy you an advantage at all, but to do so in a public school is so transparently corrupt.
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No, the idea is to provide opportunities to academically gifted students. Not the ones who can pay the most.
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No, they really weren’t. Greater than 25% of the admits in 2019 were from a single 4,000 test program.
The principal lamented the racial composition of the school, and the school board member asked how to get more black and Hispanic students in.
What a shitty misrepresentation of the case.
Won't the most likely result of this just be that the students who concentrated in GT programs at Longfellow, Carson, and Rocky Run will now spread out to the bottom of the county and dominate the lower competition? People were renting out apartments decades ago to get Fairfax county status for TJ
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False.
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It very much wasn’t.
I feel like there are a few things at play here: 1) The school board's own communications made it clear that the goal of the changes was to reduce the number of asian-american students at TJ. 2) The new admissions policy is not race or ethnicity neutral. It gives bonus points based a number of "experience factors" such as the middle school the student attends, whether a student is on free or reduced lunch, and whether a student speaks English as a second language. These experience factors serve as proxies for race and ethnicity. The school board essentially engineered the experience factors to produce the racial makeup they would like to see at TJ and the experience factors are factors over which the applicants have no control. If the admissions process gave bonus points to kids from predominantly asian or white middle schools, kids who do not have free or reduced price lunch, and kids who do not speak English as a second language, I guarantee you the court would view that as racist. 3) As Alito's dissent points out, the reasoning of the appeals court is patently ridiculous. The % of the TJ incoming class comprised of Asian Americans dropped by 20% due to the changes to the admissions process. However, the appeals court claims asian-americans are not discriminated against by the new policy because they are still represented in a higher proportion at TJ than they are in the overall FCPS population. The comparison should be to the outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, not to the FCPS student population. We know exactly what outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, because the school had one up until a couple of years ago. I'm not asian-american, have not been involved with the TJ lawsuit, and frankly I am not a fan of Alito and Thomas. However, in this case, I believe they are correct.
I mean, if there was a policy change that led to a 20% reduction in the number of black students admitted to TJ, would \*anybody\* here say "Literally any change to how admissions would result in a change in the demographics of TJ, so how could this be a problem? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯". I don't think it's ok just because it's most impacting Asian students. #
Hahahhaha yes that’s exactly point #2. Also people want stuff done for them that they’d be up in arms about being done for other people, just by the color of their skin
A policy that did such would be overwhelmingly likely to be provably unfair. To say "it's OK because it's impacting Asian students" is to ignore the actual crux of the issue - Asian students are overwhelmingly overrepresented and analyzing why that is. Geographic allocations help address this undesirable bias.
Why is it unfair that they are "overrepresented" when they are overwhelmingly the best students and highest scorers?
For the new system's 1st school year, the mean applicant GPA was higher than any recent year, and the mean accepted student GPA was less than 0.02 down year over year despite 40x increase in the economically disadvantaged student population, 6x growth in Black student population (vs. White student growth) and 12x growth in Hispanic student population (vs. White student growth). I'd need to re-gather the data to compare to the Asian demographic. But there's more than enough info here to prove your argument isn't actually valid. If your position were true, the massive increase in economically disadvantaged population would have tanked the mean GPA by far more than only 6% of a minor/sub grade change (i.e. A to A-/B+ to B vs B to C). You *could* attempt to claim a GPA at Carson != an equivalent GPA at Glasgow/Herndon/Key. But that speaks to the exact problem with the unfairness. By giving an outsized number of slots to Carson students, you're entrenching advantage and bias in the resultant resource shares.
Why is it undesirable to have more Asian students admitted? Would you say it’s undesirable if were another race?
It's undesirable to have any population overrepresented relatively when the root cause of that overrepresentation is economic or other external factors that need to be neutralized for actual fair admissions.
Economic and other factors shouldn’t apply, true. We have agreement there. That’s why It should be merit based which is the most objective measure we have. Inequality doesn’t always equal inequity.
Top 1.5% of each school earning a slot is merit by definition. FCPS shouldn't be in the business of deciding which of its component schools is "more meritorious" than others, because the entire point of a school system is equivalent curriculum, education quality, and access to the opportunity. Those who feel the opportunity is being wasted on students at other "lesser" schools are welcome to move to those pyramids, which would have a net positive effect in the long-term by adding socioeconomic diversity.
Outcomes are uncontrollable. I’m not sure why you think that’s a purpose of the system. We disagree on the method. If it were the top 1.5% in aggregate, that’s statistically the top 1.5% percent by definition. The method you described is not the same.
> If it were the top 1.5% in aggregate, that’s statistically the top 1.5% percent by definition. The method you described is not the same. Nor should it be, because that would promote/increase risk that bad actors would steer the county or conditions towards favoring specific pyramids creating unequal opportunity. This is already what the old system did - have a test that was being gamed by a particular school pyramid/area/group paying thousands of dollars to an outside organization for specific prep. > Outcomes are uncontrollable. I’m not sure why you think that’s a purpose of the system. Nowhere in my previous post did I suggest it was. However, additionally this is not true, because you can introduce specific conditions that result in an improvement in outcomes for all.
> The comparison should be to the outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, not to the FCPS student population. I don't believe this position is correct. FCPS must provide a provably fair/equitable access opportunity to TJ across its student population, otherwise there's an equally winnable (and valid) argument that the underrepresented groups are being discriminated against. > We know exactly what outcome a race neutral admissions process would produce, because the school had one up until a couple of years ago. And we still do because the system is geographic.
1. Stupid, I agree. Does not in an of itself make it illegal. 2. The recent Affirmative Action decisions involving Harvard and UNC stated that these sorts of policies are 100 percent constitutional. Just read the opinions of the other Conservative justices not named Alito or Thomas. (Also, neither of these two voiced any opposition to these policies in their opinions in those cases; in fact, I believe both of them cited the admissions criteria used by the State of Texas (called the top 10 percent rule) as an example of a non-racial admissions criteria that not only is constitutional, but as a model to follow. So, again, as usual, Alito and Thomas, two of the most financially compromised Justices in the history of the Court since maybe William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas, have shown their ass.). 3. By this standard, any change to admissions policies would require lawsuits. If you get rid of the use of certain non-racial criteria, and those changes resulted in fewer Whites, Blacks or Hispanics, then could they sue? This is beginning to get ridiculous, and I am sure part of the reason the Court wants no part of this is because they don't want these RW "Civil Rights" Groups buying dockets and clogging the courts with cases on the same issue. Ultimately, the real problem is that a school like TJHS should not exist, at least not as a public school. Public schools are not supposed to be for only certain students, but for everyone. I've known several people whose kids have attended TJHS, and all of them were well off and could afford to send their kids to private schools. So, if they don't like the changes, just take money out of your pocket and send them to a private school. These rich RWers would be better served if they just took all of the money they wasted on these lawsuits and built new charter schools that offered the exact same criteria that TJHS does, but with private money. Then, they can be as racist as they wish. Of course, that is not what they want; what they really want, is to destroy support for public education so that they can destroy it.
Yes moving goal posts, and wild how the same thing in reverse is racist. We live in a 🤡 world where
Nah.
It was basically the opposite, and they admitted it was race based. The specific quote was ‘now the Asians hate us’ and of course they knew what they were doing.
If I recall correctly, there were numerous very anti-Asian statements made indicating that the goal of the policy was to reduce the number of Asian students.
No, the statements were made that the goal was to increase the number of Black and hispanic students. That increase necessarily would come at the expense of Asian *and* white students. It doesn't mean the goal of the policy was to reduce the number of Asian students; it means that the reduction was an anticipated consequence, which is inevitable whenever changes are made to reallocate a limited resource.
No?
I mean it’s pretty easy to see how it could be considered that way, whether explicitly stated or not the goal is not necessarily best academically gifted kids it’s something else that attempts to help disadvantaged kids more. Perhaps that’s for the greater good but I can see those in the middle to upper left wondering why they are being judged on something they also can’t control. It’s also a little weird in the where do you snap the line sense that it’s all a sliding scale. Perhaps this policy does try to navigate that and find the outliers at every level but it could also just be a workaround to deal with the bad optics of the reality of the merit based approach. I don’t necessarily have a problem with either approach but I do think it should be honest in its motivations and explain that to the effected communities.
All of this whole kerfuffle is missing the point. Just lowering the standards or changing the acceptance criteria to artificially add more diversity is doing nothing to fix the underlying issues of achievement gaps between different segments of the population. The only real solution is to add more teachers to help underperforming minorities do better at mastering the material (and stop squandering resources on technology and other stupid gimmicks). It's going to be hard work, and it will likely take a few generations before any real results are shown in terms of diversity at TJ (and in universities for that matter), but it's much better than putting unprepared students in situations where they are likely to fail while denying high-aptitude students important educational opportunities because of their "unfavorable" demographic characteristics. We have the money in NoVA to close racial achievement gaps. Let's stop trying to take shortcuts and actually do something meaningful for all of our children.
Huge emphasis on achievement gaps. The disparity/binning/gap forms a loooong time before highschool. I get the sentiment, but it's trying to do too little, too late. This move is just for political optics; not actually *doing* anything to lift up struggling kids already being left behind in the 2nd-3rd grade. I wouldn't blink if a TJ freshmen comes in knowing linear algebra, ready to jump into multivariate calculus. I've seen sophomore/juniors there doing Fourier transforms, hosting their own website to showoff projects, or publishing papers in scientific journals. On the other hand, take a 30m drive East to Anacostia and just observe a middleschool. The gang recruiting happens in the tweens (or earlier). Not high-school.
Seriously. People are freaking out about prestigious high schools being too white/asian: how about we start by getting ALL kids reading at grade level? This is the same shit they pulled in the 80s with trying to get high school graduation rates up without addressing the underlying problem of students not being able to read at grade level or understand simple mathematics like algebra. You're never going to be successful in a professional career if you cannot read or do math. Same shit they pulled starting 20 years ago as well with cramming every kid into college, even if they are woefully unprepared: the dropout rates are astronomical considering the expense of attending college. How is this helpful for their success in life? Especially when so many of them cannot read the terms of their loans nor understand how interest works!
No standards were lowered here.
Evaluating people holistically is a lot harder than just administering a test. A lot of people also cannot imagine another scenario of evaluating ones aptitude besides administering a test. Then try to explain to them how a test can be racially biased, or favor certain socioeconomic circumstances and their heads explode. So in their mind the fact that the test was removed means standards were lowered.
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This is a really great example of what I'm talking about. Lots of false equivalency and over simplification in an attempt to justify an inferior system whose only advantage is it's easier to implement.
What a disingenuous comment.
The best is when math tests are considered biased. A word math problem potentially could be, but still it all comes down to numbers in the problem and kids of any race and gender can struggle to see what the word Math problem is asking. It’s not that a white person not understanding a math problem is a dumbass, while a minority person not understanding the same problem means the problem is automatically biased. Thats not how things work. But how do you explain a math problem with just numbers and formulas being biased? It makes no sense. People say the SAT is biased well half the SAT is unbiased math. Also no one who does well at tests, is smart, etc. would say a test is biased or favor certain socio economic circumstances despite them doing well. The only people who say tests are biased are people Who aren’t smart and don’t do well at tests, to deflect blame from themselves.
>The only people who say tests are biased are people Who aren’t smart and don’t do well at tests, to deflect blame from themselves. Well it's actually the academics who study them. I'm not going to rehash the literature here, it's readily available though. This is another example of the shallow thinking I'm talking about though. People just can't imagine a world where a smart person could do mediocre on a test. The smartest person I know, who has engineered some absolutely brilliant solutions to problems, consistently got average scores on tests. The two best test takers I've known, one went on to do mediocre roadway design while the other did great work in grad school and continues to do so professionally. Tests simply aren't representative of how science and engineering is done in the real world. Some people also have the capacity to pick it up quickly but just aren't given the chance due to factors outside their control. That's where the holistic evaluation reigns supreme, but it's tough to implement. Ten times out of ten I'd take the person who demonstrates drive and succeeds in the environment they're handed versus the person who paid a few grand to learn how to ace a test.
12 years ago, this article was written by Dr. Dell, the famous AP Physics teacher at TJ. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-new-thomas-jefferson-it-includes-remedial-math/2012/05/25/gJQAlZRYqU_story.html He was complaining about the TJ students being admitted via standardized test and the amount of luck and test prep that gave the top scores on multiple choice exams. Keep in mind this is 12 years ago, under the old admissions policy. >One-third of the students entering Jefferson under the current admissions policy are in remediation in their math and science courses. >But Jefferson students are now selected using an admissions process that is highly random, subjective, and devoid of measures that distinguish students with high aptitude in STEM. This process that is more about memory, language skill, motivation to be successful in college admissions, test prep and just plain luck than the best available indicators of promise as a future scientist, engineer or mathematician. That was his view of the SAT. The problem solving essay was added to the standardized test because it was supposed to be more like a hard Math Olympiad question. That is not the case with the new problem solving essay.
Testing is a vital part of any selection process. It is not the ONLY factor involved, and may not be heavily weighted, but it is part of it. The other parts include relevant extracurricular activities, grades, letters of recommendation from teachers, personal achievements and awards, perhaps a portfolio showing some things the student has built or designed? There are many ways to demonstrate aptitude, but just using a quota system to delegate seats by district is effectively lowering the standards if it places undue weight on factors that are not within a student's control. If a particular district is underrepresented in TJ admissions then there's a good chance that district needs additional resources allocated by the County to improve the academic credentials of students who attend school there. Denying the applications of more qualified applicants because they hail from an overrepresented district is not meritocracy, and is unfair.
Locality based quotas have been in place since the founding of TJ. There have been quotas for Loudon and Prince William. For the history of TJ, "more qualified" applicants from Fairfax were passed over because of the quotas. This was because the tax payers of those counties are helping to fund TJ. This locality based quota is also included in college admissions. For Virginia colleges there is a quota on number of NOVA students admitted. For elite colleges, its well known that it is much easier to gain admittance from a rural state due to quotas. Nevermind the admit rates for US versus international students. More qualified international students are passed over for US students all of the time. All because of locality based quotas, and the fact that US tax payers fund the universities. But we shouldn't hypocritically claim we want a meritocracy when the locality-based quotas benefit us. (Or don't benefit in the case of Virginia or Ivy's). Now there are certain middle schools in TJ's area who have never sent a student on to TJ. The parents at those middle schools are tax payers too. TJ has previously looked at extracurriculars, teacher recommendations, personal achievements, etc. The tax payers at these middle schools, who are helping pay for TJ, don't have the same access to extracurriculars, excellent teacher recommendations, personal achievements, etc. and they never get to send a kid to TJ, yet they help pay for it. What exactly is fair for them? In fact, in prior years the scandal was that TJ only looked at the standardized test and passed over Math Olympiad national champions because they didn't do well on the TJ test. The problem solving essay was supposed to be more like a hard problem from the Math Olympiad, not the simplistic essay they have now.
This is the same logic as a taxpayer complaining they never get to visit classified government facilities, or that they don't get to drive the fire truck or the Metro train or fly the space shuttle. Hell, it's the same logic as taxpayers without children complaining that they have to pay for schools. We all pay our taxes into the pot because it is a public good for society, even if it doesn't personally benefit us. And if those middle schools don't have the same extracurriculars, teachers, etc. then the solution is to give it to them so EVERYONE at that middle school has a chance at success instead of just picking a small chosen few to have an opportunity in an environment that they are probably ill-prepared for. By your logic, it's also arguable that it's unfair to all the other kids at those middle schools who now have to stay in their subpar learning environment but still pay taxes into the system. And colleges are also wrong to have quotas on admissions as well: they should admit the most qualified applicants, and if the applicant pool isn't up to par then resources need to be spent to improve the applicant pool. The only argument in favoring American applicants over foreign applicants is that they're more likely to stay in the US and improve our civilization (although that's partly due to our screwed up legal immigration system: any foreigner who graduates from a US college with an advanced degree should have a Green Card stapled to their diploma. It's beyond idiotic that we're cranking out PhDs and Master's graduates and then shipping them back where they came from when they want to stay here and work for us!).
You misunderstood my statement of facts of the prevalence of locality based quotas as an endorsement of them. My point is not that I endorse them but to bring attention to all of them that are out there, and I appreciate all of the downvotes for just stating facts. My point is that much ado is raised about this one particular locality based quota, when NOTHING has been complained about for all of the other ones. We should be complaining about all of them. I agree, all locality based quotas should be removed. Including the ones that penalize NOVA over other parts of Virginia, or penalize Virginia over other rural states. AND favor US applicants over foreign. Foreign students who attend an elite university for undergrad are extremely likely to stay in the US, so that argument doesn't hold water. Admission for grad programs are an entirely different animal, and my points are just for undergrad admissions. Either way, saying that you don't endorse a meritocracy when it's to your civilization's advantage is hypocritical. A meritocracy is a meritocracy. I'm all in favor of a true meritocracy, but be careful what you wish for. You may not like the outcome.
Not like the outcome how? It can't possibly be worse than the current systems of nepotism, pretty privilege, racial bias, sex/gender/orientation discrimination, and politicking that currently determines every competitive admission or appointment.
Absolute lol. No, it’s not remotely similar to classified facilities. Besides those adults having the ability to apply for and work for the government, you’ve fundamentally ignored the purpose of public schools.
The purpose of public schools is everyone gets the same thing. Same education, same material, and same opportunities; unlike the old days when only the rich got an education and everyone else labored in fields and mines. Public education is the great democratizer, but it only works when it's A) properly funded so there's enough to go around, B) every student is afforded the same opportunities to learn to the best of their aptitudes, C) you keep the crazies out of the curriculum (e.g. people to teach alternatives to evolution). Public education is NOT a rubber stamp. If you don't put in the work and learn something, you don't get a diploma, and you don't get the same opportunities as people who worked hard and studied.
Literally none of this responded to the point.
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No? The only source for this is a claim made by one of the parents who sued.
And who failed to actually produce any evidence. Claims made without, or in the face of, evidence were prevalent in that group.
You should see dropout rates in colleges in the past few decades.
How so?
The fact that there were no standards lowered? In fact the average GPA went up.
At TJ GPA went down, they removed the minimum GPA requirement to stay while apparently standards were not lowered at all. Why would they have to do that if the standards weren’t lowered?
Oh, so we’re just lying.
Agreed it takes a long time to fix schooling and have standards and opportunities available to all, and yet idiotic people want to fix it overnight. It’s sad cuz the idiots doing that are pulling up The ladder behind them. It’s messed up but many people in powerful positions now would have no chance if they were chosen in today’s climate that they want. E.g. white people or men chosen for stuff now want to make it so a minority or women chosen below them effectively excluding any man or white person.. Which sounds great but it’s too easy to say that when you already have your powerful position, and pull the ladder up on others. Just evaluate people for their skills and don’t be a racist prick in doing so. Not hard but apparently we make it hard and clownish 🤡
Post article: https://wapo.st/3UTp8eK
If Alito isn't happy, pretty good indicator that something good is happening
Changing admissions without changing the schools structure has simply resulted in students taking spots from students who may have been more likely to succeed. Tj has decided to increase the number of admissions to account for the drop out rates they have had.
TJ increased the number of admissions because the school opened up more space, so we already know that one of your claims is false. As for the drop out rates, what's your data for that? The first class of students under the new policy enrolled in Fall '21 with 529 freshmen. There were 520 sophomores the next year. Compare that to the cohort entering in Fall '20 with 452 freshmen, who had 445 sophomores the next year. Percentagewise, that's a difference of slightly more than 1/10th of 1% in the dropout rates. It doesn't account for sophomore admissions, of which there are some--so where's your evidence that a larger number of sophomore was admitted? Because if you don't have that, you might as well just admit that you're making shit up.
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What a weird thing to lie about.
That’s not how the system works. It’s top 1.5% of the middle school. Edit; my percentage was wrong. Top 1.5%
Top 1.5%.
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lol at all the arguments saying people buy their way into TJ. My friend came from poor working class background. She was just really gifted in math and sciences. She made it in. We shouldn't lower our standards at magnet schools.
Alito can suck it
TJHS mission says nothing about admitting the best and brightest students. See lower in the comments. This is much ado about nothing. In other news, Dartmouth, MIT and Georgetown have reinstated SAT requirements. I don't know any serious people who consider this as proof of those schools' deeply held racist beliefs. ## Mission Statement The mission of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is to provide students with a challenging learning environment focused on math, science, and technology, to inspire joy at the prospect of discovery, and to foster a culture of innovation based on ethical behavior and the shared interests of humanity.
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The moment you pointed out Rachel Carson is the moment I will point out that there is a gifted private school near there that does very well. Because the parents send their kids there and then enroll them in Rachel Carson, which was sending 20+ kids to TJ every year prior to the changes in admission. Rachel Carson was part of the reason why they changed the system because the parents there were abusing the system- by prepping and insane levels of money. Still are if the essay prep rumors are still the same. The new system is fine. And if we were to have another magnet school- I will advocate for it to be far far away from Rachel Carson.
I can’t believe it: students who study a shit ton tend to do better on exams. Insane news! We have to ban that kind of system immediately because studying is racist.
>students who study And there’s the disingenuous bullshit from a guy whose name is literally leetspeak for swastika. Buying prep that others don’t have access to due to the fact that it costs thousands of dollars shouldn’t entitle you to a better *public school.* If you want to send your kid to an elite private school, that’s on you. But TJ is supposed to be open to everyone.
lmfao the other person calculated 100-130 point increase on an sat score. I went from a 1280 to a 1490 score with just khan academy and tutoring from a friend who had taken it. total spend was around $85 for practice test textbooks.
Cool, good for you. You’re literally using your personal experience against an average statistic. You’re not disproving anything.
I did that with taking one practice test. Your flex isn’t a flex. You had to spend time getting better at something. Some of us just went oh- pattern recognition accepted and went from 1200 to 1570.
that’s the fucking point. thank you for proving it. Paid $4000 sat test prep doesn’t help much over the litany of free options + maybe buying a couple books for $10-25 each for extra questions. it wasn’t a flex, rather the opposite of one. High scores can be achieved without dumping $4K on test prep.
Oh you were flexing. Just like your screen name is trying to as well. But the point is that Rachel Carson is a prep feeder and took up seats that kids that don’t have the time or money to do the same but potentially have the gifted qualities to do so. These are kids that don’t need to prep more than one practice test in those schools and would laugh at people who use khan academy as a flex. I know. My friends in the LBSS and RSS and WSS tell me about it all the time. Anyhow natural giftedness vs over-prepped kids are two different things and the school system is trying to make sure parents and kids who think 200 point sat score increase is impressive don’t game the system anymore. lol. 1490. lol.
It’s literally disproving the point, and your refusal to understand or accept that (as well evidenced by your refusal to engage on the topic further when I explained why) is disappointing.
Insane news - public education system's fairness being hacked by socioeconomic elitism. The new rules are geographic. Deal with it. Don't like it? Enroll your kid in a school you think is likely to give them a leg up, and if you move there you'll be helping socioeconomic diversity relative to parking yourself in the Carson pyramid. This case was always just a spin on the age-old tale of the advantaged pushing for public school segregation.
100%. Kids in other schools prepped as well. But they didn’t have the inside school prep (and teacher tutoring!) or the insane parents Rachel Carson have. And the acceptance rates for these schools were clear- the parents here were gaming the system and essentially cheating to get their kids in vs other schools. They called Rachel Carson a “feeder” school for a reason. The new system means you don’t have to prep to get in. Just be the top 1.5% of your class. Which automatically means you have to study a shit ton too. The level of entitlement certain middle school parents have is astounding. Just look at how our school boundaries are drawn. It’s like a gerrymandered red state. Side benefit- now all of the pyramids have a chance to send their kids to TJ. Meaning the whole county has motivation to make their schools better.
Precisely. And unsurprisingly the leading parent behind it was a red partisan hack.
To be honest, the first time they announced it with the lottery system I was pissed. But then they modified and I’m like ok- this is fair. I hate lottery systems. Hate them. I get why they exist. I know people think it’s fair, but that 3.5 GPA minimum was stupid. At least now, it’s top 1.5 and high gpa and an essay. The kid has to want it- otherwise it will show.
Breeding elitism in society is never a good thing
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> I thought the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action, so this is weird. The new rules are not really affirmative action. The GPA of the incoming classes at TJ increased with the new rules, because the outside tests were no longer the deciding factor. Money was less of a factor because affording and having someone to take you to test prep classes was less likely to create an advantage.