Federal judge rules that admissions changes at nation’s top public school discriminate against Asian

[Anonymous]

OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

Never say never, but NEVER!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm reading all this as the parent of an elementary student.

Grades are very subjective as well, and also can vary widely based on the teacher a student gets. We have teachers assign above grade level status to kids doing well in on grade level work in one class while the class next door must actually take different tests to get thia distinction. Or a teacher who gives above grade level status and then straight 3s in the subject, putting kid gradewise on par with kids doing less challenging work..

Waiting to see how this all shakes out in AAP process.

True. Standardized testing will take away teacher bias. But many are opposed to it since tests can be subject to extreme prepping and not everyone can afford it either. Grades and teacher recommendations are probably the fair compromise without quotas that punish specific groups.

Standardized testing removes one type of bias and introduces another. There’s no single criteria alone that is the answer, a variety of factors ought to be considered. Some people are so invested in standardized testing though, they see it as some sort of merit-based silver bullet and have full blinders towards this sort of reliance on an ostensibly objective measure. I trust teachers more than a test to identify the kids most qualified and would benefit from TJ, but would prefer not to rely on teachers alone either. Multiple data points is a good thing, which goes for AAP, TJ, college, job hiring, or almost any sort of human selection process really.

Right, so the best plan would be a holistic evaluation including grades, teacher recommendations, essays, and a standardized test. The old system was bad because the standardized test was too strongly used as a gatekeeper for semifinalist status. The new system is bad because it is too sparse. Thankfully, there is a pretty broad middle ground between the old system and the new one.

This is basically what colleges do and it seems to be working well for them! I agree that old system needs to be changed, but the new system is full of holes and glaring apparent who they intended to penalize right from the start - academic focused kids, going to aap centers and living specific neighborhoods. No matter where your politics land, its not fair to these kids. However on the plus side, its easier to stand out in the base school, which helps in college admissions.

Elite colleges are moving away from standardized exams as a requirement. An approach that could work for TJ is optional exam submission - there are no end of excellent exams that students can take on their own that could be used as a piece of a portfolio. SSAT comes to mind, in addition to all of the competitions. This would allow TJ to set aside a few spaces for the kids who truly are phenomenal test takers, as a few of them would have significant value to the school environment.

"Test Optional" does not mean Test Blind.
Someone who tests well is still at a distinct advantage over someone who doesn't test. The non-tester really has to burnish his/her other traits.

But this is precisely the point.

No college in America evaluates all of their applicants through the same lens. By and large they are looking for a diverse group of candidates who fill different types of intelligence buckets as well as different types of skill sets.

For too long TJ has mandated that in order to get into the school, you must be an outstanding test taker - which is how they’ve artificially gained all of those “number one public high school” accolades. But test-taking is a very limited measure of intellectual ability.

Witness - in the old admissions process, a student could achieve perfect scores on the Quant Q and the ACT Science, but if they were in the 74th percentile on the ACT English, still WELL above average, they would not even qualify as a semifinalist. Perhaps that student inadvertently skipped a question out of nerves and simply miscoded their scantron sheet. That’s a potentially phenomenal applicant whose entire life track was thrown to a different course by a single mistake that they might have noticed with only two minutes left in the exam.

And that’s part of the problem with the old process. Even if you believe in test taking as some end all be all measure of merit (which I believe it is a piece of) giving it an outsized importance can really muddle your ability to identify the gems.

LOL, artificially? What, did Harvard become a top college through nothing but sunshine and seasonal rainfall? Note that TJ is a STEM-focused high school. It is more narrowly tailored for students who want to pursue a future in the STEM field. Your argument that someone may make a mistake on a test as a justification for not having a testing is laughably irrational. Almost all tests that a student takes, including important midterms and finals, are one-and-done tests. They don't get to retake tests. Any other standard you want to choose for entrance consideration is subject to the same "oh I made a mistake" issue. What if a student misses an intersectional victimhood status that causes them to be rated lower on their "personal portrait"? What if a student enrolls in the wrong school because her parents bought a house on the other side of the street, which places her outside of the 1.5% pool? That's a potentially phenomenal applicant whose entire life track was thrown to a different course by a single mistake that they might have noticed only after they were rejected, while a friend across the street with less impressive academic performance was accepted because she goes to a different school.

That there are consequences to making the wrong decision in life is no excuse to remove tests or other discriminatory mechanisms for selecting candidates from a pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

What a horrible idea. I have zero interest in having my kids attend TJ and I can recognize that TJ is a top STEM high school. Let it continue to be a top school even if your child does not attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it acceptable, within the applicants for a particular school, to rank based on extracurriculars like MathCounts, AMC 8, AMC 10, Science Olympiad, Robotics, FLL, etc?

We live in a different jurisdiction, but I cannot process why choice of EC would be a factor? Almost nobody in the top academic classes at our school does those contests. It's a "thing" with some kids who don't have otherwise busy schedules, but it is not a marker of the brightest students by a long shot. It a choice about how to spend your free time.

DP. The trouble here is that many of those specific ECs have been historically seen as tickets to TJ because they theoretically provide evidence of “passion for STEM”. They were part of a very narrow path that families could rely on to position their children for the TJ admissions process as well as possible.

But when you have a very narrow path that is successful, you end up with a significant percentage of the students who enter TJ with VERY similar backgrounds and resumes because so many families have tried to optimize their child’s application in the same way.

It might make some sense to have this sort of process for a class of 100-150, like at a Blair in Maryland. But for a class of 550, you have to have more diverse interests and goals and backgrounds or you end up with a hyper-competitive environment where too many students are pursuing the same endpoint.

Exactly. We benefit from having diverse STEM talent from across the county, not just cookie-cutter applicants who are all following the same TJ checklist.

Right, we don't need cookie-cutter applicants. We need to accept the best and the brightest period.

Objective criteria and a transparent process results in cookie-cutter applicants. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand how admissions processes work and how they incentivize problematic behavior.

Seems like your statement comes from a place of deep ignorance and extreme small-mindedness - at best.

Cookie cutter applicants? Because all Asians look similar to you? Asians are a racially diverse group and the kids are far from cookie cutter. Just India and China alone have 2.5b people.

No, obviously Asians don't look the same to me. But the admissions process as it was previously constructed incentivized families to place their students on a very narrow path that resulted for many years in a TJ population - both Asian and otherwise - that had extremely similar resumes over the years. College admissions officers have disclosed to TJ Student Services personnel that they have difficulty discerning between TJ applications in many cases because they receive hundreds of profiles that look extremely similar on paper - not because they're Asian, but because the admissions process to get to TJ placed students on a treadmill that they were all jockeying for position on together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem with TJ admissions is that the school board was hoping for a catch-all solution to a diverse set of problems. In the end, their motive turned into a desperate, flailing "Smart kids are the problem. Why can't everyone be the same?" The end result was that the primary metric for a "successful" strategy was good conformance to population distribution.

In reality, there are a number of different issues which have been raised, each of which varies in solution space and degree of seriousness:

Academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors. However, the idea that there's a fundamental difference in peak academic capability due to race should be rejected on principle. If merit-based measures are showing high sensitivity to race, then that suggests that either (a) the merit-based metrics we're using aren't as good as we'd hope at measuring merit, or (b) if the merit-based measures are good, then some kids are somehow falling off the radar for non-merit based reasons. Either is unjust.

There should be a greater commitment to ensuring income-neutral resources for kids that want to be challenged or who want to "get ahead."

We're concerned that there are some easy but very superficial steps that students can take which can significantly impact their appearance of merit, without being particularly reflective of actual merit. This is especially true if those steps are accessible to some students but not to others. (the "prep" argument)

The academic status quo is too rigid, and it's too easy for students to get locked into "elite" or "dumb" tracks. Once they're stuck in the wrong track, they lose access to opportunities, and also lose access to the financial and societal means to pursue those opportunities. The system should be a lot more flexible and forgiving.

Smart people are too intimidating to the majority of the population which is not especially smart. We should really take elite schools like TJ down a notch. At the very least, take away the mystique that being "elite" means anything more that having a high GPA and/or skills that can be bought.

We finally admit that we're racist, but there are so many Asians, and honestly it makes us uncomfortable.

If admissions to elite education is entirely merit-based, what's to stop the Russians from infiltrating our elite institutions?

If we do not give the school board the utmost control and flexibility in deciding educational outcomes, how will our great and glorious leaders be able to ensure that they have relatively the best possible education for their children?

If you allow that academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors, then it's irrational to claim that it is unjust for merit-based metrics to identify candidates that reflect this variance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with TJ admissions is that the school board was hoping for a catch-all solution to a diverse set of problems. In the end, their motive turned into a desperate, flailing "Smart kids are the problem. Why can't everyone be the same?" The end result was that the primary metric for a "successful" strategy was good conformance to population distribution.

In reality, there are a number of different issues which have been raised, each of which varies in solution space and degree of seriousness:

Academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors. However, the idea that there's a fundamental difference in peak academic capability due to race should be rejected on principle. If merit-based measures are showing high sensitivity to race, then that suggests that either (a) the merit-based metrics we're using aren't as good as we'd hope at measuring merit, or (b) if the merit-based measures are good, then some kids are somehow falling off the radar for non-merit based reasons. Either is unjust.

There should be a greater commitment to ensuring income-neutral resources for kids that want to be challenged or who want to "get ahead."

We're concerned that there are some easy but very superficial steps that students can take which can significantly impact their appearance of merit, without being particularly reflective of actual merit. This is especially true if those steps are accessible to some students but not to others. (the "prep" argument)

The academic status quo is too rigid, and it's too easy for students to get locked into "elite" or "dumb" tracks. Once they're stuck in the wrong track, they lose access to opportunities, and also lose access to the financial and societal means to pursue those opportunities. The system should be a lot more flexible and forgiving.

Smart people are too intimidating to the majority of the population which is not especially smart. We should really take elite schools like TJ down a notch. At the very least, take away the mystique that being "elite" means anything more that having a high GPA and/or skills that can be bought.

We finally admit that we're racist, but there are so many Asians, and honestly it makes us uncomfortable.

If admissions to elite education is entirely merit-based, what's to stop the Russians from infiltrating our elite institutions?

If we do not give the school board the utmost control and flexibility in deciding educational outcomes, how will our great and glorious leaders be able to ensure that they have relatively the best possible education for their children?

If you allow that academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors, then it's irrational to claim that it is unjust for merit-based metrics to identify candidates that reflect this variance.

The idea that academic aptitude (natural ability) varies by race is *drumroll* racist. Societal and cultural factors might impact academic *performance*, though even there it’s BOTH race and class/income (and other factors) that affect a child’s ability to perform up to potential in their schooling. I’d rather we focus more on identifying and cultivating academic potential, and focus less on “absolute performance to date” and preppable test taking skills as those conveniently paper over and perpetuate the systemic issues that give certain groups significant disadvantages in those supposedly objective measures of “merit” (yuck).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with TJ admissions is that the school board was hoping for a catch-all solution to a diverse set of problems. In the end, their motive turned into a desperate, flailing "Smart kids are the problem. Why can't everyone be the same?" The end result was that the primary metric for a "successful" strategy was good conformance to population distribution.

In reality, there are a number of different issues which have been raised, each of which varies in solution space and degree of seriousness:

Academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors. However, the idea that there's a fundamental difference in peak academic capability due to race should be rejected on principle. If merit-based measures are showing high sensitivity to race, then that suggests that either (a) the merit-based metrics we're using aren't as good as we'd hope at measuring merit, or (b) if the merit-based measures are good, then some kids are somehow falling off the radar for non-merit based reasons. Either is unjust.

There should be a greater commitment to ensuring income-neutral resources for kids that want to be challenged or who want to "get ahead."

We're concerned that there are some easy but very superficial steps that students can take which can significantly impact their appearance of merit, without being particularly reflective of actual merit. This is especially true if those steps are accessible to some students but not to others. (the "prep" argument)

The academic status quo is too rigid, and it's too easy for students to get locked into "elite" or "dumb" tracks. Once they're stuck in the wrong track, they lose access to opportunities, and also lose access to the financial and societal means to pursue those opportunities. The system should be a lot more flexible and forgiving.

Smart people are too intimidating to the majority of the population which is not especially smart. We should really take elite schools like TJ down a notch. At the very least, take away the mystique that being "elite" means anything more that having a high GPA and/or skills that can be bought.

We finally admit that we're racist, but there are so many Asians, and honestly it makes us uncomfortable.

If admissions to elite education is entirely merit-based, what's to stop the Russians from infiltrating our elite institutions?

If we do not give the school board the utmost control and flexibility in deciding educational outcomes, how will our great and glorious leaders be able to ensure that they have relatively the best possible education for their children?

If you allow that academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors, then it's irrational to claim that it is unjust for merit-based metrics to identify candidates that reflect this variance.

DP. No, it's not irrational, and the rest of the PP's point pretty clearly explained why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

What a horrible idea. I have zero interest in having my kids attend TJ and I can recognize that TJ is a top STEM high school. Let it continue to be a top school even if your child does not attend.

It's that or shuttering it. The school board isn't returning to an admissions regime where the number of black students was too small to be reported.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

What a horrible idea. I have zero interest in having my kids attend TJ and I can recognize that TJ is a top STEM high school. Let it continue to be a top school even if your child does not attend.

It's that or shuttering it. The school board isn't returning to an admissions regime where the number of black students was too small to be reported.

Maybe this school board, but they going to be voted out. Too many tech firms and businesses in Fairfax with an interest in TJ succeeding as it always has. Stop with the fake news.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it acceptable, within the applicants for a particular school, to rank based on extracurriculars like MathCounts, AMC 8, AMC 10, Science Olympiad, Robotics, FLL, etc?

We live in a different jurisdiction, but I cannot process why choice of EC would be a factor? Almost nobody in the top academic classes at our school does those contests. It's a "thing" with some kids who don't have otherwise busy schedules, but it is not a marker of the brightest students by a long shot. It a choice about how to spend your free time.

DP. The trouble here is that many of those specific ECs have been historically seen as tickets to TJ because they theoretically provide evidence of “passion for STEM”. They were part of a very narrow path that families could rely on to position their children for the TJ admissions process as well as possible.

But when you have a very narrow path that is successful, you end up with a significant percentage of the students who enter TJ with VERY similar backgrounds and resumes because so many families have tried to optimize their child’s application in the same way.

It might make some sense to have this sort of process for a class of 100-150, like at a Blair in Maryland. But for a class of 550, you have to have more diverse interests and goals and backgrounds or you end up with a hyper-competitive environment where too many students are pursuing the same endpoint.

Exactly. We benefit from having diverse STEM talent from across the county, not just cookie-cutter applicants who are all following the same TJ checklist.

Right, we don't need cookie-cutter applicants. We need to accept the best and the brightest period.

Objective criteria and a transparent process results in cookie-cutter applicants. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand how admissions processes work and how they incentivize problematic behavior.

Seems like your statement comes from a place of deep ignorance and extreme small-mindedness - at best.

Cookie cutter applicants? Because all Asians look similar to you? Asians are a racially diverse group and the kids are far from cookie cutter. Just India and China alone have 2.5b people.

No, obviously Asians don't look the same to me. But the admissions process as it was previously constructed incentivized families to place their students on a very narrow path that resulted for many years in a TJ population - both Asian and otherwise - that had extremely similar resumes over the years. College admissions officers have disclosed to TJ Student Services personnel that they have difficulty discerning between TJ applications in many cases because they receive hundreds of profiles that look extremely similar on paper - not because they're Asian, but because the admissions process to get to TJ placed students on a treadmill that they were all jockeying for position on together.

Exactly. I made the initial "cookie cutter" comment and that is exactly what I meant by "cookie-cutter applicants who are all following the same TJ checklist".

Many students end up with resumes that look very similar because they are following the same TJ checklist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

What a horrible idea. I have zero interest in having my kids attend TJ and I can recognize that TJ is a top STEM high school. Let it continue to be a top school even if your child does not attend.

It's that or shuttering it. The school board isn't returning to an admissions regime where the number of black students was too small to be reported.

Maybe this school board, but they going to be voted out. Too many tech firms and businesses in Fairfax with an interest in TJ succeeding as it always has. Stop with the fake news.

Guess they have nothing to lose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it acceptable, within the applicants for a particular school, to rank based on extracurriculars like MathCounts, AMC 8, AMC 10, Science Olympiad, Robotics, FLL, etc?

We live in a different jurisdiction, but I cannot process why choice of EC would be a factor? Almost nobody in the top academic classes at our school does those contests. It's a "thing" with some kids who don't have otherwise busy schedules, but it is not a marker of the brightest students by a long shot. It a choice about how to spend your free time.

DP. The trouble here is that many of those specific ECs have been historically seen as tickets to TJ because they theoretically provide evidence of “passion for STEM”. They were part of a very narrow path that families could rely on to position their children for the TJ admissions process as well as possible.

But when you have a very narrow path that is successful, you end up with a significant percentage of the students who enter TJ with VERY similar backgrounds and resumes because so many families have tried to optimize their child’s application in the same way.

It might make some sense to have this sort of process for a class of 100-150, like at a Blair in Maryland. But for a class of 550, you have to have more diverse interests and goals and backgrounds or you end up with a hyper-competitive environment where too many students are pursuing the same endpoint.

Exactly. We benefit from having diverse STEM talent from across the county, not just cookie-cutter applicants who are all following the same TJ checklist.

Right, we don't need cookie-cutter applicants. We need to accept the best and the brightest period.

Objective criteria and a transparent process results in cookie-cutter applicants. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand how admissions processes work and how they incentivize problematic behavior.

Seems like your statement comes from a place of deep ignorance and extreme small-mindedness - at best.

Cookie cutter applicants? Because all Asians look similar to you? Asians are a racially diverse group and the kids are far from cookie cutter. Just India and China alone have 2.5b people.

No, obviously Asians don't look the same to me. But the admissions process as it was previously constructed incentivized families to place their students on a very narrow path that resulted for many years in a TJ population - both Asian and otherwise - that had extremely similar resumes over the years. College admissions officers have disclosed to TJ Student Services personnel that they have difficulty discerning between TJ applications in many cases because they receive hundreds of profiles that look extremely similar on paper - not because they're Asian, but because the admissions process to get to TJ placed students on a treadmill that they were all jockeying for position on together.

Exactly. I made the initial "cookie cutter" comment and that is exactly what I meant by "cookie-cutter applicants who are all following the same TJ checklist".

Many students end up with resumes that look very similar because they are following the same TJ checklist.

Bingo. And the bottom line is, without that incentivizing behavior through the TJ application, it would be easier for them to follow a path that was more likely to get them to the best possible version of themselves - not just for college apps, but for their ability to serve society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OMG. Just change it to an academy similar to the LCPS academies where the kids go certain days of the week solely for STEM classes. Make the classes available to any child that qualifies.

What a horrible idea. I have zero interest in having my kids attend TJ and I can recognize that TJ is a top STEM high school. Let it continue to be a top school even if your child does not attend.

It's that or shuttering it. The school board isn't returning to an admissions regime where the number of black students was too small to be reported.

Maybe this school board, but they going to be voted out. Too many tech firms and businesses in Fairfax with an interest in TJ succeeding as it always has. Stop with the fake news.

Many of the present members of the school board will not run again in 2023. Book it.

But you'd be surprised at how popular several of the ones you have the greatest issue with are in their districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with TJ admissions is that the school board was hoping for a catch-all solution to a diverse set of problems. In the end, their motive turned into a desperate, flailing "Smart kids are the problem. Why can't everyone be the same?" The end result was that the primary metric for a "successful" strategy was good conformance to population distribution.

In reality, there are a number of different issues which have been raised, each of which varies in solution space and degree of seriousness:

Academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors. However, the idea that there's a fundamental difference in peak academic capability due to race should be rejected on principle. If merit-based measures are showing high sensitivity to race, then that suggests that either (a) the merit-based metrics we're using aren't as good as we'd hope at measuring merit, or (b) if the merit-based measures are good, then some kids are somehow falling off the radar for non-merit based reasons. Either is unjust.

There should be a greater commitment to ensuring income-neutral resources for kids that want to be challenged or who want to "get ahead."

We're concerned that there are some easy but very superficial steps that students can take which can significantly impact their appearance of merit, without being particularly reflective of actual merit. This is especially true if those steps are accessible to some students but not to others. (the "prep" argument)

The academic status quo is too rigid, and it's too easy for students to get locked into "elite" or "dumb" tracks. Once they're stuck in the wrong track, they lose access to opportunities, and also lose access to the financial and societal means to pursue those opportunities. The system should be a lot more flexible and forgiving.

Smart people are too intimidating to the majority of the population which is not especially smart. We should really take elite schools like TJ down a notch. At the very least, take away the mystique that being "elite" means anything more that having a high GPA and/or skills that can be bought.

We finally admit that we're racist, but there are so many Asians, and honestly it makes us uncomfortable.

If admissions to elite education is entirely merit-based, what's to stop the Russians from infiltrating our elite institutions?

If we do not give the school board the utmost control and flexibility in deciding educational outcomes, how will our great and glorious leaders be able to ensure that they have relatively the best possible education for their children?

If you allow that academic aptitude may vary in race due to cultural or societal factors, then it's irrational to claim that it is unjust for merit-based metrics to identify candidates that reflect this variance.

The idea that academic aptitude (natural ability) varies by race is *drumroll* racist. Societal and cultural factors might impact academic *performance*, though even there it’s BOTH race and class/income (and other factors) that affect a child’s ability to perform up to potential in their schooling. I’d rather we focus more on identifying and cultivating academic potential, and focus less on “absolute performance to date” and preppable test taking skills as those conveniently paper over and perpetuate the systemic issues that give certain groups significant disadvantages in those supposedly objective measures of “merit” (yuck).

No one is arguing for the bolded part. Per your recommendation that we focus on identifying and cultivating academic potential, how do you go about doing that if measuring academic performance through tests is off the table? In other words, show me a test that you can't prepare for in advance.