TJ Admissions Roundup

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING QUANT-Q QUESTIONS
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

I have screenshots but won’t share because they have student names on them.

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

Where's it say they shared questions and answers with prep companies? Unless you mean the prep companies went over questions and answers with the students.

Would you like to buy a nice bridge? I have a nice one you can buy…

So again guessing while claiming the students said they did this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does FCPS currently consider SOL scores in the TJ admissions process and if not, why? In an era of rampant grade inflation, there should be some external validation of content knowledge.

SOL testing is to ascertain that students are attaining relatively basic levels of knowledge of the curriculum for the grade. They not that useful at a more advanced level. Passing advanced isn’t super difficult.

Yes, but some students are struggling with SOL content currently. Using middle school SOL data might help identify gaps beforehand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING QUANT-Q QUESTIONS
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

I have screenshots but won’t share because they have student names on them.

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

Where's it say they shared questions and answers with prep companies? Unless you mean the prep companies went over questions and answers with the students.

Would you like to buy a nice bridge? I have a nice one you can buy…

So again guessing while claiming the students said they did this.

Not a guess.

If you are the same person who claims it’s perfectly fine to “crack the test” you wouldn’t care if the method they used was to discuss the test with students after they had taken the test. That person seems to think it’s fine to use any means necessary to figure out questions on a test for tweens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING QUANT-Q QUESTIONS
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

I have screenshots but won’t share because they have student names on them.

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”

Where's it say they shared questions and answers with prep companies? Unless you mean the prep companies went over questions and answers with the students.

Click on the FB link.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is funethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

What do you mean by the word “cultural”? I can’t think of any culture on earth that tell kids it’s okay to promise you will not do something and then do it anyway. My parents taught me that that’s dishonest and my experience has been that that is what children are taught all over the world.

Trying to bind minors to a contract so you can make money isn't great.

Expecting young people who are well past the age of reason to be honest is pretty basic in most school systems. Most kids learn by age 12 or 13 that they are expected to be honest, and that if they are not, there will be some level of consequence.

I'd heard cheating used to be completely out of control at TJ before the changes to selection.

Excessively competitive environments cultivate bad behaviors. For students. And their parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is funethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

What do you mean by the word “cultural”? I can’t think of any culture on earth that tell kids it’s okay to promise you will not do something and then do it anyway. My parents taught me that that’s dishonest and my experience has been that that is what children are taught all over the world.

Let me give you a couple of relatively extreme examples to show you why your reasoning doesn't make sense:

First, imagine that an authority figure touches a child in an inappropriate way, then tells them that they must not tell their parents. Anyone with a shred of morality should be able to see that it's ok if the child broke this "rule," and they would not consider the rule to have any inherent legitimacy because it would stand to violate deeper rights.

Second, the speed limit is a rule that everyone agrees to follow. Someone sees a 35mph speed limit sign. Is it fundamentally unacceptable for them to drive 4-5mph over the posted limit? You could say yes, but the vast majority of the Northern Virginia population does not, at least as far as empirical evidence would suggest. While it may technically be a rule, most people do not consider it serious enough of a violation to give a second thought.

How do these examples come into play in this situation? Depending on your culture, you may not see it as the testing company's business to require you to keep quiet about what you've seen. Since it's the only pathway to TJ, you don't have the option to avoid the test, thus the testing company doesn't have the right to make you keep quiet. Likewise, since talking about what you've seen on a test after everyone's done with the test is normal in some cultures, the idea that it might be violating some NDA may be viewed as a negligible offense - if they wanted a real NDA, wait until the students grow up and apply for real jobs.

You can moralize about dishonesty all you want, but in this case it is absolutely more of a reflection of your cultural perspective rather than of your integrity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is funethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

What do you mean by the word “cultural”? I can’t think of any culture on earth that tell kids it’s okay to promise you will not do something and then do it anyway. My parents taught me that that’s dishonest and my experience has been that that is what children are taught all over the world.

Let me give you a couple of relatively extreme examples to show you why your reasoning doesn't make sense:

First, imagine that an authority figure touches a child in an inappropriate way, then tells them that they must not tell their parents. Anyone with a shred of morality should be able to see that it's ok if the child broke this "rule," and they would not consider the rule to have any inherent legitimacy because it would stand to violate deeper rights.

Second, the speed limit is a rule that everyone agrees to follow. Someone sees a 35mph speed limit sign. Is it fundamentally unacceptable for them to drive 4-5mph over the posted limit? You could say yes, but the vast majority of the Northern Virginia population does not, at least as far as empirical evidence would suggest. While it may technically be a rule, most people do not consider it serious enough of a violation to give a second thought.

How do these examples come into play in this situation? Depending on your culture, you may not see it as the testing company's business to require you to keep quiet about what you've seen. Since it's the only pathway to TJ, you don't have the option to avoid the test, thus the testing company doesn't have the right to make you keep quiet. Likewise, since talking about what you've seen on a test after everyone's done with the test is normal in some cultures, the idea that it might be violating some NDA may be viewed as a negligible offense - if they wanted a real NDA, wait until the students grow up and apply for real jobs.

You can moralize about dishonesty all you want, but in this case it is absolutely more of a reflection of your cultural perspective rather than of your integrity.

Hope you didn’t injure yourself with all of that wild mental gymnastics, distorting and rationalizing behavior that is unethical in just about any culture. DP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does FCPS currently consider SOL scores in the TJ admissions process and if not, why? In an era of rampant grade inflation, there should be some external validation of content knowledge.

Tests are racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is funethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

What do you mean by the word “cultural”? I can’t think of any culture on earth that tell kids it’s okay to promise you will not do something and then do it anyway. My parents taught me that that’s dishonest and my experience has been that that is what children are taught all over the world.

Let me give you a couple of relatively extreme examples to show you why your reasoning doesn't make sense:

First, imagine that an authority figure touches a child in an inappropriate way, then tells them that they must not tell their parents. Anyone with a shred of morality should be able to see that it's ok if the child broke this "rule," and they would not consider the rule to have any inherent legitimacy because it would stand to violate deeper rights.

Second, the speed limit is a rule that everyone agrees to follow. Someone sees a 35mph speed limit sign. Is it fundamentally unacceptable for them to drive 4-5mph over the posted limit? You could say yes, but the vast majority of the Northern Virginia population does not, at least as far as empirical evidence would suggest. While it may technically be a rule, most people do not consider it serious enough of a violation to give a second thought.

How do these examples come into play in this situation? Depending on your culture, you may not see it as the testing company's business to require you to keep quiet about what you've seen. Since it's the only pathway to TJ, you don't have the option to avoid the test, thus the testing company doesn't have the right to make you keep quiet. Likewise, since talking about what you've seen on a test after everyone's done with the test is normal in some cultures, the idea that it might be violating some NDA may be viewed as a negligible offense - if they wanted a real NDA, wait until the students grow up and apply for real jobs.

You can moralize about dishonesty all you want, but in this case it is absolutely more of a reflection of your cultural perspective rather than of your integrity.

There is nothing illegal or immoral about requiring people to sign an NDA in order to take a particular test. No one is forcing anyone to take a test. The test taker can choose to not sign the NDA and then not take the test, or sign it and take the test. It is one or the other, but it is a choice. No one needs to go to a TJ type school, especially in Northern Virginia where their are so many excellent public schools.

Your examples show a very weird and very strained attempt at rationalizing actions which are clearly dishonest. (The molestation one is particularly odd and has no relevance at all to this situation- it is creepy to even posit that as a comparable situation.) You personally may not value honesty and integrity and you individually may only care about yourself, but that is not a cultural construct. No culture in the world teaches children to be dishonest.

Maybe you are a young person who has not lived along enough to develop a good character, or maybe you are an adult whose character development has been stunted for some reason, but you cannot blame “culture” for a practice of dishonesty. No culture teaches children that it is fine and dandy to be dishonest for your own personal gain.

[Anonymous]

Misses the point entirely. It's not about whether you have a moral obligation to do that the school trar company tells you. You don't.

It's about whether you are contributing to a more fair society.

Giving questions to Cutie and not to everyone is immoral. TJ admissions admin themselves were immoral form refusing to prelare the full community for the exam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Misses the point entirely. It's not about whether you have a moral obligation to do that the school trar company tells you. You don't.

It's about whether you are contributing to a more fair society.

Giving questions to Cutie and not to everyone is immoral. TJ admissions admin themselves were immoral form refusing to prelare the full community for the exam.

Yes, you obviously do have a moral obligation not to steal copyrighted work. WTH?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Misses the point entirely. It's not about whether you have a moral obligation to do that the school trar company tells you. You don't.

It's about whether you are contributing to a more fair society.

Giving questions to Cutie and not to everyone is immoral. TJ admissions admin themselves were immoral form refusing to prepare the full community for the exam.

Relying on ignorance to keep things fair in an academic setting is pretty weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Misses the point entirely. It's not about whether you have a moral obligation to do that the school trar company tells you. You don't.

It's about whether you are contributing to a more fair society.

Giving questions to Cutie and not to everyone is immoral. TJ admissions admin themselves were immoral form refusing to prepare the full community for the exam.

Relying on ignorance to keep things fair in an academic setting is pretty weird.

Is this someone trying to make the c4tj a-holes look worse than they already do? It’s working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is funethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

What do you mean by the word “cultural”? I can’t think of any culture on earth that tell kids it’s okay to promise you will not do something and then do it anyway. My parents taught me that that’s dishonest and my experience has been that that is what children are taught all over the world.

Let me give you a couple of relatively extreme examples to show you why your reasoning doesn't make sense:

First, imagine that an authority figure touches a child in an inappropriate way, then tells them that they must not tell their parents. Anyone with a shred of morality should be able to see that it's ok if the child broke this "rule," and they would not consider the rule to have any inherent legitimacy because it would stand to violate deeper rights.

Second, the speed limit is a rule that everyone agrees to follow. Someone sees a 35mph speed limit sign. Is it fundamentally unacceptable for them to drive 4-5mph over the posted limit? You could say yes, but the vast majority of the Northern Virginia population does not, at least as far as empirical evidence would suggest. While it may technically be a rule, most people do not consider it serious enough of a violation to give a second thought.

How do these examples come into play in this situation? Depending on your culture, you may not see it as the testing company's business to require you to keep quiet about what you've seen. Since it's the only pathway to TJ, you don't have the option to avoid the test, thus the testing company doesn't have the right to make you keep quiet. Likewise, since talking about what you've seen on a test after everyone's done with the test is normal in some cultures, the idea that it might be violating some NDA may be viewed as a negligible offense - if they wanted a real NDA, wait until the students grow up and apply for real jobs.

You can moralize about dishonesty all you want, but in this case it is absolutely more of a reflection of your cultural perspective rather than of your integrity.

What are you trying to say here? That if someone comes from a culture where lying/cheating is okay, then they should be allowed to lie/cheat in situations outside of that culture? Are you saying it’s okay to lie/cheat if you were taught as a child that it’s okay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's amazing that people bought into the idea that a question and answer test for kids was uncrackable.

Ultimately the majority of the changes made to the admission process don't reflect a reaction to test prep for the QQ (1 of 3 tests in a multi-round process). This is just a distraction based on a handful of Facebook posts.

But, why crack the test? Is it to give an unfair advantage to kids whose parents can pay these businesses?

There is a market, and there will be solutions. Capitalism. Same way why people smuggle drugs or sell socks.

Some say Capitalism is immoral, that sounds like they are against capitalism. Instead, we should say Capitalism is devoid of morality. Supply and demand, like a machine.

So obtaining information by unethical means and selling it to families that can afford it so that their children will have an unfairly obtained advantage over other children from less well off and/or well educated families is okay because… capitalism.

All righty then. We now know what we need to know about the situation here.

it's unethical only because an ill-worded NDA that students have no choice but to sign. It's unethical because the company boasted the exam is un-preppable. HOLD MY BEER.

No, they didn’t “boast” that it was unpreppable. They produced an exam that was meant to be secure and took actions to make and keep it secure. It was an exam that gave the admissions office more information about the students because it showed how the students handled types of questions that they were unlikely to have seen before.

Apparently there are people in this world with no integrity who can’t stand the idea of their kids having to take a test on an even playing field with other kids so they figured out a way to “crack” the test so kids from well off families wouldn’t have to worry about competing with less well off kids who may be more intelligent than they are.

Adults should stay out of this process and let the school do its job.

This is exactly correct except for one thing - "let the school do its job". TJ doesn't have any say in either the development or the execution of the admissions process. FCPS does. And I'll repeat what I said earlier - the Quant-Q did its job for one year and we saw a significant increase in the number of Black, Hispanic, and low-income students in the first year of its implementation.

Its entire purpose what exactly what PP said - to evaluate how students would approach problems that they were unlikely to have seen before. I have seen several versions of the exam, and I can tell you that it is wonderful for achieving this purpose - but also that it would be a staggeringly easy exam for students who had been shown how to do the problems beforehand.

Most exams evaluate how well you can apply a method for solving a problem and the idea behind the QQ was to evaluate your ability to generate a method to solving a problem - that's the reason why it was intended to be secured. And Curie (and the books that are available on Amazon, and probably some other prep companies) destroyed what should have been an ideal exam for sussing out which students actually belong at TJ. I wish there were a way to go back to it - I was that impressed by it.

But we can't, because the golden goose has been slaughtered.

A bit of advice for TJ-aspirant families: the harder you work to crack the process for your kid, the more you incentivize FCPS to increase the apparent randomness and opacity of the process.

It didn't really have the desired effect. QuantQ made an impact but probably not a big enough impact to satisfy folks that wanted more equity. Before QuantQ 3% of the entering class was URM. The first year of QuantQ pushed that number up to 7%.

What you call "cracking the process" is usually referred to as studying in most places where effort is rewarded. I do think you have to be cautious about pushing your kid into the most competitive environment you can possibly squeak them into.

“Cracking the test” so that kids could know what the questions would be like in advance is in no way the same as “studying.”
Test takers are not supposed to have access to the types of questions in advance because part of the usefulness of the test is seeing how students handle new to them problems.

Having access to the types of problems in advance when the test is meant to be a secure instrument is unethical. In no way is it the same as “studying.”

Having access to the question format and question types is absolutely the same thing as studying.

Advertising a test as non-preppable is dishonest if it relies on noone ever discussing what the format of the test is. I mean every standardized test would be unpreppable if noone ever knew what the test looked like. How effective would an SAT class be if they didn't know reading comprehension, and analogies were going to be on the test?

Believing that a test's format remaining secret is naive. The test had a mild effect the first year it was administered but that was about it. Even if they came up witgh a new format every year, FCPS would have changed the admissions process because they were not concerned about the prepping, there is prepping going on right now. They were concerned about the race of the students.

The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc.

1. They want to “measure your natural ability”.
"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically"

2. Test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.
"Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose."

3. Quant-Q was selected because FCPS was looking for ways to level the playing field - so kids who can't afford expensive test prep programs would have a chance:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

That stance walks on cultural thin ice:

1. Some will believe that it is funethical to reward "natural ability" independent of one's dedication to self-improvement through studying. The idea that there is a notion of independent "natural ability" that should be rewarded will be viewed as inherently supremicist thinking by some.

2. Requiring school kids to sign an NDA to take a test would be considered unethical by some, given than academia is inherently dedicated to the principle of sharing of information. Some might prefer to refuse to sign such an NDA on principle, but to do so would be impossible if the student values admission to TJ.

3. To someone who has studied psychology, it might seem a bit gauche that FCPS's response to feeling inadequate due to due an increasingly competitive applicant pool would be to start empathizing with supposed merit-based limitations of Blacks and Hispanics.

What do you mean by the word “cultural”? I can’t think of any culture on earth that tell kids it’s okay to promise you will not do something and then do it anyway. My parents taught me that that’s dishonest and my experience has been that that is what children are taught all over the world.

Let me give you a couple of relatively extreme examples to show you why your reasoning doesn't make sense:

First, imagine that an authority figure touches a child in an inappropriate way, then tells them that they must not tell their parents. Anyone with a shred of morality should be able to see that it's ok if the child broke this "rule," and they would not consider the rule to have any inherent legitimacy because it would stand to violate deeper rights.

Second, the speed limit is a rule that everyone agrees to follow. Someone sees a 35mph speed limit sign. Is it fundamentally unacceptable for them to drive 4-5mph over the posted limit? You could say yes, but the vast majority of the Northern Virginia population does not, at least as far as empirical evidence would suggest. While it may technically be a rule, most people do not consider it serious enough of a violation to give a second thought.

How do these examples come into play in this situation? Depending on your culture, you may not see it as the testing company's business to require you to keep quiet about what you've seen. Since it's the only pathway to TJ, you don't have the option to avoid the test, thus the testing company doesn't have the right to make you keep quiet. Likewise, since talking about what you've seen on a test after everyone's done with the test is normal in some cultures, the idea that it might be violating some NDA may be viewed as a negligible offense - if they wanted a real NDA, wait until the students grow up and apply for real jobs.

You can moralize about dishonesty all you want, but in this case it is absolutely more of a reflection of your cultural perspective rather than of your integrity.

Hope you didn’t injure yourself with all of that wild mental gymnastics, distorting and rationalizing behavior that is unethical in just about any culture. DP.

I'm sorry that you lack the mental acuity to perceive this perfectly reasonable argument as normal.