Tj prep companies $$$ wow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

I'm not sure about any of that, but it did seem there was a problem since 90% of the admitted students came from a few wealthy schools. The board seems to have remedied that so that all students now have a shot regardless of HHI or access to test prep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

I'm not sure about any of that, but it did seem there was a problem since 90% of the admitted students came from a few wealthy schools. The board seems to have remedied that so that all students now have a shot regardless of HHI or access to test prep.

Yes. Many of the MSs weren’t represented at all. That is the biggest group to benefit from the added seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

I'm not sure about any of that, but it did seem there was a problem since 90% of the admitted students came from a few wealthy schools. The board seems to have remedied that so that all students now have a shot regardless of HHI or access to test prep.

Yes. Many of the MSs weren’t represented at all. That is the biggest group to benefit from the added seats.

The biggest group to benefit were the ones who couldn't get in under a merit based system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

No. It’s providing this public resource to a wider community. Not just the rich kids from feeder schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For many years, people have been appalled at how a public school magnet excluded so many groups in the community. The class of 2024 had less than 1% (0.6%) of the students from low-income families. Very little representation from URMs and MSs with many low-income families. TJ was mostly filled with kids from affluent "feeder" middle schools.

FCPS has changed the TJ admissions process multiple times over the years to address systemic inequalities.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmissions.shtml

Expensive test prep has also been an ongoing issue that exacerbated the lack of representation from certain MSs and groups.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” [school board member] Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. 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.”

"McLaughlin, like other board members, still worries about Washington’s booming test-prep industry. Modeled on Korean “cram” schools, classes meet after school, on weekends, and throughout the summer. “They’ve become professionals at that process of getting into TJ,” says Josh Silverman, a private tutor in the area."


Paying to have access to previous test questions on an NDA-protected test provides an unfair advantage to wealthy kids in admissions for this public school program.

When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

BINGO!

If you're talking about curie, then curie isn't test prep.
Noone does test prep for a high school entrance exam in K-6 and then keep doing it in 9-12.
They do offer a $300 test prep course to current students but there is nothing magical about their test prep that differentiates them from other test prep courses.
What differentiates curie students is the YEARS of extra study.
Curie may have a higher pass rate than the general population but it does not approach 100%. It is a lot closer to 25%.
The overwhelming majority of what makes curie students more qualified is the years and years of studying before they have a single test prep class.

You are effectively wondering why studying leads to better academic results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

You're the only brining race into a race blind process. Further, test buying does not equate to merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For many years, people have been appalled at how a public school magnet excluded so many groups in the community. The class of 2024 had less than 1% (0.6%) of the students from low-income families. Very little representation from URMs and MSs with many low-income families. TJ was mostly filled with kids from affluent "feeder" middle schools.

FCPS has changed the TJ admissions process multiple times over the years to address systemic inequalities.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmissions.shtml

Expensive test prep has also been an ongoing issue that exacerbated the lack of representation from certain MSs and groups.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” [school board member] Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. 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.”

"McLaughlin, like other board members, still worries about Washington’s booming test-prep industry. Modeled on Korean “cram” schools, classes meet after school, on weekends, and throughout the summer. “They’ve become professionals at that process of getting into TJ,” says Josh Silverman, a private tutor in the area."


Paying to have access to previous test questions on an NDA-protected test provides an unfair advantage to wealthy kids in admissions for this public school program.

When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

BINGO!

If you're talking about curie, then curie isn't test prep.
Noone does test prep for a high school entrance exam in K-6 and then keep doing it in 9-12.
They do offer a $300 test prep course to current students but there is nothing magical about their test prep that differentiates them from other test prep courses.
What differentiates curie students is the YEARS of extra study.
Curie may have a higher pass rate than the general population but it does not approach 100%. It is a lot closer to 25%.
The overwhelming majority of what makes curie students more qualified is the years and years of studying before they have a single test prep class.

You are effectively wondering why studying leads to better academic results.

I'd agree that studying a purchased copy of the test leads to an unfair outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

I'm not sure about any of that, but it did seem there was a problem since 90% of the admitted students came from a few wealthy schools. The board seems to have remedied that so that all students now have a shot regardless of HHI or access to test prep.

Yes. Many of the MSs weren’t represented at all. That is the biggest group to benefit from the added seats.

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fcag.org%2FClassOf2024TotalsbySchool.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

There were 49 schools that had more than 10 applicants (the threshhold for showing up in the statistics)
If the acceptance rate was 20% and your school had a proportional number of acceptances then you would need 55 applicants from your school to have more than 10 acceptances.
12 schools had more than 55 applicants.
All of those schools except Glasgow and Twain ended up sending kids to TJ.
These are schools from east fairfax and they have a high rate of FARM students 
Glasgow had 72 applicants with 10 or fewer of them qualifying as a semifinalist for consideration for admissions to TJ with 10 or fewer of them being ultimately admitted
Twain 83 Applicants with 21 qualifying as a semifinalist for consideration for admission to TJ but fewer than 10 of them were admitted.

344 of the admits in 2024 came from 12 school that sent 11 or more students to TJ. So 70% of the admits came from these 12 schools.
1239 of the 2539 applicants came from these schools. So 27% of the applicants from these schools were accepted.
142 came from all other middle schools. There were a total of 1300 applicants from all other middle schools combined.
So 11% of the applicants from other schools were accepted.

The 12 schools with 11 or more students going to TJ are:

School applied semifinalist admitted FARM students
Carson Middle School 286 143 82 12%
Longfellow Middle School 151 96 57 9%
Cooper Middle School 89 57 33 2%
Rocky Run Middle School 149 76 32 15%
Willard Intermediate School 78 33 23 9%
Frost Middle School 90 42 20 13%
Kilmer Middle School 64 28 19 17%
Nysmith 41 20 18 Private
Lake Braddock Middle School 97 36 17 20%
Stone Hill 80 39 16 12%
Jackson Middle School 72 26 15 50%
Lunsford 42 27 12 17%

FCPS is 27% FARM
LCPS is 17% FARM

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fcag.org%2FClassOf2024TotalsbySchool.xlsx&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK

These numbers may still tilt too much towards wealthy schools but it's not 90% from a handful of schools. There appears to be 29 middle schools in FCPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fairfax_County_Public_Schools_middle_schools

And it is clear that without the express preference for FARM students that the overwhelming majority of kids from high FARM schools were not FARM kids. We could absolutely have achieved a high farm rate without eliminating the test or using the 1.5% quota. The 1.5% quota was necessary only to achieve the racial goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

No. It’s providing this public resource to a wider community. Not just the rich kids from feeder schools.

All the email and text traffic between the FCPS board members made it clear that this was predominantly about race.
That was thte wider community you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

You're the only brining race into a race blind process. Further, test buying does not equate to merit.

The board's purpose in changing to a more random process was racial.
Everyone knows this. Denying this just makes everything else you say sound like bullshit.
Claiming that someone bought a test makes your entire side of the argument seem intellectually bankrupt and morally questionalbe.
Do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For many years, people have been appalled at how a public school magnet excluded so many groups in the community. The class of 2024 had less than 1% (0.6%) of the students from low-income families. Very little representation from URMs and MSs with many low-income families. TJ was mostly filled with kids from affluent "feeder" middle schools.

FCPS has changed the TJ admissions process multiple times over the years to address systemic inequalities.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmissions.shtml

Expensive test prep has also been an ongoing issue that exacerbated the lack of representation from certain MSs and groups.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” [school board member] Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. 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.”

"McLaughlin, like other board members, still worries about Washington’s booming test-prep industry. Modeled on Korean “cram” schools, classes meet after school, on weekends, and throughout the summer. “They’ve become professionals at that process of getting into TJ,” says Josh Silverman, a private tutor in the area."


Paying to have access to previous test questions on an NDA-protected test provides an unfair advantage to wealthy kids in admissions for this public school program.

When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

BINGO!

If you're talking about curie, then curie isn't test prep.
Noone does test prep for a high school entrance exam in K-6 and then keep doing it in 9-12.
They do offer a $300 test prep course to current students but there is nothing magical about their test prep that differentiates them from other test prep courses.
What differentiates curie students is the YEARS of extra study.
Curie may have a higher pass rate than the general population but it does not approach 100%. It is a lot closer to 25%.
The overwhelming majority of what makes curie students more qualified is the years and years of studying before they have a single test prep class.

You are effectively wondering why studying leads to better academic results.

I'd agree that studying a purchased copy of the test leads to an unfair outcome.

Gee, that seems newsworthy.
Do you have any links to news reports of this test buying or are you just assuming that the only way someone can do better than your kid is by cheating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

No. It’s providing this public resource to a wider community. Not just the rich kids from feeder schools.

All the email and text traffic between the FCPS board members made it clear that this was predominantly about race.
That was thte wider community you are talking about.

#fakenews

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For many years, people have been appalled at how a public school magnet excluded so many groups in the community. The class of 2024 had less than 1% (0.6%) of the students from low-income families. Very little representation from URMs and MSs with many low-income families. TJ was mostly filled with kids from affluent "feeder" middle schools.

FCPS has changed the TJ admissions process multiple times over the years to address systemic inequalities.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmissions.shtml

Expensive test prep has also been an ongoing issue that exacerbated the lack of representation from certain MSs and groups.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” [school board member] Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. 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.”

"McLaughlin, like other board members, still worries about Washington’s booming test-prep industry. Modeled on Korean “cram” schools, classes meet after school, on weekends, and throughout the summer. “They’ve become professionals at that process of getting into TJ,” says Josh Silverman, a private tutor in the area."


Paying to have access to previous test questions on an NDA-protected test provides an unfair advantage to wealthy kids in admissions for this public school program.

When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

BINGO!

If you're talking about curie, then curie isn't test prep.
Noone does test prep for a high school entrance exam in K-6 and then keep doing it in 9-12.
They do offer a $300 test prep course to current students but there is nothing magical about their test prep that differentiates them from other test prep courses.
What differentiates curie students is the YEARS of extra study.
Curie may have a higher pass rate than the general population but it does not approach 100%. It is a lot closer to 25%.
The overwhelming majority of what makes curie students more qualified is the years and years of studying before they have a single test prep class.

You are effectively wondering why studying leads to better academic results.

I'd agree that studying a purchased copy of the test leads to an unfair outcome.

Gee, that seems newsworthy.
Do you have any links to news reports of this test buying or are you just assuming that the only way someone can do better than your kid is by cheating?

Yes, a half-dozen links to various stories that covered this were posted here just a few weeks ago. It would be best if you looked it up. There was a Facebook group and dozens of first-hand accounts that corroborate this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When a huge portion of the admitted class comes from an expensive test prep company then you know something is wrong.

What 133 admits had in common was that they attend curie
What 355 of the admits had in common was that they were asian
The problem wasn't the preparation of the students that got in, the problem was the skin color of the students that got in.
If the students were less asian and more white/black/hispanic, they would not have changed the merit-based process.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest (bordering on racist) to call curie a test prep company.
They start from pre-school and continue to high school calculus.
They aren't doing this to get into TJ, they are doing this to maximize their education.

It wasn’t a “too many Asians” problem. It was a “not enough URMs, ED, EL, SN” problem.

If they just wanted to cut down on the # of Asian students they wouldn’t have expanded the class size. But they added the seats to ADD the less-represented groups.

Too many asians = too few of everyone else.
You are elevating race above merit and that is racist

No. It’s providing this public resource to a wider community. Not just the rich kids from feeder schools.

Exactly! Students from a few wealthy schools were hoarding these opportunities. The changes made this available to all FCPS students not just those who could afford the test.