Did TJ release the stats of admission by middle school?

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

The decline is due to changes in the SOL test. The scoring is completely different than it used to be.

DP. That would explain the across-the-board declines I've seen. This is the first I've heard about it though. I know they rescore the SOLs every so often, making them harder or easier (lately only harder).

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

At TJ, SOL used to be referred to as 'LOL's since they were a joke and some 99% passed Pass Advance few several ago.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

So you can see that as a sharp decline due to the change in admissions, if you look at the scores on a vacuum. Or you could look more broadly and see that there are steep declines all across the state. Even TJ is not immune to the pandemic and the effects of it.

Or you can use this data as an indictment of students.

DP. You asked for data, and you got it. Now you want to explain it away.

I’m the other PP who asked for it.

Don’t be obtuse. Obviously, there are many factors that contribute towards test scores. It’d be more meaningful if you try to control the variables.

How do these scores look for McLean/Langley for the same time period? Or FCPS/LCPS or VA?

How were upper grade SOL scores at TJ before/after pandemic?

Does VA DOE have some data on the scoring changes?

As the PP said, this didn’t happen in a vacuum.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

The decline is due to changes in the SOL test. The scoring is completely different than it used to be.

DP. That would explain the across-the-board declines I've seen. This is the first I've heard about it though. I know they rescore the SOLs every so often, making them harder or easier (lately only harder).

Yes, changes to the test itself along with the pandemic had an impact on test scores everywhere. Some posters wish to misrepresent this as something else to support their false narrative.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

The decline is due to changes in the SOL test. The scoring is completely different than it used to be.

DP. That would explain the across-the-board declines I've seen. This is the first I've heard about it though. I know they rescore the SOLs every so often, making them harder or easier (lately only harder).

Yes, changes to the test itself along with the pandemic had an impact on test scores everywhere. Some posters wish to misrepresent this as something else to support their false narrative.

Unless you can control for the results and provide a sound defense of your controls, the data is the best evidence. As a hypothesis, it’s reasonable to posit that placing greater emphasis on short essays will be correlated with a decline in objective performance on standardized subject-matter tests.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

Your claim, your data.

Don’t make claims you aren’t willing to back up.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

The decline is due to changes in the SOL test. The scoring is completely different than it used to be.

DP. That would explain the across-the-board declines I've seen. This is the first I've heard about it though. I know they rescore the SOLs every so often, making them harder or easier (lately only harder).

Yes, changes to the test itself along with the pandemic had an impact on test scores everywhere. Some posters wish to misrepresent this as something else to support their false narrative.

Unless you can control for the results and provide a sound defense of your controls, the data is the best evidence. As a hypothesis, it’s reasonable to posit that placing greater emphasis on short essays will be correlated with a decline in objective performance on standardized subject-matter tests.

Ok. So your opinion…because you’re too lazy to analyze any deeper.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

Your claim, your data.

Don’t make claims you aren’t willing to back up.

The data is right there in the link. If you don’t want to click the link and view the data, that’s ok, but the data is still there and my claim is backed by that data. It really is a great tool that allows pretty in depth analysis.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

Your claim, your data.

Don’t make claims you aren’t willing to back up.

PP here who first provided the data. They're correct, but since you seem unable or unwilling to do the legwork yourself, here's the data:

pass advanced rates in Geometry for the 2021/22, 2022/23 school years:
Longfellow: 67, 75
Carson: 73, 86
Frost: 48, 59
TJ: 42, 41

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

Your claim, your data.

Don’t make claims you aren’t willing to back up.

PP here who first provided the data. They're correct, but since you seem unable or unwilling to do the legwork yourself, here's the data:

pass advanced rates in Geometry for the 2021/22, 2022/23 school years:
Longfellow: 67, 75
Carson: 73, 86
Frost: 48, 59
TJ: 42, 41

Why are you comparing TJ to middle schools? The kids taking geometry in MS are the highest math achievers in their school, so of course their pass advanced rates would be high.

On the other hand, the kids taking geometry in TJ are the least advanced in their class, so you'd expect the low scores.


I think the right comparison would be standardized treat scores for Langley/McLean versus TJ for AlgII, Trig and Calc. Both pre and post pandemic. You can control for pandemic-related drop in scores using Langley and McLean's drop. The remaining drop in scores would be attributable to the admissions.

Basically, my question is: are the kids who are getting in through the new admissions struggling in calculus? If so, that's evidence that the new admissions is not working. If these kids are rising to the occasion once they reach calculus, then the new admissions has increased diversity without sacrificing student quality.

[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:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

Your claim, your data.

Don’t make claims you aren’t willing to back up.

PP here who first provided the data. They're correct, but since you seem unable or unwilling to do the legwork yourself, here's the data:

pass advanced rates in Geometry for the 2021/22, 2022/23 school years:
Longfellow: 67, 75
Carson: 73, 86
Frost: 48, 59
TJ: 42, 41

Why are you comparing TJ to middle schools? The kids taking geometry in MS are the highest math achievers in their school, so of course their pass advanced rates would be high.

On the other hand, the kids taking geometry in TJ are the least advanced in their class, so you'd expect the low scores.


I think the right comparison would be standardized treat scores for Langley/McLean versus TJ for AlgII, Trig and Calc. Both pre and post pandemic. You can control for pandemic-related drop in scores using Langley and McLean's drop. The remaining drop in scores would be attributable to the admissions.

Basically, my question is: are the kids who are getting in through the new admissions struggling in calculus? If so, that's evidence that the new admissions is not working. If these kids are rising to the occasion once they reach calculus, then the new admissions has increased diversity without sacrificing student quality.

I'm not. I'm simply providing data that was requested by a PP. Here's a hint: If you click on the "click to show earlier quotes" button, you can see the full context of a conversation. Try to keep up.

Also, shouldn't the kids taking Geometry at TJ be at least as advanced as the middle school Geometry kids who weren't picked for TJ? After all, the argument in many TJ threads is that the math level doesn't show anything, and the kids admitted with only Algebra I are still highly gifted and amazing kids.

[Anonymous]

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pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages.

Data to back that up?

It’s available on the VDOE website right above in this conversation.

Your claim, your data.

Don’t make claims you aren’t willing to back up.

PP here who first provided the data. They're correct, but since you seem unable or unwilling to do the legwork yourself, here's the data:

pass advanced rates in Geometry for the 2021/22, 2022/23 school years:
Longfellow: 67, 75
Carson: 73, 86
Frost: 48, 59
TJ: 42, 41

Why are you comparing TJ to middle schools? The kids taking geometry in MS are the highest math achievers in their school, so of course their pass advanced rates would be high.

On the other hand, the kids taking geometry in TJ are the least advanced in their class, so you'd expect the low scores.


I think the right comparison would be standardized treat scores for Langley/McLean versus TJ for AlgII, Trig and Calc. Both pre and post pandemic. You can control for pandemic-related drop in scores using Langley and McLean's drop. The remaining drop in scores would be attributable to the admissions.

Basically, my question is: are the kids who are getting in through the new admissions struggling in calculus? If so, that's evidence that the new admissions is not working. If these kids are rising to the occasion once they reach calculus, then the new admissions has increased diversity without sacrificing student quality.

I'm not. I'm simply providing data that was requested by a PP. Here's a hint: If you click on the "click to show earlier quotes" button, you can see the full context of a conversation. Try to keep up.

Also, shouldn't the kids taking Geometry at TJ be at least as advanced as the middle school Geometry kids who weren't picked for TJ? After all, the argument in many TJ threads is that the math level doesn't show anything, and the kids admitted with only Algebra I are still highly gifted and amazing kids.

They might be gifted and amazing, but just under-prepared in math from their MS years. That's why I think using trig or calc, after a couple years at TJ, would be a better measure of whether these kids are actually gifted or amazing.

[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:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.

I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.

The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.

Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.

I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.

This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.

You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like.

VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18, and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry: - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.

The decline is due to changes in the SOL test. The scoring is completely different than it used to be.

DP. That would explain the across-the-board declines I've seen. This is the first I've heard about it though. I know they rescore the SOLs every so often, making them harder or easier (lately only harder).

Yes, changes to the test itself along with the pandemic had an impact on test scores everywhere. Some posters wish to misrepresent this as something else to support their false narrative.

Unless you can control for the results and provide a sound defense of your controls, the data is the best evidence. As a hypothesis, it’s reasonable to posit that placing greater emphasis on short essays will be correlated with a decline in objective performance on standardized subject-matter tests.

Test scores are down everywhere and I guess TJ is no different.