Coalition4TJ’s request to block TJ admissions process DENIED 6-3 by Supreme Court

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I argue that low SEN kids who go to poor middle schools purely due to circumstances of birth shouldn’t be punished for having too many barriers to achieving Geometry by 8th.

And then you'll argue that they shouldn't be punished with lower grades once they are at TJ because of these past barriers?

And once the grading is flattened or scaled for equity they'll be even less reason than there is at present to continue with TJHSST.

Interesting fan fiction, but reality is these kids are typically more naturally gifted then the ones who require prep to stand out and will do as well or better in the long run.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I argue that low SEN kids who go to poor middle schools purely due to circumstances of birth shouldn’t be punished for having too many barriers to achieving Geometry by 8th.

OK, how about we use an really hard algebra and problem solving entrance exam and rate the applications based on score? Worked in New York for almost 100 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I argue that low SEN kids who go to poor middle schools purely due to circumstances of birth shouldn’t be punished for having too many barriers to achieving Geometry by 8th.

While I think FCPS should remove all barriers to reaching Geometry by 8th, there honestly aren't that many barriers, even for poorer kids. Gifted kids without any prep can and will earn high NNAT or CogAT scores. Even if they don't, they're often referred by their teachers for AAP. Even if they don't get into AAP, every single FCPS elementary school offers advanced math. If a kid is not in advanced math by 5th or 6th grade, it means the kid has not had particularly good test scores (inclusive of SOLs, iReady, CogAT, beginning-of-year tests), and the kid has also not impressed the teacher in any way.

Assuming the kid is placed in advanced or AAP math, the kid simply needs to meet the fairly low bar of 91st percentile on IAAT and a pass advanced on the SOL. This requires no prep at all for a kid who is bright in math. At many of the lower SES middle schools, these requirements are waived for kids who are vaguely close to qualifying. FCPS gives even the poor kids every chance to qualify for Algebra in 7th grade. The kids who don't qualify simply aren't very good at math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable.

You mean at least Geometry in 8th?

Yes. I think it is fair to ask for a higher level of math at TJ, given the nature of the school. I don't think that taking Algebra 2 or other classes is reasonable. The kids who have those classes are more likely families that have done some type of supplementation and who either knew how to get their kid into Algebra 1 in 6th grade, which is not easy, or whose kids took Geometry in the summer which is less doable for Lower SES families were kids might need to work or watch siblings. The kids who have higher math when they start TJ will be able to move into different math classes more quickly.

Geometry in 8th is reasonable if Algebra in 7th is open to anyone who elects to take it.

+1000. And this is definitely not the case in all middle schools, and access is very limited in Prince William County.

My kid graduated from TJ as a PWC student and had no problem taking Algebra I in the 7th grade and Geometry in the 8th grade and that was several years ago and I would assume it is easier now.

It is some of restricted in FCPS. The kid needs get passed 'advanced' 7th grade math SOL (which is pre-algebra) and score at least 91 percentile on IOWA test (which is also pre-algebra). However, only kids in AAP or Advanced Math are allowed to take either the required SOL or IOWA test, which makes it somewhat restricted. FCPS could remove these test requirements, but I can honestly say that if the kid doesn't understand pre-algebra well enough, Algebra I HN is going to be very difficult and Geo HN even more difficult in 8th grade. My kid scored almost perfect score in Algebra I, but is barely managing an A in Geometry HN and saying its significantly more difficult than Algebra I which was a cake walk for him. However, I would still think FCPS should make Algebra I HN open to all and let the kids decide if they can handle it.

It is similar in PWC as to the SOL/IOWA requirements with only difference being AAP/Adv math track requirement since there is no AAP in PWC. My point was that if PWC kid with no prep and no tutoring (and supposedly subpar education of PWC) can graduate as one of the top students from TJ, virtually any student from any FCPS middle schools should be able to apply without complaining of lack of resources or needing booster points.

+10

[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:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I argue that low SEN kids who go to poor middle schools purely due to circumstances of birth shouldn’t be punished for having too many barriers to achieving Geometry by 8th.

While I think FCPS should remove all barriers to reaching Geometry by 8th, there honestly aren't that many barriers, even for poorer kids. Gifted kids without any prep can and will earn high NNAT or CogAT scores. Even if they don't, they're often referred by their teachers for AAP. Even if they don't get into AAP, every single FCPS elementary school offers advanced math. If a kid is not in advanced math by 5th or 6th grade, it means the kid has not had particularly good test scores (inclusive of SOLs, iReady, CogAT, beginning-of-year tests), and the kid has also not impressed the teacher in any way.

Assuming the kid is placed in advanced or AAP math, the kid simply needs to meet the fairly low bar of 91st percentile on IAAT and a pass advanced on the SOL. This requires no prep at all for a kid who is bright in math. At many of the lower SES middle schools, these requirements are waived for kids who are vaguely close to qualifying. FCPS gives even the poor kids every chance to qualify for Algebra in 7th grade. The kids who don't qualify simply aren't very good at math.

Then why does TJ have to have a lower math track for predominantly low SES kids? If the barriers are zero then there shouldn’t be that gap. Getting teacher recommendations isn’t nearly as straightforward as you claim.Maybe the kids are highly introverted and can do the work but the teacher didn’t know that since they where too distracted trying to just maintain discipline. Maybe they have the “ wrong” accent and vocabulary to be taken seriously. Maybe they could take the after school extra sessions since they had home obligations so didn’t tick the “ motivated” box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

Nailed it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

That's highly illogical. The point of AAP is a more rigorous curriculum. The point of TJ is also a rigorous curriculum. Simple logic follows that students who were previously in a rigorous curriculum are best prepared to continue their education in TJ. It does not follow to artificially lower their chance of admission at TJ. This is anti-merit, is like choosing a college sports team by artificially limiting the number of picks from the best high school teams, and instead going to the bottom teams to pick players for "diversity". This is ludicrous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

Nailed it!

With a wall of text like that, it's unlikely anything was nailed. More like "an attempt was made".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

Basically what you are saying is - whatever suits my kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

You are making big assumptions here, which is the kids who are in AAP have parental support and those who go to center schools have an extra edge. This is simply not true. Sure, my kids do benefit from having educated parents with science background who check on their progress regularly, but some of my kids friends from same schools say that their parents never care or hardly know what they are doing, so they are essentially on their own when it comes to studies. So you conclude non-AAP kids who zoned to center fare way too much competition are just out of their luck and AAP kids who chose to go to non-center school for whatever reason just got lucky because there will be so little competition? Also can you confidently say that kids who got in from non-center schools have done so with out any parental support - may be that support gave them the boost (in addition to other experience factors) over other more ‘deserved’ kids from the same school.

In my opinion, the only ones that need the extra support from schools are poor kids who’s can’t afford or don’t know enough to support their kids - provided, we correctly identify them and not just by clicking ‘yes’ in checkbox that says free meals - I am sure many parents/kids did incorrectly this year as every kid is technically getting free meals this year. Expect for the poor kids, every other kid, irrespective of the school should have equal opportunity to get into TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

You are making big assumptions here, which is the kids who are in AAP have parental support and those who go to center schools have an extra edge. This is simply not true. Sure, my kids do benefit from having educated parents with science background who check on their progress regularly, but some of my kids friends from same schools say that their parents never care or hardly know what they are doing, so they are essentially on their own when it comes to studies. So you conclude non-AAP kids who zoned to center fare way too much competition are just out of their luck and AAP kids who chose to go to non-center school for whatever reason just got lucky because there will be so little competition? Also can you confidently say that kids who got in from non-center schools have done so with out any parental support - may be that support gave them the boost (in addition to other experience factors) over other more ‘deserved’ kids from the same school.

In my opinion, the only ones that need the extra support from schools are poor kids who’s can’t afford or don’t know enough to support their kids - provided, we correctly identify them and not just by clicking ‘yes’ in checkbox that says free meals - I am sure many parents/kids did incorrectly this year as every kid is technically getting free meals this year. Expect for the poor kids, every other kid, irrespective of the school should have equal opportunity to get into TJ.

This attitude is so counter-productive, so anti-progress, that I find it incredibly disheartening that not only are there proponents for it, but that these proponents have been able to implement policies at the top high school in TJ. And here we are having to practice mental self-flagellation and make excuses for the simple act of parents providing for their kids. *WHY* is it is problem for parents to provide for their kids? The entire recorded history of human progress is one where parents provide additional resources and support for their kids, who in turn take advantage of the privileges they are provided with, and our civilization moves forward as a result. We are all in agreement that we should help provide additional support to kids who may have parents who are not able to or are unwilling to provide adequate support for their kids. But there is no rational basis for *penalizing* a child because of the support that the parents provide. This is vile, evil, and destructive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

You are making big assumptions here, which is the kids who are in AAP have parental support and those who go to center schools have an extra edge. This is simply not true. Sure, my kids do benefit from having educated parents with science background who check on their progress regularly, but some of my kids friends from same schools say that their parents never care or hardly know what they are doing, so they are essentially on their own when it comes to studies. So you conclude non-AAP kids who zoned to center fare way too much competition are just out of their luck and AAP kids who chose to go to non-center school for whatever reason just got lucky because there will be so little competition? Also can you confidently say that kids who got in from non-center schools have done so with out any parental support - may be that support gave them the boost (in addition to other experience factors) over other more ‘deserved’ kids from the same school.

In my opinion, the only ones that need the extra support from schools are poor kids who’s can’t afford or don’t know enough to support their kids - provided, we correctly identify them and not just by clicking ‘yes’ in checkbox that says free meals - I am sure many parents/kids did incorrectly this year as every kid is technically getting free meals this year. Expect for the poor kids, every other kid, irrespective of the school should have equal opportunity to get into TJ.

This attitude is so counter-productive, so anti-progress, that I find it incredibly disheartening that not only are there proponents for it, but that these proponents have been able to implement policies at the top high school in TJ. And here we are having to practice mental self-flagellation and make excuses for the simple act of parents providing for their kids. *WHY* is it is problem for parents to provide for their kids? The entire recorded history of human progress is one where parents provide additional resources and support for their kids, who in turn take advantage of the privileges they are provided with, and our civilization moves forward as a result. We are all in agreement that we should help provide additional support to kids who may have parents who are not able to or are unwilling to provide adequate support for their kids. But there is no rational basis for *penalizing* a child because of the support that the parents provide. This is vile, evil, and destructive.

This is not about logic. It is about power and jealousy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair.

it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens.

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM.

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ. If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right?

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.

I agree! This is the most upsetting part of the new process for me. The new process is unfairly punishing AAP kids who are automatically defaulted to center schools and many/most of them aren't aware or might not even be thinking much about TJ in the 6th grade. At the time I didn't even realize that my kid actually had an option to choose base school until he mentioned that one girl from his class was going to base school because her mom works there.

Using attending school rather than zoned school is unfair, even without the additional experience factor for underrepresented schools. Obviously, the policy punishes AAP kids who were trying to have a more rigorous education. But, even if one of the goals is to identify and admit gen ed kids who were missed by the AAP process, they're handling it in an unfair manner. Gen Ed kids zoned to a non-AAP middle school will have minimal competition for the allocated seats. Comparable Gen Ed kids whose base school is an AAP center will find it nearly impossible to get admitted to TJ since they have to compete not only with the AAP kids zoned to their school, but also all of the extra AAP kids zoned to other schools but attending the center.

1000% this! I still don’t understand why proponents of the new process in this forum just don’t get this simple logic and keep defending it!

The logic is just fine. You just want the best of both worlds. You want your kid to go tot he AAP Center and to have the advantage of being at an under represented base school. You can't have both, choose one. If cohort is important to you, then go to the AAP Center. If having a marginally higher chance of getting into TJ is important to you, stay at your base school.

Your other issue is that you think that students who "deserve" TJ fit a specific mold in the math track. Not everyone shares that thought. There are kids who take the next years math class so that they can get an A in it during school. The same thing happens in high school for science classes. Those kids have an advantage over kids whose parents don't have the money to pay for a math class through a private vendor during the summer. Or the time because the kid needs to work to help the family financially or to watch their siblings.

There are kids, like mine, who are in math enrichment programs during the school year. They are more likely to perform well on the IAAT and SOLs making them more likely to be eligible for Algebra in 7th grade. My kid is smart and loves math. He enjoys math classes and competitions, I suspect he would do just fine on the IAAT and SOL without the classes. But there are kids in AAP who are going to mathnasium and RSM and other programs so they can keep pace in AAP. They were attending those programs before they were in AAP, which gave them an edge in selection for AAP. Do those kids "deserve" TJ more because they did better in math, or were in AAP, or had higher standardized test scores? How would htey have performed without the extra math programs? DS started in 3rd, because of COVID and the distance learning mess but we know people whose kids were going in K.

I don't think "deserve" = kids who have done more because their parents knew more about programs and could afford programs.

I think "deserve" means kids who are far better then others in school and want to explore a more advanced option. I don't think that you tell a kid that they don't deserve a spot at a Public School because they did not have the same opportunities as kids at different public schools. And while I get that there are kids who just love math, I don't buy for a second that all the kids in Algebra 2 in 8th grade are there because they love math. I would guess that a decent percentage of those kids are there because their parents want them to go to TJ.

I don't care if TJ is the number one high school in the country. I care that TJ provides a challenging curriculum for really smart kids in FCPS who have an interest in STEM. I don't think you withhold an opportunity from kids who have not had the same exposure to math and science at home but who are also really smart, good at math and science, and just finding it in MS. I think that the kids from homes where there has been less emphasis on school and performing at a high level who end up in Algebra 1 and Geometry in MS are probably more impressive then the kid in Algebra 2 in 8th grade. Because the kids from Lower SES families have not had the same chances to get ahead and have made it further then most other kids in the County. They didn't have the math support at home or through supplemental programs. The Algebra 2 kid is good at math and might even love math but they are also more likely to have had support from their parents and been attending a supplemental program.

So my definition of who "deserves" TJ is different then yours. I am far more impressed with the kids who excel in math and school in general from schools were parents are less involved and there are fewer supports. Those kids have been driven by their individual desire to thrive and learn, they have a grit that my kid does not. Those kids, they deserve TJ.

I have more native intelligence and smarts than the guy who did his PhD in Computer Science. I hear he actually got some extra help from the TA. Shameful. I deserve to have the same job he gets because his knowledge has been attained through unfair means. I am just so smart and so is my son.