Did TJ release the stats of admission by middle school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

Data to back that up?

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

Your claim, your data.

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Sadly, the entire grade suffered because of remote learning, but sure we should have a better picture in a year or two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, TJ isn't actually a magical school with better teachers. TJ is a function of the community it pulls from. If Langley's average SOL pass advanced rates are 55%, then it's expected that TJ won't be a whole lot better. TJ kids are supposedly the best 100+ Langley/McLean/Chantilly kids aren't they?

You can't blame 55% pass rate on the single digit number of kids being accepted from the no-name middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, TJ isn't actually a magical school with better teachers. TJ is a function of the community it pulls from. If Langley's average SOL pass advanced rates are 55%, then it's expected that TJ won't be a whole lot better. TJ kids are supposedly the best 100+ Langley/McLean/Chantilly kids aren't they?

You can't blame 55% pass rate on the single digit number of kids being accepted from the no-name middle schools.

If you look at Langley compared to TJ, maybe you'd quit your yapping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, TJ isn't actually a magical school with better teachers. TJ is a function of the community it pulls from. If Langley's average SOL pass advanced rates are 55%, then it's expected that TJ won't be a whole lot better. TJ kids are supposedly the best 100+ Langley/McLean/Chantilly kids aren't they?

You can't blame 55% pass rate on the single digit number of kids being accepted from the no-name middle schools.

In context for Geometry SOL. The kids you are referring to would have already completed Geometry in their MS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Yeah, TJ isn't actually a magical school with better teachers. TJ is a function of the community it pulls from. If Langley's average SOL pass advanced rates are 55%, then it's expected that TJ won't be a whole lot better. TJ kids are supposedly the best 100+ Langley/McLean/Chantilly kids aren't they?

You can't blame 55% pass rate on the single digit number of kids being accepted from the no-name middle schools.

Entire TJ class is expected to outperform the top 10% of students at Langley or any other FCPS high school. However, due to the lack of STEM evaluation in TJ admissions, replaced by an irrelevant essay, the academic caliber of admitted students relies heavily on chance. The trend of students dropping out during their freshman year and encountering difficulties with pre-calculus, along with not progressing beyond the bare minimum Calc AB, suggests that the lower half of the TJ class does not match the academic caliber of the top 10% of students in FCPS high schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Yeah, TJ isn't actually a magical school with better teachers. TJ is a function of the community it pulls from. If Langley's average SOL pass advanced rates are 55%, then it's expected that TJ won't be a whole lot better. TJ kids are supposedly the best 100+ Langley/McLean/Chantilly kids aren't they?

You can't blame 55% pass rate on the single digit number of kids being accepted from the no-name middle schools.

Entire TJ class is expected to outperform the top 10% of students at Langley or any other FCPS high school. However, due to the lack of STEM evaluation in TJ admissions, replaced by an irrelevant essay, the academic caliber of admitted students relies heavily on chance. The trend of students dropping out during their freshman year and encountering difficulties with pre-calculus, along with not progressing beyond the bare minimum Calc AB, suggests that the lower half of the TJ class does not match the academic caliber of the top 10% of students in FCPS high schools.

Completely FALSE! The class is as good as ever, maybe even better than years past.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

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

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

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

Yeah, TJ isn't actually a magical school with better teachers. TJ is a function of the community it pulls from. If Langley's average SOL pass advanced rates are 55%, then it's expected that TJ won't be a whole lot better. TJ kids are supposedly the best 100+ Langley/McLean/Chantilly kids aren't they?

You can't blame 55% pass rate on the single digit number of kids being accepted from the no-name middle schools.

Of course not, but there are some parents who resent having a fair system that allows all areas of the county a shot at TJ. They preferred the old system where they could simply buy access to the admission test to pretend their kid was gifted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

+1

Parents have complained about how "easy" the SOLs are so they keep making them harder. Parents don't notice so they keep complaining they're too easy while also complaining that students aren't learning as much. They are having it both ways but it's unfair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

+1

Parents have complained about how "easy" the SOLs are so they keep making them harder. Parents don't notice so they keep complaining they're too easy while also complaining that students aren't learning as much. They are having it both ways but it's unfair.

SOL's are still LOL's but no longer concentrated for kids in TJ. The kids are now distributed across more high schools, which is a good thing. TJ is more closer to other well performing high schools in FCPS now. I would not be surprised if slowly they end the unique high end courses offered in the school due to lack of kids interested in the higher level courses. No matter how many academic statistics is presented some people are in denial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

+1

Parents have complained about how "easy" the SOLs are so they keep making them harder. Parents don't notice so they keep complaining they're too easy while also complaining that students aren't learning as much. They are having it both ways but it's unfair.

SOL's are still LOL's but no longer concentrated for kids in TJ. The kids are now distributed across more high schools, which is a good thing. TJ is more closer to other well performing high schools in FCPS now. I would not be surprised if slowly they end the unique high end courses offered in the school due to lack of kids interested in the higher level courses. No matter how many academic statistics is presented some people are in denial.

None of this is correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

+1

Parents have complained about how "easy" the SOLs are so they keep making them harder. Parents don't notice so they keep complaining they're too easy while also complaining that students aren't learning as much. They are having it both ways but it's unfair.

SOL's are still LOL's but no longer concentrated for kids in TJ. The kids are now distributed across more high schools, which is a good thing. TJ is more closer to other well performing high schools in FCPS now. I would not be surprised if slowly they end the unique high end courses offered in the school due to lack of kids interested in the higher level courses. No matter how many academic statistics is presented some people are in denial.

None of this is correct.

Gotta give them points for pushing the false narrative though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

pettifogger wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's a pretty sharp decline.

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

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

+1

Parents have complained about how "easy" the SOLs are so they keep making them harder. Parents don't notice so they keep complaining they're too easy while also complaining that students aren't learning as much. They are having it both ways but it's unfair.

For top half of the class, SOLs are LOLs. For bottom students, SOLs themselves are APs.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting that the applications to TJ seem to be essentially flat after the change in admissions policy. If I recall correctly, the number of applications rose for the Class of 2025 (though still lower than in some prior years before the admissions change), then dipped significantly for the Class of 2026 and was essentially flat for the Class of 2027.

Given that (1) the admissions change allegedly increased "access" to TJ for students who didn't have access because the "old" system was skewed in favor of wealthier kids and (2) the class sizes were expanded from roughly 470 to 550, one would have expected to see a sustained, sizable increase in applications. The fact that this hasn't happened suggests that whatever increase in "access" may have occurred is being offset by a decrease in interest among students and families who now perceive that TJ is less prestigious or no longer appreciates what they bring to the table.

I know some who post here are fine with that, but it underscores that the changes may be leading to unintended consequences - at least if FCPS really wanted to continue to hold out TJ as some type of "flagship" (as opposed to simply a specialized curriculum, like a language immersion program).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's interesting that the applications to TJ seem to be essentially flat after the change in admissions policy. If I recall correctly, the number of applications rose for the Class of 2025 (though still lower than in some prior years before the admissions change), then dipped significantly for the Class of 2026 and was essentially flat for the Class of 2027.

Given that (1) the admissions change allegedly increased "access" to TJ for students who didn't have access because the "old" system was skewed in favor of wealthier kids and (2) the class sizes were expanded from roughly 470 to 550, one would have expected to see a sustained, sizable increase in applications. The fact that this hasn't happened suggests that whatever increase in "access" may have occurred is being offset by a decrease in interest among students and families who now perceive that TJ is less prestigious or no longer appreciates what they bring to the table.

I know some who post here are fine with that, but it underscores that the changes may be leading to unintended consequences - at least if FCPS really wanted to continue to hold out TJ as some type of "flagship" (as opposed to simply a specialized curriculum, like a language immersion program).

calling asian american students as wealthy kids is BS, and racist.

The unusual rise in applicants, among minority racial groups except asian americans, was not due to elimination of application fee, but a desperate move by FCPS to capitalize on the momentum generated by the George Floyd movement. There isn't any genuine upsurge in STEM interest among these applicant groups; rather, it seems to be a calculated effort to diversify the applicant pool with non-Asian applicants, possibly in anticipation of the backlash expected from the forceful reduction of Asian American applicants from 73% to 54%. Of course, application fee was never a problem as can be seen from the number of applicants before and after its removal. No one was stopping non-asian applicants from applying to TJ, except for the lack of stem interest due to lack of FCPS honor classes at bottom 10 middle schools that would help students prepare for TJ rigor.

TJ Applicants / Enrollment year
========================
2,766 2019-20
2,539 2020-21
3,034 2021-22 <== artificially induced surge & switch to essay based admission
2,544 2022-23
2,548 2023-24