Reflections on the "TJ Papers"

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Then why are we having this argument about removing a test that focused on advanced math techniques and discussing the number of students who need “remedial” math? It is totally fine to let in students who demonstrate STEM ability but not acceleration in math. Even desirable. Of course students who are math geniuses should also be admitted. But I am not sure math acceleration is the way to identify that talent.

The problem now is that the math geniuses are not being identified and admitted. The current admissions process is so sparse that all above average kids look more or less the same. Removing the Quant test is just another way that the math geniuses were not identified. The number of students who need "remedial" math would be fine if those kids demonstrated high level STEM ability in other areas. They did not do so. There was nothing in the application to allow them to do so.

Again, no one has suggested looking at math acceleration as the only factor in identifying extreme math talent. Math acceleration + grades in these higher level math classes + teacher recommendations + math awards/achievements in math extracurriculars is what you'd use to identify extreme math talent. I'd be very suspicious of a kid who was highly accelerated and got As, but had no notable math achievements and a meh teacher recommendation.

Previous poster doesn’t understand the point of the Quant-Q or why the prep programs basically made it a pointless exam.

My DC is in the class of 2022. DC didn’t do one second of preparation and I certainly did not pay for a prep class. Plus sometime I feel that the prep class angle is over played. Those showing a desire to put in extra work in whatever it is (sports trainers, tutors, outside classes/camps in a particular subject, street play, etc) should count for something. When it comes to education we should be intervening in the early years not creating policy to adjust for our inability to create a more diverse student body from early on.

It's a red herring. Sure some kids "prepped". But the vast majority of students under previous admission system were simply just smart kids. TJ produces hundreds of national merit semi-finalists. They represents top students in STEM nationally. They went on to perform well in colleges and grad schools. You can't "prep" that. If the "prep" was so easy to do, the rich white parents wouldn't have paid hundreds of thousands to cheat on SATs as varsity blues showed.

The bolded is correct - but there were also hundreds of other kids who were every bit as smart - or smarter - who got leapfrogged because they were competing with kids who walked into an exam designed to test your native problem-solving ability with techniques that were handed to them at a cost of $5K or more to their family. And it was a timed exam where being able to figure out the problems quickly was of tremendous advantage.

FCPS is 100% to blame for that. They knew that was exactly going to happen, but they didn't care to provide that prep to those kids who didn't have the money, awareness, or even access to information. Where were the after school prep programs to help teach them problem solving skills? Were any practice materials even handed out at school? If they wanted to actually help, they would have put $$ instead of empty words. Let's face it, FCPS doesn't give a hoot about minority students applying to TJ.

The admissions process provided links to free prep for the two ACT exams, but the makers of the Quant-Q force anyone who sees it to sign an NDA. So no, FCPS could not provide any sort of free practice materials or prep to the end of improving performance on the Quant-Q. And besides, the purpose of that exam is to test how well and quickly student can identify a complex problem that they haven't seen before and develop a solution for it. When the prep programs got hold of the questions from their previous students, they then charged huge amounts of money to parents so that they could teach students how to solve those problems - making the Quant-Q a pointless exam.

If you go into the Quant-Q already knowing how to solve the types of problems that are on the Quant-Q, it ceases to have any value. It's designed for students to have to struggle with it.

Whre is the proof?

The proof is in the form of students who posted on a forum called TJ Vents on Facebook back in August of 2020. They are members of the Class of 2023 and 2024 whose names appeared on Curie's lists of successful TJ applicants who confirmed in the comment thread of a related post that they were surprised to see questions on the Quant-Q when they took it that they had seen before in their classes at Curie.

The original post was the first public expression of Curie's impact on the TJ admissions process, which was a well-known secret among TJ's South Asian community until a student posted the original anonymous vent.

Dat ain't no proof. GTFO.

I mean, the students at TJ accept it as proof. They believe their colleagues and actually congratulated them on their bravery.

This is fake news. If there was any truth this it would have come up in the lawsuit. FCPS never raised this as a reason the admissions process was changed. Nowhere in the record, the briefs, the TJ papers, etc. does anybody every state they believe Curie had acquired the Quant-Q questions or questions that showed up on the actual TJ test.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.

I will never understand why FCPS did not pursue the Curie cheating scandal. They had first and last names. They had kids stating that they saw the test ahead of time.

I wonder if there was some kind of pay-to-play going on internally within FCPS and they did not want to embarrass/expose their own staff? Or possibly the company that they fired threatened to sue if they embarrassed them?

Whatever the reasons, the FCPS lawyers clearly gave terrible advice during the admissions “reform” process.

The reality is that there wasn’t anything to prosecute. Curie exploited an apparent gap in the process to tremendous profit. And it worked.

In the process, they made it obvious that change was necessary. If you think FCPS and TJ Admissions didn’t know about their 133 kids in 2024, you’re naïve.

Many prep companies pay some admittees to top universities as well as TJ in this case to say they got in because of ABC prep Co. This is a well know fact. Almost always inflated, exaggerated and not very reliable since we will never know. It is called marketing folks. Nothing burger and happens all the time.

Probably, Curie paid some if not most of the TJ students listed on FB to say they got in because of Curie. Move on and stop wasting time on this issue.

More non-falsifiable speculation that conveniently serves a helpful narrative.

Even if true, the fact that they used the names of TJ students to try to create a market that suggests that your best chance of getting into TJ is to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on this private company is incredibly problematic.

And there is absolutely zero evidence to support that claim anyway.

Curie’s existence and apparent success suggests a pay-to-play dynamic in the admissions process of a public school. That’s REALLY bad.

Unfortunately for you, almost all prep companies engage in this type of marketing behavior not just TJ related prep companies. Time to stop wasting people's time on these threads and go investigate your self if you are so obsessed. Hire a private investigator or go talk to other prep companies and find out but stop wasting other people's time.

Nah. I’ll just amplify the publicly available information - which speaks for itself and doesn’t really require further investigation - until there’s no further conversation about using testing metrics that are so easily manipulated by wealthy and motivated applicants.

Just understand that more you do what you do, more FREE advertisements you give to Curie. You are promoting the exact behavior you say you are obsessively against.

Nah. I don’t really care if Curie has success financially. I just want what they do to have significantly less impact on the TJ admissions process. And so far, I’m winning. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but right now I’m happy.

Yeah. Blissfully ignorant.

Nah. They lost nearly half of their share at TJ year over year, from 28% of the Class of 2024 to about 16% of the Class of 2025. The fact that they continued to have that much of the incoming class despite coming off of their best year ever tells me that the effectiveness of the program at getting kids into TJ waned significantly.

I think you're looking at it wrong though. There will always be prep companies stepping up to extract money from unsuspecting (trusting?) individuals, that's just business. [0012] Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for detecting coolant leaks in a server system in accordance with the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with Figure 1. Figure 1 sets forth a diagram of a controller 110 configured for detecting coolant leaks in a server system according to embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, make sure the test is not worth the whole enchilada, but an additional data point. Ideally it would serve as a very low bar filter for getting students past the first round, so choose reasonable low scores. On the other hand, having a high ceiling would also allow it to be used as another data point in the final round. Important note: In order to maintain equity, FCPS should be publishing all past tests and practice material on their website so all can access it. That is how you remove the prep company pay to play impact; not by keeping the test a secret as they so stupidly did in the past.

DP. This is impossible. You are saying that because Test A was preppable and Test B was preppable, that a school district/test company needs to make Test Z that is unpreppable. That doesn't exist. (Actually, there is a test that I know of that is considered to be very accurate with prepping, the LSAT and to some extent but less directly, the MCAT.) As well wish for a pony as for an unpreppable test. Or give students the LSAT...

DP. I don't think they need a Test Z that is unpreppable. They need one where the prep would simply be learning the math or science quite well. TJ could write what is essentially a very hard Honors Algebra I final exam to separate the kids who truly have A+ mastery of the content from those who got watered down As. They could do the same with science. Among the numerous 4.0 gpa applicants, it could help identify the kids who earned their 4.0s vs. the kids who only got them due to grade inflation.

Can't do an Alg1 final if the requirement for eligibility is to be presently enrolled in Alg1. Would have to be based on the first quarter of Alg1, like it was previously.

Okay, then. Surely, someone at TJ could write a very rigorous pre-Algebra test the would differentiate between the kids with a very solid foundation and those who got watered down As.

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this, as long as:

a) the exam were administered during the school day, just like the AMC, so as to ensure maximum participation

b) the exam were scored on a pass-fail basis with a reasonably high but still accessible cut-off point

c) once used to determine baseline suitability, the score was thrown out and never used again to differentiate students

But the reality of the situation is that if you use a non-standardized, non-vetted math exam of any kind for a public school, you open yourself up to challenges of bias that have even greater validity than any of the current challenges.

And additionally, you'd still see massive, extensive prep designed to ensure that students who might be relatively workaday end up "passing", or if you count the score, significantly exceeding their actual capabilities.

Admitting really hard working and driven students that study into a rigorous high school that expects you to be gifted and a high achiever seems fine to me even if these kids may be exceeding their actual capabilities compared to a lazy version of a slightly brighter student. It has worked extremely well in the past (there is a reason it's the number 1 high school in the US) - you just don't like racial makeup of the student body.

It's the number 1 high school in the country because you have ranking services that use exam scores as a metric and the school's old admissions process disallowed students who weren't exceptional test takers from advancing in the process.

The TJ exam didn't do a great job of predicting future success at TJ, any more than the SAT or PSAT predicts success in college or in life. But success on the TJ exam does predict success on the SAT, so that's where the ranking comes from.

The TJ exam in and of itself may not predict success at TJ, but the holistic review of a fairly comprehensive packet certainly did. It's kind of funny that the same people who seem to think that TJ admissions officers can absolutely detect brilliance from the current generic essays seem to have no faith that the same people could detect brilliance through a more comprehensive packet with test scores, teacher recommendations, more elaborate essays, lists of achievements, and so on. Make up your minds on just how psychic or how incompetent these TJ selection panels are.

I agree with you for the most part. I have been advocating for more comprehensive materials and would like to see something more fleshed out, as long as the admissions committee is specifically looking for different types of exceptional students from different backgrounds.

It's really the exam that was the confounding factor, which is why I support the current process, however flawed, moreso than the previous one. But I am adamant in my belief that the eventual process should include more inputs.

PP. This is where we disagree. I support the previous process, however flawed, moreso than the current one. The previous process absolutely did detect and admit those 200-ish kids who are head and shoulders above the FCPS population, truly gifted, and very much in need of a school like TJ. The current process has no way to identify these kids. I'd prefer to have the kids who need TJ to be admitted, even if the bottom half of the class is filled with privileged, prep kids. You'd rather sacrifice the kids who need TJ so you can round out the bottom half of the class with demographics that you find more palatable, even if those kids would be very well served at their base school.

Ultimately, when they revamp the admissions to have a more comprehensive process, we'll end up in the same place.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Curie kids told me there was no difference in their exam performance had they not been to curie. Anyone sending their kids to curie thinking otherwise is wasting their money. The current TJ format is pretty useless where an essay decides if the kids are smart. Not every kid knows all the science topic on earth unless they are generic. They criteria is messed up hence the high number of dropouts. Getting into TJ is one milestone but sailing thru all the stress is a completely different ballgame.

About 170 kids taking Geometry at TJ this year. Yikes.

It's actually about 140, but what's wrong with that? It's a lot lower than the number that took Geometry 10-15 years ago, when the school was in much better shape from a mental health perspective....

They don't belong at ultra advanced and rigorous STEM magnet school.

Why not? Perhaps they have an exceptional aptitude for science or coding or any number of other things.

There are still 400 kids in the class who are advanced beyond Geometry and there will be no end of advanced opportunities for all of the students in those areas.

DP. I have no problem with admitting 8th grade Algebra I students who prove that they have an exceptional aptitude for some aspect of STEM outside of math. I have a huge problem with the current process, which assumes kids are hidden STEM gems without any evidence whatsoever. Since every single FCPS kid has a chance to qualify for Algebra in 7th, and 15% of the entire FCPS 7th grade population enrolls in Algebra I in 7th, I would have no problem with making 8th grade Geometry a soft requirement for admissions to TJ. They could waive the requirement for the very few kids who are weaker in math, but actually demonstrate some sort of exceptional aptitude.

For the most part, those 140ish TJ kids in geometry aren't special, hidden gems in some STEM field. They're routine, slightly above average FCPS kids who largely would have been better served at the base school.

How do you know?

If they are, then it's very fortuitous that they were selected, given that kids had no real way to demonstrate STEM excellence in the application process.

Honestly, I know a few TJ Geometry kids. They're typical UMC, above average AAP kids who tried prepping for IAAT, failed spectacularly, and have no real achievements to their names in any STEM arena. They have very high grades and can write a strong essay. That should not be enough to merit TJ acceptance.

[Anonymous]

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Then why are we having this argument about removing a test that focused on advanced math techniques and discussing the number of students who need “remedial” math? It is totally fine to let in students who demonstrate STEM ability but not acceleration in math. Even desirable. Of course students who are math geniuses should also be admitted. But I am not sure math acceleration is the way to identify that talent.

The problem now is that the math geniuses are not being identified and admitted. The current admissions process is so sparse that all above average kids look more or less the same. Removing the Quant test is just another way that the math geniuses were not identified. The number of students who need "remedial" math would be fine if those kids demonstrated high level STEM ability in other areas. They did not do so. There was nothing in the application to allow them to do so.

Again, no one has suggested looking at math acceleration as the only factor in identifying extreme math talent. Math acceleration + grades in these higher level math classes + teacher recommendations + math awards/achievements in math extracurriculars is what you'd use to identify extreme math talent. I'd be very suspicious of a kid who was highly accelerated and got As, but had no notable math achievements and a meh teacher recommendation.

Previous poster doesn’t understand the point of the Quant-Q or why the prep programs basically made it a pointless exam.

My DC is in the class of 2022. DC didn’t do one second of preparation and I certainly did not pay for a prep class. Plus sometime I feel that the prep class angle is over played. Those showing a desire to put in extra work in whatever it is (sports trainers, tutors, outside classes/camps in a particular subject, street play, etc) should count for something. When it comes to education we should be intervening in the early years not creating policy to adjust for our inability to create a more diverse student body from early on.

It's a red herring. Sure some kids "prepped". But the vast majority of students under previous admission system were simply just smart kids. TJ produces hundreds of national merit semi-finalists. They represents top students in STEM nationally. They went on to perform well in colleges and grad schools. You can't "prep" that. If the "prep" was so easy to do, the rich white parents wouldn't have paid hundreds of thousands to cheat on SATs as varsity blues showed.

The bolded is correct - but there were also hundreds of other kids who were every bit as smart - or smarter - who got leapfrogged because they were competing with kids who walked into an exam designed to test your native problem-solving ability with techniques that were handed to them at a cost of $5K or more to their family. And it was a timed exam where being able to figure out the problems quickly was of tremendous advantage.

FCPS is 100% to blame for that. They knew that was exactly going to happen, but they didn't care to provide that prep to those kids who didn't have the money, awareness, or even access to information. Where were the after school prep programs to help teach them problem solving skills? Were any practice materials even handed out at school? If they wanted to actually help, they would have put $$ instead of empty words. Let's face it, FCPS doesn't give a hoot about minority students applying to TJ.

The admissions process provided links to free prep for the two ACT exams, but the makers of the Quant-Q force anyone who sees it to sign an NDA. So no, FCPS could not provide any sort of free practice materials or prep to the end of improving performance on the Quant-Q. And besides, the purpose of that exam is to test how well and quickly student can identify a complex problem that they haven't seen before and develop a solution for it. When the prep programs got hold of the questions from their previous students, they then charged huge amounts of money to parents so that they could teach students how to solve those problems - making the Quant-Q a pointless exam.

If you go into the Quant-Q already knowing how to solve the types of problems that are on the Quant-Q, it ceases to have any value. It's designed for students to have to struggle with it.

Whre is the proof?

The proof is in the form of students who posted on a forum called TJ Vents on Facebook back in August of 2020. They are members of the Class of 2023 and 2024 whose names appeared on Curie's lists of successful TJ applicants who confirmed in the comment thread of a related post that they were surprised to see questions on the Quant-Q when they took it that they had seen before in their classes at Curie.

The original post was the first public expression of Curie's impact on the TJ admissions process, which was a well-known secret among TJ's South Asian community until a student posted the original anonymous vent.

Dat ain't no proof. GTFO.

I mean, the students at TJ accept it as proof. They believe their colleagues and actually congratulated them on their bravery.

This is fake news. If there was any truth this it would have come up in the lawsuit. FCPS never raised this as a reason the admissions process was changed. Nowhere in the record, the briefs, the TJ papers, etc. does anybody every state they believe Curie had acquired the Quant-Q questions or questions that showed up on the actual TJ test.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.

I will never understand why FCPS did not pursue the Curie cheating scandal. They had first and last names. They had kids stating that they saw the test ahead of time.

I wonder if there was some kind of pay-to-play going on internally within FCPS and they did not want to embarrass/expose their own staff? Or possibly the company that they fired threatened to sue if they embarrassed them?

Whatever the reasons, the FCPS lawyers clearly gave terrible advice during the admissions “reform” process.

The reality is that there wasn’t anything to prosecute. Curie exploited an apparent gap in the process to tremendous profit. And it worked.

In the process, they made it obvious that change was necessary. If you think FCPS and TJ Admissions didn’t know about their 133 kids in 2024, you’re naïve.

Many prep companies pay some admittees to top universities as well as TJ in this case to say they got in because of ABC prep Co. This is a well know fact. Almost always inflated, exaggerated and not very reliable since we will never know. It is called marketing folks. Nothing burger and happens all the time.

Probably, Curie paid some if not most of the TJ students listed on FB to say they got in because of Curie. Move on and stop wasting time on this issue.

More non-falsifiable speculation that conveniently serves a helpful narrative.

Even if true, the fact that they used the names of TJ students to try to create a market that suggests that your best chance of getting into TJ is to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on this private company is incredibly problematic.

And there is absolutely zero evidence to support that claim anyway.

Curie’s existence and apparent success suggests a pay-to-play dynamic in the admissions process of a public school. That’s REALLY bad.

Unfortunately for you, almost all prep companies engage in this type of marketing behavior not just TJ related prep companies. Time to stop wasting people's time on these threads and go investigate your self if you are so obsessed. Hire a private investigator or go talk to other prep companies and find out but stop wasting other people's time.

Nah. I’ll just amplify the publicly available information - which speaks for itself and doesn’t really require further investigation - until there’s no further conversation about using testing metrics that are so easily manipulated by wealthy and motivated applicants.

Just understand that more you do what you do, more FREE advertisements you give to Curie. You are promoting the exact behavior you say you are obsessively against.

Nah. I don’t really care if Curie has success financially. I just want what they do to have significantly less impact on the TJ admissions process. And so far, I’m winning. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but right now I’m happy.

Yeah. Blissfully ignorant.

Nah. They lost nearly half of their share at TJ year over year, from 28% of the Class of 2024 to about 16% of the Class of 2025. The fact that they continued to have that much of the incoming class despite coming off of their best year ever tells me that the effectiveness of the program at getting kids into TJ waned significantly.

I think you're looking at it wrong though. There will always be prep companies stepping up to extract money from unsuspecting (trusting?) individuals, that's just business. [0012] Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for detecting coolant leaks in a server system in accordance with the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with Figure 1. Figure 1 sets forth a diagram of a controller 110 configured for detecting coolant leaks in a server system according to embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, make sure the test is not worth the whole enchilada, but an additional data point. Ideally it would serve as a very low bar filter for getting students past the first round, so choose reasonable low scores. On the other hand, having a high ceiling would also allow it to be used as another data point in the final round. Important note: In order to maintain equity, FCPS should be publishing all past tests and practice material on their website so all can access it. That is how you remove the prep company pay to play impact; not by keeping the test a secret as they so stupidly did in the past.

DP. This is impossible. You are saying that because Test A was preppable and Test B was preppable, that a school district/test company needs to make Test Z that is unpreppable. That doesn't exist. (Actually, there is a test that I know of that is considered to be very accurate with prepping, the LSAT and to some extent but less directly, the MCAT.) As well wish for a pony as for an unpreppable test. Or give students the LSAT...

DP. I don't think they need a Test Z that is unpreppable. They need one where the prep would simply be learning the math or science quite well. TJ could write what is essentially a very hard Honors Algebra I final exam to separate the kids who truly have A+ mastery of the content from those who got watered down As. They could do the same with science. Among the numerous 4.0 gpa applicants, it could help identify the kids who earned their 4.0s vs. the kids who only got them due to grade inflation.

Can't do an Alg1 final if the requirement for eligibility is to be presently enrolled in Alg1. Would have to be based on the first quarter of Alg1, like it was previously.

Okay, then. Surely, someone at TJ could write a very rigorous pre-Algebra test the would differentiate between the kids with a very solid foundation and those who got watered down As.

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this, as long as:

a) the exam were administered during the school day, just like the AMC, so as to ensure maximum participation

b) the exam were scored on a pass-fail basis with a reasonably high but still accessible cut-off point

c) once used to determine baseline suitability, the score was thrown out and never used again to differentiate students

But the reality of the situation is that if you use a non-standardized, non-vetted math exam of any kind for a public school, you open yourself up to challenges of bias that have even greater validity than any of the current challenges.

And additionally, you'd still see massive, extensive prep designed to ensure that students who might be relatively workaday end up "passing", or if you count the score, significantly exceeding their actual capabilities.

Admitting really hard working and driven students that study into a rigorous high school that expects you to be gifted and a high achiever seems fine to me even if these kids may be exceeding their actual capabilities compared to a lazy version of a slightly brighter student. It has worked extremely well in the past (there is a reason it's the number 1 high school in the US) - you just don't like racial makeup of the student body.

It's the number 1 high school in the country because you have ranking services that use exam scores as a metric and the school's old admissions process disallowed students who weren't exceptional test takers from advancing in the process.

The TJ exam didn't do a great job of predicting future success at TJ, any more than the SAT or PSAT predicts success in college or in life. But success on the TJ exam does predict success on the SAT, so that's where the ranking comes from.

The TJ exam in and of itself may not predict success at TJ, but the holistic review of a fairly comprehensive packet certainly did. It's kind of funny that the same people who seem to think that TJ admissions officers can absolutely detect brilliance from the current generic essays seem to have no faith that the same people could detect brilliance through a more comprehensive packet with test scores, teacher recommendations, more elaborate essays, lists of achievements, and so on. Make up your minds on just how psychic or how incompetent these TJ selection panels are.

I agree with you for the most part. I have been advocating for more comprehensive materials and would like to see something more fleshed out, as long as the admissions committee is specifically looking for different types of exceptional students from different backgrounds.

It's really the exam that was the confounding factor, which is why I support the current process, however flawed, moreso than the previous one. But I am adamant in my belief that the eventual process should include more inputs.

PP. This is where we disagree. I support the previous process, however flawed, moreso than the current one. The previous process absolutely did detect and admit those 200-ish kids who are head and shoulders above the FCPS population, truly gifted, and very much in need of a school like TJ. The current process has no way to identify these kids. I'd prefer to have the kids who need TJ to be admitted, even if the bottom half of the class is filled with privileged, prep kids. You'd rather sacrifice the kids who need TJ so you can round out the bottom half of the class with demographics that you find more palatable, even if those kids would be very well served at their base school.

Ultimately, when they revamp the admissions to have a more comprehensive process, we'll end up in the same place.

Couldn't agree more. We need more comprehensive evaluation and students with stronger math background. The current process waters down so much that its very difficult to distinguish STEM talent with 'run of the mill' grades and standard essays which tests writing skills more than anything. On top, quotas and the free 'bonus' points dumbs down the evaluation even further and increases infighting in specific AAP centers who might all look very similar on paper in the eyes of current process. If unable to clearly flush out the talent, then the process essentially acts as a lottery and we have no idea how many 'deserved' kids will be left out.

[Anonymous]

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Then why are we having this argument about removing a test that focused on advanced math techniques and discussing the number of students who need “remedial” math? It is totally fine to let in students who demonstrate STEM ability but not acceleration in math. Even desirable. Of course students who are math geniuses should also be admitted. But I am not sure math acceleration is the way to identify that talent.

The problem now is that the math geniuses are not being identified and admitted. The current admissions process is so sparse that all above average kids look more or less the same. Removing the Quant test is just another way that the math geniuses were not identified. The number of students who need "remedial" math would be fine if those kids demonstrated high level STEM ability in other areas. They did not do so. There was nothing in the application to allow them to do so.

Again, no one has suggested looking at math acceleration as the only factor in identifying extreme math talent. Math acceleration + grades in these higher level math classes + teacher recommendations + math awards/achievements in math extracurriculars is what you'd use to identify extreme math talent. I'd be very suspicious of a kid who was highly accelerated and got As, but had no notable math achievements and a meh teacher recommendation.

Previous poster doesn’t understand the point of the Quant-Q or why the prep programs basically made it a pointless exam.

My DC is in the class of 2022. DC didn’t do one second of preparation and I certainly did not pay for a prep class. Plus sometime I feel that the prep class angle is over played. Those showing a desire to put in extra work in whatever it is (sports trainers, tutors, outside classes/camps in a particular subject, street play, etc) should count for something. When it comes to education we should be intervening in the early years not creating policy to adjust for our inability to create a more diverse student body from early on.

It's a red herring. Sure some kids "prepped". But the vast majority of students under previous admission system were simply just smart kids. TJ produces hundreds of national merit semi-finalists. They represents top students in STEM nationally. They went on to perform well in colleges and grad schools. You can't "prep" that. If the "prep" was so easy to do, the rich white parents wouldn't have paid hundreds of thousands to cheat on SATs as varsity blues showed.

The bolded is correct - but there were also hundreds of other kids who were every bit as smart - or smarter - who got leapfrogged because they were competing with kids who walked into an exam designed to test your native problem-solving ability with techniques that were handed to them at a cost of $5K or more to their family. And it was a timed exam where being able to figure out the problems quickly was of tremendous advantage.

FCPS is 100% to blame for that. They knew that was exactly going to happen, but they didn't care to provide that prep to those kids who didn't have the money, awareness, or even access to information. Where were the after school prep programs to help teach them problem solving skills? Were any practice materials even handed out at school? If they wanted to actually help, they would have put $$ instead of empty words. Let's face it, FCPS doesn't give a hoot about minority students applying to TJ.

The admissions process provided links to free prep for the two ACT exams, but the makers of the Quant-Q force anyone who sees it to sign an NDA. So no, FCPS could not provide any sort of free practice materials or prep to the end of improving performance on the Quant-Q. And besides, the purpose of that exam is to test how well and quickly student can identify a complex problem that they haven't seen before and develop a solution for it. When the prep programs got hold of the questions from their previous students, they then charged huge amounts of money to parents so that they could teach students how to solve those problems - making the Quant-Q a pointless exam.

If you go into the Quant-Q already knowing how to solve the types of problems that are on the Quant-Q, it ceases to have any value. It's designed for students to have to struggle with it.

Whre is the proof?

The proof is in the form of students who posted on a forum called TJ Vents on Facebook back in August of 2020. They are members of the Class of 2023 and 2024 whose names appeared on Curie's lists of successful TJ applicants who confirmed in the comment thread of a related post that they were surprised to see questions on the Quant-Q when they took it that they had seen before in their classes at Curie.

The original post was the first public expression of Curie's impact on the TJ admissions process, which was a well-known secret among TJ's South Asian community until a student posted the original anonymous vent.

Dat ain't no proof. GTFO.

I mean, the students at TJ accept it as proof. They believe their colleagues and actually congratulated them on their bravery.

This is fake news. If there was any truth this it would have come up in the lawsuit. FCPS never raised this as a reason the admissions process was changed. Nowhere in the record, the briefs, the TJ papers, etc. does anybody every state they believe Curie had acquired the Quant-Q questions or questions that showed up on the actual TJ test.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.

I will never understand why FCPS did not pursue the Curie cheating scandal. They had first and last names. They had kids stating that they saw the test ahead of time.

I wonder if there was some kind of pay-to-play going on internally within FCPS and they did not want to embarrass/expose their own staff? Or possibly the company that they fired threatened to sue if they embarrassed them?

Whatever the reasons, the FCPS lawyers clearly gave terrible advice during the admissions “reform” process.

The reality is that there wasn’t anything to prosecute. Curie exploited an apparent gap in the process to tremendous profit. And it worked.

In the process, they made it obvious that change was necessary. If you think FCPS and TJ Admissions didn’t know about their 133 kids in 2024, you’re naïve.

Many prep companies pay some admittees to top universities as well as TJ in this case to say they got in because of ABC prep Co. This is a well know fact. Almost always inflated, exaggerated and not very reliable since we will never know. It is called marketing folks. Nothing burger and happens all the time.

Probably, Curie paid some if not most of the TJ students listed on FB to say they got in because of Curie. Move on and stop wasting time on this issue.

More non-falsifiable speculation that conveniently serves a helpful narrative.

Even if true, the fact that they used the names of TJ students to try to create a market that suggests that your best chance of getting into TJ is to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on this private company is incredibly problematic.

And there is absolutely zero evidence to support that claim anyway.

Curie’s existence and apparent success suggests a pay-to-play dynamic in the admissions process of a public school. That’s REALLY bad.

Unfortunately for you, almost all prep companies engage in this type of marketing behavior not just TJ related prep companies. Time to stop wasting people's time on these threads and go investigate your self if you are so obsessed. Hire a private investigator or go talk to other prep companies and find out but stop wasting other people's time.

Nah. I’ll just amplify the publicly available information - which speaks for itself and doesn’t really require further investigation - until there’s no further conversation about using testing metrics that are so easily manipulated by wealthy and motivated applicants.

Just understand that more you do what you do, more FREE advertisements you give to Curie. You are promoting the exact behavior you say you are obsessively against.

Nah. I don’t really care if Curie has success financially. I just want what they do to have significantly less impact on the TJ admissions process. And so far, I’m winning. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but right now I’m happy.

Yeah. Blissfully ignorant.

Nah. They lost nearly half of their share at TJ year over year, from 28% of the Class of 2024 to about 16% of the Class of 2025. The fact that they continued to have that much of the incoming class despite coming off of their best year ever tells me that the effectiveness of the program at getting kids into TJ waned significantly.

I think you're looking at it wrong though. There will always be prep companies stepping up to extract money from unsuspecting (trusting?) individuals, that's just business. [0012] Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for detecting coolant leaks in a server system in accordance with the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with Figure 1. Figure 1 sets forth a diagram of a controller 110 configured for detecting coolant leaks in a server system according to embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, make sure the test is not worth the whole enchilada, but an additional data point. Ideally it would serve as a very low bar filter for getting students past the first round, so choose reasonable low scores. On the other hand, having a high ceiling would also allow it to be used as another data point in the final round. Important note: In order to maintain equity, FCPS should be publishing all past tests and practice material on their website so all can access it. That is how you remove the prep company pay to play impact; not by keeping the test a secret as they so stupidly did in the past.

DP. This is impossible. You are saying that because Test A was preppable and Test B was preppable, that a school district/test company needs to make Test Z that is unpreppable. That doesn't exist. (Actually, there is a test that I know of that is considered to be very accurate with prepping, the LSAT and to some extent but less directly, the MCAT.) As well wish for a pony as for an unpreppable test. Or give students the LSAT...

DP. I don't think they need a Test Z that is unpreppable. They need one where the prep would simply be learning the math or science quite well. TJ could write what is essentially a very hard Honors Algebra I final exam to separate the kids who truly have A+ mastery of the content from those who got watered down As. They could do the same with science. Among the numerous 4.0 gpa applicants, it could help identify the kids who earned their 4.0s vs. the kids who only got them due to grade inflation.

Can't do an Alg1 final if the requirement for eligibility is to be presently enrolled in Alg1. Would have to be based on the first quarter of Alg1, like it was previously.

Okay, then. Surely, someone at TJ could write a very rigorous pre-Algebra test the would differentiate between the kids with a very solid foundation and those who got watered down As.

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this, as long as:

a) the exam were administered during the school day, just like the AMC, so as to ensure maximum participation

b) the exam were scored on a pass-fail basis with a reasonably high but still accessible cut-off point

c) once used to determine baseline suitability, the score was thrown out and never used again to differentiate students

But the reality of the situation is that if you use a non-standardized, non-vetted math exam of any kind for a public school, you open yourself up to challenges of bias that have even greater validity than any of the current challenges.

And additionally, you'd still see massive, extensive prep designed to ensure that students who might be relatively workaday end up "passing", or if you count the score, significantly exceeding their actual capabilities.

Admitting really hard working and driven students that study into a rigorous high school that expects you to be gifted and a high achiever seems fine to me even if these kids may be exceeding their actual capabilities compared to a lazy version of a slightly brighter student. It has worked extremely well in the past (there is a reason it's the number 1 high school in the US) - you just don't like racial makeup of the student body.

It's the number 1 high school in the country because you have ranking services that use exam scores as a metric and the school's old admissions process disallowed students who weren't exceptional test takers from advancing in the process.

The TJ exam didn't do a great job of predicting future success at TJ, any more than the SAT or PSAT predicts success in college or in life. But success on the TJ exam does predict success on the SAT, so that's where the ranking comes from.

The TJ exam in and of itself may not predict success at TJ, but the holistic review of a fairly comprehensive packet certainly did. It's kind of funny that the same people who seem to think that TJ admissions officers can absolutely detect brilliance from the current generic essays seem to have no faith that the same people could detect brilliance through a more comprehensive packet with test scores, teacher recommendations, more elaborate essays, lists of achievements, and so on. Make up your minds on just how psychic or how incompetent these TJ selection panels are.

I agree with you for the most part. I have been advocating for more comprehensive materials and would like to see something more fleshed out, as long as the admissions committee is specifically looking for different types of exceptional students from different backgrounds.

It's really the exam that was the confounding factor, which is why I support the current process, however flawed, moreso than the previous one. But I am adamant in my belief that the eventual process should include more inputs.

PP. This is where we disagree. I support the previous process, however flawed, moreso than the current one. The previous process absolutely did detect and admit those 200-ish kids who are head and shoulders above the FCPS population, truly gifted, and very much in need of a school like TJ. The current process has no way to identify these kids. I'd prefer to have the kids who need TJ to be admitted, even if the bottom half of the class is filled with privileged, prep kids. You'd rather sacrifice the kids who need TJ so you can round out the bottom half of the class with demographics that you find more palatable, even if those kids would be very well served at their base school.

Ultimately, when they revamp the admissions to have a more comprehensive process, we'll end up in the same place.

Decades of experience at TJ suggests that the real number is more like 75-100 truly exceptional kids at TJ, with a look at the rest of the county suggesting that many were missed each year.

We get into trouble when we suggest that the old admissions process was particularly great at finding the exceptional kids - or at least, any moreso than the current process is.

I think we would agree that we have a long way to go to get to correct. But we no matter what process we eventually land on, we should all be able to agree - because it's not something that's really up for debate by reasonable individuals - that we have a great chance of success in unearthing those talents from ALL demographics if they feel as though they are welcome at the school. And they weren't previously, and they are now.

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Then why are we having this argument about removing a test that focused on advanced math techniques and discussing the number of students who need “remedial” math? It is totally fine to let in students who demonstrate STEM ability but not acceleration in math. Even desirable. Of course students who are math geniuses should also be admitted. But I am not sure math acceleration is the way to identify that talent.

The problem now is that the math geniuses are not being identified and admitted. The current admissions process is so sparse that all above average kids look more or less the same. Removing the Quant test is just another way that the math geniuses were not identified. The number of students who need "remedial" math would be fine if those kids demonstrated high level STEM ability in other areas. They did not do so. There was nothing in the application to allow them to do so.

Again, no one has suggested looking at math acceleration as the only factor in identifying extreme math talent. Math acceleration + grades in these higher level math classes + teacher recommendations + math awards/achievements in math extracurriculars is what you'd use to identify extreme math talent. I'd be very suspicious of a kid who was highly accelerated and got As, but had no notable math achievements and a meh teacher recommendation.

Previous poster doesn’t understand the point of the Quant-Q or why the prep programs basically made it a pointless exam.

My DC is in the class of 2022. DC didn’t do one second of preparation and I certainly did not pay for a prep class. Plus sometime I feel that the prep class angle is over played. Those showing a desire to put in extra work in whatever it is (sports trainers, tutors, outside classes/camps in a particular subject, street play, etc) should count for something. When it comes to education we should be intervening in the early years not creating policy to adjust for our inability to create a more diverse student body from early on.

It's a red herring. Sure some kids "prepped". But the vast majority of students under previous admission system were simply just smart kids. TJ produces hundreds of national merit semi-finalists. They represents top students in STEM nationally. They went on to perform well in colleges and grad schools. You can't "prep" that. If the "prep" was so easy to do, the rich white parents wouldn't have paid hundreds of thousands to cheat on SATs as varsity blues showed.

The bolded is correct - but there were also hundreds of other kids who were every bit as smart - or smarter - who got leapfrogged because they were competing with kids who walked into an exam designed to test your native problem-solving ability with techniques that were handed to them at a cost of $5K or more to their family. And it was a timed exam where being able to figure out the problems quickly was of tremendous advantage.

FCPS is 100% to blame for that. They knew that was exactly going to happen, but they didn't care to provide that prep to those kids who didn't have the money, awareness, or even access to information. Where were the after school prep programs to help teach them problem solving skills? Were any practice materials even handed out at school? If they wanted to actually help, they would have put $$ instead of empty words. Let's face it, FCPS doesn't give a hoot about minority students applying to TJ.

The admissions process provided links to free prep for the two ACT exams, but the makers of the Quant-Q force anyone who sees it to sign an NDA. So no, FCPS could not provide any sort of free practice materials or prep to the end of improving performance on the Quant-Q. And besides, the purpose of that exam is to test how well and quickly student can identify a complex problem that they haven't seen before and develop a solution for it. When the prep programs got hold of the questions from their previous students, they then charged huge amounts of money to parents so that they could teach students how to solve those problems - making the Quant-Q a pointless exam.

If you go into the Quant-Q already knowing how to solve the types of problems that are on the Quant-Q, it ceases to have any value. It's designed for students to have to struggle with it.

Whre is the proof?

The proof is in the form of students who posted on a forum called TJ Vents on Facebook back in August of 2020. They are members of the Class of 2023 and 2024 whose names appeared on Curie's lists of successful TJ applicants who confirmed in the comment thread of a related post that they were surprised to see questions on the Quant-Q when they took it that they had seen before in their classes at Curie.

The original post was the first public expression of Curie's impact on the TJ admissions process, which was a well-known secret among TJ's South Asian community until a student posted the original anonymous vent.

Dat ain't no proof. GTFO.

I mean, the students at TJ accept it as proof. They believe their colleagues and actually congratulated them on their bravery.

This is fake news. If there was any truth this it would have come up in the lawsuit. FCPS never raised this as a reason the admissions process was changed. Nowhere in the record, the briefs, the TJ papers, etc. does anybody every state they believe Curie had acquired the Quant-Q questions or questions that showed up on the actual TJ test.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.

I will never understand why FCPS did not pursue the Curie cheating scandal. They had first and last names. They had kids stating that they saw the test ahead of time.

I wonder if there was some kind of pay-to-play going on internally within FCPS and they did not want to embarrass/expose their own staff? Or possibly the company that they fired threatened to sue if they embarrassed them?

Whatever the reasons, the FCPS lawyers clearly gave terrible advice during the admissions “reform” process.

The reality is that there wasn’t anything to prosecute. Curie exploited an apparent gap in the process to tremendous profit. And it worked.

In the process, they made it obvious that change was necessary. If you think FCPS and TJ Admissions didn’t know about their 133 kids in 2024, you’re naïve.

Many prep companies pay some admittees to top universities as well as TJ in this case to say they got in because of ABC prep Co. This is a well know fact. Almost always inflated, exaggerated and not very reliable since we will never know. It is called marketing folks. Nothing burger and happens all the time.

Probably, Curie paid some if not most of the TJ students listed on FB to say they got in because of Curie. Move on and stop wasting time on this issue.

More non-falsifiable speculation that conveniently serves a helpful narrative.

Even if true, the fact that they used the names of TJ students to try to create a market that suggests that your best chance of getting into TJ is to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on this private company is incredibly problematic.

And there is absolutely zero evidence to support that claim anyway.

Curie’s existence and apparent success suggests a pay-to-play dynamic in the admissions process of a public school. That’s REALLY bad.

Unfortunately for you, almost all prep companies engage in this type of marketing behavior not just TJ related prep companies. Time to stop wasting people's time on these threads and go investigate your self if you are so obsessed. Hire a private investigator or go talk to other prep companies and find out but stop wasting other people's time.

Nah. I’ll just amplify the publicly available information - which speaks for itself and doesn’t really require further investigation - until there’s no further conversation about using testing metrics that are so easily manipulated by wealthy and motivated applicants.

Just understand that more you do what you do, more FREE advertisements you give to Curie. You are promoting the exact behavior you say you are obsessively against.

Nah. I don’t really care if Curie has success financially. I just want what they do to have significantly less impact on the TJ admissions process. And so far, I’m winning. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but right now I’m happy.

Yeah. Blissfully ignorant.

Nah. They lost nearly half of their share at TJ year over year, from 28% of the Class of 2024 to about 16% of the Class of 2025. The fact that they continued to have that much of the incoming class despite coming off of their best year ever tells me that the effectiveness of the program at getting kids into TJ waned significantly.

I think you're looking at it wrong though. There will always be prep companies stepping up to extract money from unsuspecting (trusting?) individuals, that's just business. [0012] Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for detecting coolant leaks in a server system in accordance with the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with Figure 1. Figure 1 sets forth a diagram of a controller 110 configured for detecting coolant leaks in a server system according to embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, make sure the test is not worth the whole enchilada, but an additional data point. Ideally it would serve as a very low bar filter for getting students past the first round, so choose reasonable low scores. On the other hand, having a high ceiling would also allow it to be used as another data point in the final round. Important note: In order to maintain equity, FCPS should be publishing all past tests and practice material on their website so all can access it. That is how you remove the prep company pay to play impact; not by keeping the test a secret as they so stupidly did in the past.

DP. This is impossible. You are saying that because Test A was preppable and Test B was preppable, that a school district/test company needs to make Test Z that is unpreppable. That doesn't exist. (Actually, there is a test that I know of that is considered to be very accurate with prepping, the LSAT and to some extent but less directly, the MCAT.) As well wish for a pony as for an unpreppable test. Or give students the LSAT...

DP. I don't think they need a Test Z that is unpreppable. They need one where the prep would simply be learning the math or science quite well. TJ could write what is essentially a very hard Honors Algebra I final exam to separate the kids who truly have A+ mastery of the content from those who got watered down As. They could do the same with science. Among the numerous 4.0 gpa applicants, it could help identify the kids who earned their 4.0s vs. the kids who only got them due to grade inflation.

Can't do an Alg1 final if the requirement for eligibility is to be presently enrolled in Alg1. Would have to be based on the first quarter of Alg1, like it was previously.

Okay, then. Surely, someone at TJ could write a very rigorous pre-Algebra test the would differentiate between the kids with a very solid foundation and those who got watered down As.

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this, as long as:

a) the exam were administered during the school day, just like the AMC, so as to ensure maximum participation

b) the exam were scored on a pass-fail basis with a reasonably high but still accessible cut-off point

c) once used to determine baseline suitability, the score was thrown out and never used again to differentiate students

But the reality of the situation is that if you use a non-standardized, non-vetted math exam of any kind for a public school, you open yourself up to challenges of bias that have even greater validity than any of the current challenges.

And additionally, you'd still see massive, extensive prep designed to ensure that students who might be relatively workaday end up "passing", or if you count the score, significantly exceeding their actual capabilities.

Admitting really hard working and driven students that study into a rigorous high school that expects you to be gifted and a high achiever seems fine to me even if these kids may be exceeding their actual capabilities compared to a lazy version of a slightly brighter student. It has worked extremely well in the past (there is a reason it's the number 1 high school in the US) - you just don't like racial makeup of the student body.

It's the number 1 high school in the country because you have ranking services that use exam scores as a metric and the school's old admissions process disallowed students who weren't exceptional test takers from advancing in the process.

The TJ exam didn't do a great job of predicting future success at TJ, any more than the SAT or PSAT predicts success in college or in life. But success on the TJ exam does predict success on the SAT, so that's where the ranking comes from.

The TJ exam in and of itself may not predict success at TJ, but the holistic review of a fairly comprehensive packet certainly did. It's kind of funny that the same people who seem to think that TJ admissions officers can absolutely detect brilliance from the current generic essays seem to have no faith that the same people could detect brilliance through a more comprehensive packet with test scores, teacher recommendations, more elaborate essays, lists of achievements, and so on. Make up your minds on just how psychic or how incompetent these TJ selection panels are.

I agree with you for the most part. I have been advocating for more comprehensive materials and would like to see something more fleshed out, as long as the admissions committee is specifically looking for different types of exceptional students from different backgrounds.

It's really the exam that was the confounding factor, which is why I support the current process, however flawed, moreso than the previous one. But I am adamant in my belief that the eventual process should include more inputs.

PP. This is where we disagree. I support the previous process, however flawed, moreso than the current one. The previous process absolutely did detect and admit those 200-ish kids who are head and shoulders above the FCPS population, truly gifted, and very much in need of a school like TJ. The current process has no way to identify these kids. I'd prefer to have the kids who need TJ to be admitted, even if the bottom half of the class is filled with privileged, prep kids. You'd rather sacrifice the kids who need TJ so you can round out the bottom half of the class with demographics that you find more palatable, even if those kids would be very well served at their base school.

Ultimately, when they revamp the admissions to have a more comprehensive process, we'll end up in the same place.

Decades of experience at TJ suggests that the real number is more like 75-100 truly exceptional kids at TJ, with a look at the rest of the county suggesting that many were missed each year.

We get into trouble when we suggest that the old admissions process was particularly great at finding the exceptional kids - or at least, any moreso than the current process is.

I think we would agree that we have a long way to go to get to correct. But we no matter what process we eventually land on, we should all be able to agree - because it's not something that's really up for debate by reasonable individuals - that we have a great chance of success in unearthing those talents from ALL demographics if they feel as though they are welcome at the school. And they weren't previously, and they are now.

The 80-20 rule applies at every level including TJ i.e., no matter how much exclusive of a group we have, we will always find a smaller sub-group who clearly isolates themselves with in the group. So, question is if the 'normal' person from that exclusive group outshine others outside of that exclusive group. In other words, there are top performers event at google, but an average google employ could be a top performer at a different place - If google is not the correct example, you can use anything else - even at manhattan project, few scientists stood out as compared to others.

So, my point here is we can't simply use the argument that only 75-100 kids are truly exceptional kids at TJ and every one else didn't deserve to be in TJ. Even if these less exceptional kids were in their base high schools, they could still be in top 10% of the class. So, I am under assumption that bottom half of the kids at TJ (under the old selection process) could be interchangeable with top 10-20% of base high school class and its possible that they only got into TJ because of prepping, or slightly better grades due to luck etc. These bottom half TJ could be better served by their base HS as they might stand out better for college admissions.

I am worried if the new process muddied with whole selection process and now its very difficult to distinguish even the top half of the kids who truly deserve to be in TJ. Essays don't really test STEM talent and the unweighted GPA (where it is actually a disadvantage to take difficult courses) could be mostly same for both exceptional and average kid. So, the process is essentially a lottery and the quota system or free bonus points makes it even murkier. You are free to disagree though!

[Anonymous]

We need more identifiable data points that can clearly filter out the talent and definitely not less data points that makes it difficult to pick. Since these new data points are still making it difficult to pick those we really wanted to pick, why not give them free points so they can stay above the baseline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

[Anonymous]

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Then why are we having this argument about removing a test that focused on advanced math techniques and discussing the number of students who need “remedial” math? It is totally fine to let in students who demonstrate STEM ability but not acceleration in math. Even desirable. Of course students who are math geniuses should also be admitted. But I am not sure math acceleration is the way to identify that talent.

The problem now is that the math geniuses are not being identified and admitted. The current admissions process is so sparse that all above average kids look more or less the same. Removing the Quant test is just another way that the math geniuses were not identified. The number of students who need "remedial" math would be fine if those kids demonstrated high level STEM ability in other areas. They did not do so. There was nothing in the application to allow them to do so.

Again, no one has suggested looking at math acceleration as the only factor in identifying extreme math talent. Math acceleration + grades in these higher level math classes + teacher recommendations + math awards/achievements in math extracurriculars is what you'd use to identify extreme math talent. I'd be very suspicious of a kid who was highly accelerated and got As, but had no notable math achievements and a meh teacher recommendation.

Previous poster doesn’t understand the point of the Quant-Q or why the prep programs basically made it a pointless exam.

My DC is in the class of 2022. DC didn’t do one second of preparation and I certainly did not pay for a prep class. Plus sometime I feel that the prep class angle is over played. Those showing a desire to put in extra work in whatever it is (sports trainers, tutors, outside classes/camps in a particular subject, street play, etc) should count for something. When it comes to education we should be intervening in the early years not creating policy to adjust for our inability to create a more diverse student body from early on.

It's a red herring. Sure some kids "prepped". But the vast majority of students under previous admission system were simply just smart kids. TJ produces hundreds of national merit semi-finalists. They represents top students in STEM nationally. They went on to perform well in colleges and grad schools. You can't "prep" that. If the "prep" was so easy to do, the rich white parents wouldn't have paid hundreds of thousands to cheat on SATs as varsity blues showed.

The bolded is correct - but there were also hundreds of other kids who were every bit as smart - or smarter - who got leapfrogged because they were competing with kids who walked into an exam designed to test your native problem-solving ability with techniques that were handed to them at a cost of $5K or more to their family. And it was a timed exam where being able to figure out the problems quickly was of tremendous advantage.

FCPS is 100% to blame for that. They knew that was exactly going to happen, but they didn't care to provide that prep to those kids who didn't have the money, awareness, or even access to information. Where were the after school prep programs to help teach them problem solving skills? Were any practice materials even handed out at school? If they wanted to actually help, they would have put $$ instead of empty words. Let's face it, FCPS doesn't give a hoot about minority students applying to TJ.

The admissions process provided links to free prep for the two ACT exams, but the makers of the Quant-Q force anyone who sees it to sign an NDA. So no, FCPS could not provide any sort of free practice materials or prep to the end of improving performance on the Quant-Q. And besides, the purpose of that exam is to test how well and quickly student can identify a complex problem that they haven't seen before and develop a solution for it. When the prep programs got hold of the questions from their previous students, they then charged huge amounts of money to parents so that they could teach students how to solve those problems - making the Quant-Q a pointless exam.

If you go into the Quant-Q already knowing how to solve the types of problems that are on the Quant-Q, it ceases to have any value. It's designed for students to have to struggle with it.

Whre is the proof?

The proof is in the form of students who posted on a forum called TJ Vents on Facebook back in August of 2020. They are members of the Class of 2023 and 2024 whose names appeared on Curie's lists of successful TJ applicants who confirmed in the comment thread of a related post that they were surprised to see questions on the Quant-Q when they took it that they had seen before in their classes at Curie.

The original post was the first public expression of Curie's impact on the TJ admissions process, which was a well-known secret among TJ's South Asian community until a student posted the original anonymous vent.

Dat ain't no proof. GTFO.

I mean, the students at TJ accept it as proof. They believe their colleagues and actually congratulated them on their bravery.

This is fake news. If there was any truth this it would have come up in the lawsuit. FCPS never raised this as a reason the admissions process was changed. Nowhere in the record, the briefs, the TJ papers, etc. does anybody every state they believe Curie had acquired the Quant-Q questions or questions that showed up on the actual TJ test.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.

I will never understand why FCPS did not pursue the Curie cheating scandal. They had first and last names. They had kids stating that they saw the test ahead of time.

I wonder if there was some kind of pay-to-play going on internally within FCPS and they did not want to embarrass/expose their own staff? Or possibly the company that they fired threatened to sue if they embarrassed them?

Whatever the reasons, the FCPS lawyers clearly gave terrible advice during the admissions “reform” process.

The reality is that there wasn’t anything to prosecute. Curie exploited an apparent gap in the process to tremendous profit. And it worked.

In the process, they made it obvious that change was necessary. If you think FCPS and TJ Admissions didn’t know about their 133 kids in 2024, you’re naïve.

Many prep companies pay some admittees to top universities as well as TJ in this case to say they got in because of ABC prep Co. This is a well know fact. Almost always inflated, exaggerated and not very reliable since we will never know. It is called marketing folks. Nothing burger and happens all the time.

Probably, Curie paid some if not most of the TJ students listed on FB to say they got in because of Curie. Move on and stop wasting time on this issue.

More non-falsifiable speculation that conveniently serves a helpful narrative.

Even if true, the fact that they used the names of TJ students to try to create a market that suggests that your best chance of getting into TJ is to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on this private company is incredibly problematic.

And there is absolutely zero evidence to support that claim anyway.

Curie’s existence and apparent success suggests a pay-to-play dynamic in the admissions process of a public school. That’s REALLY bad.

Unfortunately for you, almost all prep companies engage in this type of marketing behavior not just TJ related prep companies. Time to stop wasting people's time on these threads and go investigate your self if you are so obsessed. Hire a private investigator or go talk to other prep companies and find out but stop wasting other people's time.

Nah. I’ll just amplify the publicly available information - which speaks for itself and doesn’t really require further investigation - until there’s no further conversation about using testing metrics that are so easily manipulated by wealthy and motivated applicants.

Just understand that more you do what you do, more FREE advertisements you give to Curie. You are promoting the exact behavior you say you are obsessively against.

Nah. I don’t really care if Curie has success financially. I just want what they do to have significantly less impact on the TJ admissions process. And so far, I’m winning. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but right now I’m happy.

Yeah. Blissfully ignorant.

Nah. They lost nearly half of their share at TJ year over year, from 28% of the Class of 2024 to about 16% of the Class of 2025. The fact that they continued to have that much of the incoming class despite coming off of their best year ever tells me that the effectiveness of the program at getting kids into TJ waned significantly.

I think you're looking at it wrong though. There will always be prep companies stepping up to extract money from unsuspecting (trusting?) individuals, that's just business. [0012] Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for detecting coolant leaks in a server system in accordance with the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with Figure 1. Figure 1 sets forth a diagram of a controller 110 configured for detecting coolant leaks in a server system according to embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, make sure the test is not worth the whole enchilada, but an additional data point. Ideally it would serve as a very low bar filter for getting students past the first round, so choose reasonable low scores. On the other hand, having a high ceiling would also allow it to be used as another data point in the final round. Important note: In order to maintain equity, FCPS should be publishing all past tests and practice material on their website so all can access it. That is how you remove the prep company pay to play impact; not by keeping the test a secret as they so stupidly did in the past.

DP. This is impossible. You are saying that because Test A was preppable and Test B was preppable, that a school district/test company needs to make Test Z that is unpreppable. That doesn't exist. (Actually, there is a test that I know of that is considered to be very accurate with prepping, the LSAT and to some extent but less directly, the MCAT.) As well wish for a pony as for an unpreppable test. Or give students the LSAT...

DP. I don't think they need a Test Z that is unpreppable. They need one where the prep would simply be learning the math or science quite well. TJ could write what is essentially a very hard Honors Algebra I final exam to separate the kids who truly have A+ mastery of the content from those who got watered down As. They could do the same with science. Among the numerous 4.0 gpa applicants, it could help identify the kids who earned their 4.0s vs. the kids who only got them due to grade inflation.

Can't do an Alg1 final if the requirement for eligibility is to be presently enrolled in Alg1. Would have to be based on the first quarter of Alg1, like it was previously.

Okay, then. Surely, someone at TJ could write a very rigorous pre-Algebra test the would differentiate between the kids with a very solid foundation and those who got watered down As.

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this, as long as:

a) the exam were administered during the school day, just like the AMC, so as to ensure maximum participation

b) the exam were scored on a pass-fail basis with a reasonably high but still accessible cut-off point

c) once used to determine baseline suitability, the score was thrown out and never used again to differentiate students

But the reality of the situation is that if you use a non-standardized, non-vetted math exam of any kind for a public school, you open yourself up to challenges of bias that have even greater validity than any of the current challenges.

And additionally, you'd still see massive, extensive prep designed to ensure that students who might be relatively workaday end up "passing", or if you count the score, significantly exceeding their actual capabilities.

Admitting really hard working and driven students that study into a rigorous high school that expects you to be gifted and a high achiever seems fine to me even if these kids may be exceeding their actual capabilities compared to a lazy version of a slightly brighter student. It has worked extremely well in the past (there is a reason it's the number 1 high school in the US) - you just don't like racial makeup of the student body.

It's the number 1 high school in the country because you have ranking services that use exam scores as a metric and the school's old admissions process disallowed students who weren't exceptional test takers from advancing in the process.

The TJ exam didn't do a great job of predicting future success at TJ, any more than the SAT or PSAT predicts success in college or in life. But success on the TJ exam does predict success on the SAT, so that's where the ranking comes from.

The TJ exam in and of itself may not predict success at TJ, but the holistic review of a fairly comprehensive packet certainly did. It's kind of funny that the same people who seem to think that TJ admissions officers can absolutely detect brilliance from the current generic essays seem to have no faith that the same people could detect brilliance through a more comprehensive packet with test scores, teacher recommendations, more elaborate essays, lists of achievements, and so on. Make up your minds on just how psychic or how incompetent these TJ selection panels are.

I agree with you for the most part. I have been advocating for more comprehensive materials and would like to see something more fleshed out, as long as the admissions committee is specifically looking for different types of exceptional students from different backgrounds.

It's really the exam that was the confounding factor, which is why I support the current process, however flawed, moreso than the previous one. But I am adamant in my belief that the eventual process should include more inputs.

PP. This is where we disagree. I support the previous process, however flawed, moreso than the current one. The previous process absolutely did detect and admit those 200-ish kids who are head and shoulders above the FCPS population, truly gifted, and very much in need of a school like TJ. The current process has no way to identify these kids. I'd prefer to have the kids who need TJ to be admitted, even if the bottom half of the class is filled with privileged, prep kids. You'd rather sacrifice the kids who need TJ so you can round out the bottom half of the class with demographics that you find more palatable, even if those kids would be very well served at their base school.

Ultimately, when they revamp the admissions to have a more comprehensive process, we'll end up in the same place.

Decades of experience at TJ suggests that the real number is more like 75-100 truly exceptional kids at TJ, with a look at the rest of the county suggesting that many were missed each year.

We get into trouble when we suggest that the old admissions process was particularly great at finding the exceptional kids - or at least, any moreso than the current process is.

I think we would agree that we have a long way to go to get to correct. But we no matter what process we eventually land on, we should all be able to agree - because it's not something that's really up for debate by reasonable individuals - that we have a great chance of success in unearthing those talents from ALL demographics if they feel as though they are welcome at the school. And they weren't previously, and they are now.

MCPS had even bigger changes to its magnet admissions a few years back a group that makes up about 15% of the county, percentage of seats declined from 70% to 62%R of the program so they brought a lawsuit. The result is they now have a lottery and they number of seats is more like 30%. This is where you are headed.

[Anonymous]

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Then why are we having this argument about removing a test that focused on advanced math techniques and discussing the number of students who need “remedial” math? It is totally fine to let in students who demonstrate STEM ability but not acceleration in math. Even desirable. Of course students who are math geniuses should also be admitted. But I am not sure math acceleration is the way to identify that talent.

The problem now is that the math geniuses are not being identified and admitted. The current admissions process is so sparse that all above average kids look more or less the same. Removing the Quant test is just another way that the math geniuses were not identified. The number of students who need "remedial" math would be fine if those kids demonstrated high level STEM ability in other areas. They did not do so. There was nothing in the application to allow them to do so.

Again, no one has suggested looking at math acceleration as the only factor in identifying extreme math talent. Math acceleration + grades in these higher level math classes + teacher recommendations + math awards/achievements in math extracurriculars is what you'd use to identify extreme math talent. I'd be very suspicious of a kid who was highly accelerated and got As, but had no notable math achievements and a meh teacher recommendation.

Previous poster doesn’t understand the point of the Quant-Q or why the prep programs basically made it a pointless exam.

My DC is in the class of 2022. DC didn’t do one second of preparation and I certainly did not pay for a prep class. Plus sometime I feel that the prep class angle is over played. Those showing a desire to put in extra work in whatever it is (sports trainers, tutors, outside classes/camps in a particular subject, street play, etc) should count for something. When it comes to education we should be intervening in the early years not creating policy to adjust for our inability to create a more diverse student body from early on.

It's a red herring. Sure some kids "prepped". But the vast majority of students under previous admission system were simply just smart kids. TJ produces hundreds of national merit semi-finalists. They represents top students in STEM nationally. They went on to perform well in colleges and grad schools. You can't "prep" that. If the "prep" was so easy to do, the rich white parents wouldn't have paid hundreds of thousands to cheat on SATs as varsity blues showed.

The bolded is correct - but there were also hundreds of other kids who were every bit as smart - or smarter - who got leapfrogged because they were competing with kids who walked into an exam designed to test your native problem-solving ability with techniques that were handed to them at a cost of $5K or more to their family. And it was a timed exam where being able to figure out the problems quickly was of tremendous advantage.

FCPS is 100% to blame for that. They knew that was exactly going to happen, but they didn't care to provide that prep to those kids who didn't have the money, awareness, or even access to information. Where were the after school prep programs to help teach them problem solving skills? Were any practice materials even handed out at school? If they wanted to actually help, they would have put $$ instead of empty words. Let's face it, FCPS doesn't give a hoot about minority students applying to TJ.

The admissions process provided links to free prep for the two ACT exams, but the makers of the Quant-Q force anyone who sees it to sign an NDA. So no, FCPS could not provide any sort of free practice materials or prep to the end of improving performance on the Quant-Q. And besides, the purpose of that exam is to test how well and quickly student can identify a complex problem that they haven't seen before and develop a solution for it. When the prep programs got hold of the questions from their previous students, they then charged huge amounts of money to parents so that they could teach students how to solve those problems - making the Quant-Q a pointless exam.

If you go into the Quant-Q already knowing how to solve the types of problems that are on the Quant-Q, it ceases to have any value. It's designed for students to have to struggle with it.

Whre is the proof?

The proof is in the form of students who posted on a forum called TJ Vents on Facebook back in August of 2020. They are members of the Class of 2023 and 2024 whose names appeared on Curie's lists of successful TJ applicants who confirmed in the comment thread of a related post that they were surprised to see questions on the Quant-Q when they took it that they had seen before in their classes at Curie.

The original post was the first public expression of Curie's impact on the TJ admissions process, which was a well-known secret among TJ's South Asian community until a student posted the original anonymous vent.

Dat ain't no proof. GTFO.

I mean, the students at TJ accept it as proof. They believe their colleagues and actually congratulated them on their bravery.

This is fake news. If there was any truth this it would have come up in the lawsuit. FCPS never raised this as a reason the admissions process was changed. Nowhere in the record, the briefs, the TJ papers, etc. does anybody every state they believe Curie had acquired the Quant-Q questions or questions that showed up on the actual TJ test.

Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.

I will never understand why FCPS did not pursue the Curie cheating scandal. They had first and last names. They had kids stating that they saw the test ahead of time.

I wonder if there was some kind of pay-to-play going on internally within FCPS and they did not want to embarrass/expose their own staff? Or possibly the company that they fired threatened to sue if they embarrassed them?

Whatever the reasons, the FCPS lawyers clearly gave terrible advice during the admissions “reform” process.

The reality is that there wasn’t anything to prosecute. Curie exploited an apparent gap in the process to tremendous profit. And it worked.

In the process, they made it obvious that change was necessary. If you think FCPS and TJ Admissions didn’t know about their 133 kids in 2024, you’re naïve.

Many prep companies pay some admittees to top universities as well as TJ in this case to say they got in because of ABC prep Co. This is a well know fact. Almost always inflated, exaggerated and not very reliable since we will never know. It is called marketing folks. Nothing burger and happens all the time.

Probably, Curie paid some if not most of the TJ students listed on FB to say they got in because of Curie. Move on and stop wasting time on this issue.

More non-falsifiable speculation that conveniently serves a helpful narrative.

Even if true, the fact that they used the names of TJ students to try to create a market that suggests that your best chance of getting into TJ is to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on this private company is incredibly problematic.

And there is absolutely zero evidence to support that claim anyway.

Curie’s existence and apparent success suggests a pay-to-play dynamic in the admissions process of a public school. That’s REALLY bad.

Unfortunately for you, almost all prep companies engage in this type of marketing behavior not just TJ related prep companies. Time to stop wasting people's time on these threads and go investigate your self if you are so obsessed. Hire a private investigator or go talk to other prep companies and find out but stop wasting other people's time.

Nah. I’ll just amplify the publicly available information - which speaks for itself and doesn’t really require further investigation - until there’s no further conversation about using testing metrics that are so easily manipulated by wealthy and motivated applicants.

Just understand that more you do what you do, more FREE advertisements you give to Curie. You are promoting the exact behavior you say you are obsessively against.

Nah. I don’t really care if Curie has success financially. I just want what they do to have significantly less impact on the TJ admissions process. And so far, I’m winning. We’ll see what comes of the lawsuit, but right now I’m happy.

Yeah. Blissfully ignorant.

Nah. They lost nearly half of their share at TJ year over year, from 28% of the Class of 2024 to about 16% of the Class of 2025. The fact that they continued to have that much of the incoming class despite coming off of their best year ever tells me that the effectiveness of the program at getting kids into TJ waned significantly.

I think you're looking at it wrong though. There will always be prep companies stepping up to extract money from unsuspecting (trusting?) individuals, that's just business. [0012] Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for detecting coolant leaks in a server system in accordance with the present invention are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with Figure 1. Figure 1 sets forth a diagram of a controller 110 configured for detecting coolant leaks in a server system according to embodiments of the present invention. Additionally, make sure the test is not worth the whole enchilada, but an additional data point. Ideally it would serve as a very low bar filter for getting students past the first round, so choose reasonable low scores. On the other hand, having a high ceiling would also allow it to be used as another data point in the final round. Important note: In order to maintain equity, FCPS should be publishing all past tests and practice material on their website so all can access it. That is how you remove the prep company pay to play impact; not by keeping the test a secret as they so stupidly did in the past.

DP. This is impossible. You are saying that because Test A was preppable and Test B was preppable, that a school district/test company needs to make Test Z that is unpreppable. That doesn't exist. (Actually, there is a test that I know of that is considered to be very accurate with prepping, the LSAT and to some extent but less directly, the MCAT.) As well wish for a pony as for an unpreppable test. Or give students the LSAT...

DP. I don't think they need a Test Z that is unpreppable. They need one where the prep would simply be learning the math or science quite well. TJ could write what is essentially a very hard Honors Algebra I final exam to separate the kids who truly have A+ mastery of the content from those who got watered down As. They could do the same with science. Among the numerous 4.0 gpa applicants, it could help identify the kids who earned their 4.0s vs. the kids who only got them due to grade inflation.

Can't do an Alg1 final if the requirement for eligibility is to be presently enrolled in Alg1. Would have to be based on the first quarter of Alg1, like it was previously.

Okay, then. Surely, someone at TJ could write a very rigorous pre-Algebra test the would differentiate between the kids with a very solid foundation and those who got watered down As.

I honestly wouldn't have a problem with this, as long as:

a) the exam were administered during the school day, just like the AMC, so as to ensure maximum participation

b) the exam were scored on a pass-fail basis with a reasonably high but still accessible cut-off point

c) once used to determine baseline suitability, the score was thrown out and never used again to differentiate students

But the reality of the situation is that if you use a non-standardized, non-vetted math exam of any kind for a public school, you open yourself up to challenges of bias that have even greater validity than any of the current challenges.

And additionally, you'd still see massive, extensive prep designed to ensure that students who might be relatively workaday end up "passing", or if you count the score, significantly exceeding their actual capabilities.

Admitting really hard working and driven students that study into a rigorous high school that expects you to be gifted and a high achiever seems fine to me even if these kids may be exceeding their actual capabilities compared to a lazy version of a slightly brighter student. It has worked extremely well in the past (there is a reason it's the number 1 high school in the US) - you just don't like racial makeup of the student body.

It's the number 1 high school in the country because you have ranking services that use exam scores as a metric and the school's old admissions process disallowed students who weren't exceptional test takers from advancing in the process.

The TJ exam didn't do a great job of predicting future success at TJ, any more than the SAT or PSAT predicts success in college or in life. But success on the TJ exam does predict success on the SAT, so that's where the ranking comes from.

The TJ exam in and of itself may not predict success at TJ, but the holistic review of a fairly comprehensive packet certainly did. It's kind of funny that the same people who seem to think that TJ admissions officers can absolutely detect brilliance from the current generic essays seem to have no faith that the same people could detect brilliance through a more comprehensive packet with test scores, teacher recommendations, more elaborate essays, lists of achievements, and so on. Make up your minds on just how psychic or how incompetent these TJ selection panels are.

I agree with you for the most part. I have been advocating for more comprehensive materials and would like to see something more fleshed out, as long as the admissions committee is specifically looking for different types of exceptional students from different backgrounds.

It's really the exam that was the confounding factor, which is why I support the current process, however flawed, moreso than the previous one. But I am adamant in my belief that the eventual process should include more inputs.

PP. This is where we disagree. I support the previous process, however flawed, moreso than the current one. The previous process absolutely did detect and admit those 200-ish kids who are head and shoulders above the FCPS population, truly gifted, and very much in need of a school like TJ. The current process has no way to identify these kids. I'd prefer to have the kids who need TJ to be admitted, even if the bottom half of the class is filled with privileged, prep kids. You'd rather sacrifice the kids who need TJ so you can round out the bottom half of the class with demographics that you find more palatable, even if those kids would be very well served at their base school.

Ultimately, when they revamp the admissions to have a more comprehensive process, we'll end up in the same place.

Decades of experience at TJ suggests that the real number is more like 75-100 truly exceptional kids at TJ, with a look at the rest of the county suggesting that many were missed each year.

We get into trouble when we suggest that the old admissions process was particularly great at finding the exceptional kids - or at least, any moreso than the current process is.

I think we would agree that we have a long way to go to get to correct. But we no matter what process we eventually land on, we should all be able to agree - because it's not something that's really up for debate by reasonable individuals - that we have a great chance of success in unearthing those talents from ALL demographics if they feel as though they are welcome at the school. And they weren't previously, and they are now.

MCPS had even bigger changes to its magnet admissions a few years back a group that makes up about 15% of the county, percentage of seats declined from 70% to 62%R of the program so they brought a lawsuit. The result is they now have a lottery and they number of seats is more like 30%. This is where you are headed.

That the racists would rather destroy an institution when they are not allowed to practice racism is a problem with the racists, rather than those complaining about racism. The solution here is to get the racists voted out of office. But given that it's Maryland dominated by progressive politics, I'm not keeping my hopes up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

Superficially race-neutral changes are not okay if used with the intent and result of racist discrimination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

Superficially race-neutral changes are not okay if used with the intent and result of racist discrimination.

What if they're used with the intent and result of ending racist discrimination that previously took place through a superficially race-neutral but demonstrably discriminatory process that had the impact of shutting out Black, Hispanic, and low-income Asian students?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

I guess you can't see the forest for the trees. This post previewed the tainted record leading to the TJ admissions changes that were instrumental in the court's finding that they ran afoul of the Constitution.

So when you dismiss that with a passing "Interesting..." you're just indicating that the ends justify the means and that the Constitution doesn't matter very much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

Superficially race-neutral changes are not okay if used with the intent and result of racist discrimination.

What if they're used with the intent and result of ending racist discrimination that previously took place through a superficially race-neutral but demonstrably discriminatory process that had the impact of shutting out Black, Hispanic, and low-income Asian students?

They weren't. The prior process was race-neutral, not "superficially race-neutral."

And if you really want to go down the path of insisting on measuring everything by its "impact," then you should be worrying about the "process" that leads to FCPS operating Langley High School as a 3% FARMS school with few Black and Hispanic students. Or the "process" that leads to the under-representation of Asian administrators at senior levels within FCPS. And so on.

Change TJ to an Academy program, or shut it down entirely if you must, but your arguments are frivolous and the "new" process a sham that has already been deemed invalid by someone with far more legal training than you apparently have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

Huh? Best practice for GT admissions is to holistically use standardized tests in combination with teacher input. The changes eliminated both of these factors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Perhaps by now many have read the "TJ Papers" - a collection of materials obtained from FCPS during discovery in the civil litigation by the plaintiffs challenging the changes to the TJ admissions process. Many are available at https://defendinged.org/incidents/tjpapers/

Some take-aways:

1. The three main forces behind the TJ admissions change were Scott Brabrand (Superintendent), Karen Corbett Sanders (School Board member from Mount Vernon District), and Scott Surovell (member of Virginia Senate from the 36th District, which includes the Mount Vernon area).

2. Brabrand was in major "white savior" mode, as if his legacy depending on his personally pushing through radical changes in the TJ admissions process. At various times, Brabrand's interactions with staff indicated that his goal was simply to adjust the process, by whatever means necessary, to guarantee the admission of more Black and Hispanic students to TJ, regardless of whether they were otherwise the most qualified candidates.

3. Corbett-Sanders and Surovell have no guiding principles; they are just retail pork-barrel politicians who seized upon the moment to grab more TJ seats for students in their own part of the county.

4. Brabrand misled School Board members about the possibility that the VDOE might come down hard on FCPS if they didn't make major changes to TJ admissions, whereas over time it emerged that VDOE did not necessarily expect FCPS's "diversity plan" (which FCPS was required to submit by October 2020) to include changes to the TJ admissions process by 2021.

5. The process was rushed, incoherent, and marked by School Board members sniping at each other and at Brabrand. Sizemore-Heizer complained that Keys Gamarra was calling other School Board members racist. Pekarsky and Omeish referred to Frisch as a liar. Omeish referred to Brabrand as "too dumb and too white." Pekarsky and Omeish openly acknowledged that the changes under consideration were "anti-asian." McLaughlin told a constituent that Brabrand's handling of the admissions changes was the worst process she had encountered in her many years as a School Board member. Cohen and other School Board members admitted after the fact that they hadn't paid attention as to whether the middle school admissions quotas would be based on a student's "base school" or "attending school," even though this had major implications on 8th grade students attending AAP centers. And so on.

6. The two School Board members representing the districts with the most TJ students - Pekarsky and Tholen - had reservations but patted themselves on the back for effecting a "compromise" (i.e., rejecting Brabrand's initial "lottery" proposal in favor of a "holistic" approach that might lead to a higher number of Sully and Dranesville kids continuing to get into TJ), but never seriously grappled with (a) whether they should have opposed any changes as a matter of principle or (b) whether the change they ultimately supported would end up chewing up even more of FCPS's time and resources, to the detriment of FCPS's ability to address challenges at other schools. Ultimately, they were swept along with the tide for fear of being criticized by their colleagues.

7. Many of the most embarrassing exchanges between School Board members were reflected in text messages produced during discovery in the civil litigation. This suggests that (a) School Board members often text each other to avoid using their FCPS email accounts to conduct official School Board business; and/or (2) no one in FCPS's legal department ever cautioned these folks that text messages are just as discoverable in civil litigation as emails.

No one who objectively reads these materials can conclude this School Board is competent, principled, or deserving of another term in office. They embarrass not only themselves, but also everyone in the county who wants Fairfax County to stand for good governance. If they had any dignity, they would resign now, but in any event they should step aside and let others replace them in 2023.

Interesting... but as far as I can tell the changes weren't radical at all and well within best practice guidelines for GT admissions.

Superficially race-neutral changes are not okay if used with the intent and result of racist discrimination.

What if they're used with the intent and result of ending racist discrimination that previously took place through a superficially race-neutral but demonstrably discriminatory process that had the impact of shutting out Black, Hispanic, and low-income Asian students?

They weren't. The prior process was race-neutral, not "superficially race-neutral."

And if you really want to go down the path of insisting on measuring everything by its "impact," then you should be worrying about the "process" that leads to FCPS operating Langley High School as a 3% FARMS school with few Black and Hispanic students. Or the "process" that leads to the under-representation of Asian administrators at senior levels within FCPS. And so on.

Change TJ to an Academy program, or shut it down entirely if you must, but your arguments are frivolous and the "new" process a sham that has already been deemed invalid by someone with far more legal training than you apparently have.

1) False. A process that virtually eliminates Black and Hispanic students may be "race-blind", but by definition cannot be "race-neutral".

2) The process that leads to FCPS operating a neighborhood high school that has 3% FARMS students has to do with geography. We are in agreement that they could probably redraw the boundaries of that school somewhat to include more Black/Hispanic/FARMS students, but the impact would be minimal at best because there are no poor or Black/Hispanic enclaves anywhere near Langley. Those processes are not comparable. Nor are the processes for hiring people for jobs - but by all means, advocate in those areas if they're your fight. We will support you.

3) TJ is not built to be an academy. It is built to be a full-service high school that goes beyond its exceptional STEM offerings. Hilton absolutely has more legal training than I do, but I have far more educational and TJ experience than even the folks who came up with the admissions process that you so despise. It's far from ideal, but it's a significant improvement over the previous system.