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Anonymous wrote:I am confused where this conversation is headed. The whole quota system at ANY level is stupid and discriminatory. The focus should be on how to bring everyone to the same level playing field, have a process that clearly recognizes the talent and not segregate people into different pools.
They've tried that for decades and it hasn't worked. Even assuming that it was possible, FCPS doesn't have anything approaching the budget that it would take to bring a kid with uneducated parents who don't care about education up to par with a kid whose parents hold graduate degrees and who expect their child to follow a similar path and know what boxes need to be checked along the way.
FCPS already does much more to elevate kids who are poor or are URMs than just about any other school district. Any FARMS or URM kid demonstrating any spark of anything will be placed in Young Scholars and receive enrichment therein. The URM and FARMS kids who impress anyone along the way will be placed in Level IV AAP and receive full-time AAP instruction through 8th grade. The equity report demonstrated that URM kids are being admitted into AAP with significantly lower test scores than white and Asian kids. This is fine, because it is helping give a leg up to the kids who generally are not privileged.
After 8 years of being supported and mentored through Young Scholars and another 6 years of full-time gifted instruction, if the kids have not managed to distinguish themselves in any way and have done nothing to suggest TJ worthiness, it's likely that they're just not very exceptional.
It will take time before these measures are fully realized, but you do have a point.
Let's not make the mistake, however, of presuming that most kids admitted under the previous process had managed to distinguish themselves in any way other than test scores that were buffered by prep that they received outside of the advanced school environment, however.
I would estimate that about half of the kids distinguished themselves at the very least as kids who need or would greatly benefit from TJ, and the other half are undistinguished prep kids. At least the prep kids have demonstrated that they're hard workers.
I'm surprised that the old system didn't filter out the prep kids. High SES Schoo + perfect grades + high test scores + participation in a lot of STEM activities but without notable achievements + tepid teacher recommendations should pretty clearly indicate an otherwise unimpressive prep kid.
I genuinely don't think that the teacher recommendations did a good job of allowing teachers to compare their students with one another. At a place like Carson or Longfellow, that would have made all the difference in the world.
The private schools do this and it helps greatly.
The problem is they aren't objective or a reliable metric.
Genuine question: why the obsession with objectivity? Selection processes are almost never objective in nature for any field.
Enough said...but why have an obsessions with objectivity when you can be subjectively racist. Indeed.
That's not an answer.
That is an answer. Subjectivity is a power play. Objectivity makes it easier to oppress. Hence the obsession.
Correction: Subjectivity is a power play. Objectivity makes it tougher to oppress. Hence the obsession.
Objectivity makes it easier to use your resources to game the system.
You can't really argue oppression when the class selected by the new admissions process was significantly less resourced than the classes before it.
It's not oppression to have an avenue to buy one's way into TJ removed.
Communist revolutions everywhere relied on expropriation of the rich people’s wealth and redistribution of the same to the less fortunate. There is a reason we oppose communism. Transfer of resources from the have to the have nots is good but it has to be done in a manner that is just and equitable - not by the power of the gun or the (temporary) power of the ballot.
That is why Nelson Mandela is great. He had every reason to kick the whites to the curb. He did not. He brought the community together and still achieved his goal.
Nelson Mandela being invoked
to keep black kids out of a school may be a first.
Which black kid is being kept out of school? Can’t help your hyperbole?
There have been fewer Black students in the entire 35-year history of TJ than there were Asian students in the Class of 2024.
The new admissions process resulted in an increase of 70% in Black applications and over a 500% increase in Black students.
But Neson Mandela would apparently be against it, so no more black kids at TJ
Your attempt at humor is lost on me.
Mandela had the power and could have brute forced his way. He did not. He made sure change happened in a manner that was fair to all.
You won’t get it. You see the world as black, white and Asian. I see the world as fair and unfair, process-driven and arbitrary. Different perspective.
I agree with this poster. 1 year of artificially elevated number of Black kids does nothing for the long-term goal of increasing achievement of underrepresented student population. It also divides communities and may have a very detrimental long term effect. This is not a smart way to change the way we admit students to TJ. The way it was done indicates a quick political point to be gained. Kids were never at the center of the decision making process, just read the TJ papers.
Oh please. Any change would cause great hue and outcry. Someone upthread (or maybe on a different thread) proposed phasing in changes in the admissions process over several years. So that children would have time to curate their resumes properly, apparently. That certainly doesn't put children "at the center of the decision making process".
all the communities should have been invited to comment. Instead, FCPS school board rushed the process and excluded parents completely. Arrogant, to say the least. Now they are dealing with the fall out. I used to work in university admissions and any kind of change in the process involved 2 years of advanced notice. This allowed for a smooth implementation. Stop being defensive and clean up your mess. Present a transparent and fair process and we might just get behind you. Get down from your pedestal. We are the constituents and our taxes pay for your salaries. Please try to remember that you are supposed to represent us, the parents.
Please stop acting as though the fall-out would have been any different had parents been granted to ability to comment on the new process more than they already were. They did more than enough commenting throughout the process on platforms outside of School Board meetings.
Regardless of their motives, they were going to have to come up with a new process to account for the fact that doing an exam during the worst of COVID would have been impossible. 2 years notice wasn't realistic and the entire purpose of making the change was to limit the amount of "resume-crafting" or "process gaming" that would be possible.
The C4TJ folks were going to scream bloody murder on this no matter what the end result was if it created a more representative TJ population. They might have a stronger leg to stand on legally because the School Board couldn't get out of its own way as far as messaging and discipline, but it's not as if their anger is some sort of righteous response that is generated by some level of disrespect. This is about the zero-sum game of spaces at TJ and the continued ability to hoard opportunities away from less fortunate students.
Listen to yourself. Constantly making it sound like everything hinges on TJ admissions and that all will be right in the world once more kids from certain middle schools and fewer from others go there. Nothing else matters besides your petty political victories and the vindication you’d get if only you were able to stick it to the Asian families like you’d planned.
Just shut the damn school down. It’s not like it’s going to escape you eventually that the bigger “inequity” is that TJHHST exists at all.
That's not how they sound at all.
They seem to care about a fair process that gives all children an equal chance just not those with means to afford expensive prep classes.
Very true and it is kind of nuts that the group that has benefited the most from these programs and continues to do so is angry because they want an unfair advantage over others.
People can protest all they want but the names on the list of students that Curie helped get selected make this very clear. Some families are buying their way into these programs and that's an unfair advantage.
You seem to be confused between 2 issues.
We think the new process is unfair.
We also think the old process was unfair.
So we are with you on the Curie stuff and don’t want a return to that place. Please appreciate that.
Opposition to the current unfair process is not equal to support to the old unfair process.
Umm, no, that is not waht I understood at all. I guess I'm very confused. I seem to have heard that the lawsuit and the win required going back to the old process (somehow, even though the tests are no longer available). I didn't know that the lawsuit wanted to go to a new third process.
It's moot now because the 4th circuit stayed the district court decision, but just because the coalition for TJ won doesn't mean that FCPS has to return to the old system, it just means the can't use the new system.
Maybe I misunderstand but I thought the stay was granted to halt the impact of the lower courts decision while this matter is being reviewed.
yes, which makes any talk of a third system or returning to the old system moot. This year can proceed under last year's system now
If the last year's system is determined unfair and racially motivated, then we can't use it again. Its not fair to the current 8th graders and I am not sure if judge will allow it knowing what we know.
I hope fcps can make some tweaks to the last years process such as
1. Remove other experience factors a.k.a. free bonus points
2. Remove attending school based quotas that is unfair to Level IV students. May be introduce the quotas based on base school instead. Could also reduce the fixed quotas to 0.5% or 1%.
3. Increase the weightage for GPA. - I wish there were teacher recommendations, but its too late for this year.
. Remove the other experience factors a.k.a. free bonus points.
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