TJ Commended Student Emails Released - Who is really responsible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

PP you responded to here. I am not and have never been affiliated with the AAG; I wasn’t even aware they had a website — thanks for sending the link! I’ll see what their stances are and how they compare to the Coalition.

Personally, I think equity has its advantages when properly balanced with the mission of the institution (in this case, to provide a first-rate STEM education at the secondary level). My middle school was one of those TS types, and it got old real fast trying to explain to kids where I was from (since none of them had even heard of the place, even though it’s in FCPS). From that perspective, I welcome changes to ensure greater representation at the school. Having different perspectives in an organization is valuable for coming up with new ideas and fostering innovation. However, I don’t think TJ should compromise its standards in the name of representation, because then you’re ending up with a watered-down experience and are now at a net loss compared to where you started. What makes TJ unique is obviously the education it provides, and diminishing that defeats the whole purpose of giving kids more access to this.

In any case, I strongly believe the best equitable solution here is a bottom-up one. FCPS should prioritize those TS schools not in TJ admissions but at the elementary and middle school levels, by providing more funding for advanced classes and enrichment programs. That’ll get kids interested in learning, increase application rates of qualified candidates from those schools, and end up with greater representation at TJ as well as a more skilled student body at its other high schools.

But hey, what do I know? I’m just a college student with too much time on his hands.

DP. This is a really thoughtful response and it is appreciated.

A bottom-up approach is wonderful and should be instituted, but it cannot be the totality of the solution because inherently, whenever it is established, it will miss the students who at that point in time are not at the bottom - i.e. in early elementary school. All parties agree that more time, treasure, and energy should be expended on improving the caliber of STEM education, especially in less-resourced schools and communities.

Where there is disagreement is whether or not this strategy is ALL we should use. What becomes of the kids who, today, are in 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade? Are they out of luck because they were born at the wrong time? Should TJ students miss out on the inherent value of their contributions to the diversity of the school simply because the "real" solution hasn't bubbled up to the surface yet?

Haha, thanks!

You raise some really good points as well. The challenge of working with those who miss out on the changes is definitely real, and it's not easy to provide a solution. A top-down solution (e.g. at the admissions level) can potentially work here as a temporary complement to the bottom-up approach, but I think the many threads here can provide evidence as to why that's a problem unto itself.

Preserving the good while getting rid of the bad is a delicate balancing act. At the end of the day, there are no good answers to this sort of thing -- it's taken me over two years to just get to this current position regarding TJ admissions! -- and it'll require lots of good-faith cooperation among all the stakeholders, who will inevitably disagree. Unfortunately, much of the argument surrounding this topic seems to be more "my way or the highway" (just look at this forum!), which obviously isn't constructive. Ultimately, we all lose from this.

In short, society's problems are complex. Who'd have imagined?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

I agreed with what you said, every single word.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

Focusing just on this bit: from my experience, by the time you reach junior or senior year, pretty much every kid was on a "track" with a specific field of study (CS, bio, chem, physics, "everything else"), which comes with its own assumptions re: which classes to take and when. I got several cases of "wait, you're only in [CS class]? I assumed you were in [higher CS class]." No, I actually started taking CS classes after everyone else. Sorry, I can't help you with your lab.

(On a semi-related side note, I also heard multiple kids gripe about how there were way more CS post-AP classes than their natural science of choice. Personally, I found it annoying that almost all the CS post-AP courses at TJ are AI/ML-related. Sometimes a guy just wants to study computer systems, you know?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

I agreed with what you said, every single word.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

The academy has become somewhat incestuous and has trended towards a particular view of the value of diversity for the sake of diversity that brooks very little dissent, to the point where many would jeopardize their academic and professional aspirations if they were to assert that anything other than that greater diversity in a classroom setting is a higher priority (for example, ensuring that all students are able to handle the curriculum).

As for the rest of your post, it largely comes across as an attack on the South Asian community, which perhaps may prove expedient if the prior criticisms of Asian students and families generally may carry too high a price politically. However, stigmatizing that one community in particular may well make those familiar with other religious and ethnic communities that have at various times been scapegoated feel more than a little squeamish.

Ultimately, the ongoing efforts to fine tune (or, in less charitable terms, socially engineer) what you and a small band of FCPS insiders, all with strong ties to local Democrats, consider to be the optimal study body and academic environment at TJ may collapse of its own weight. TJ is, at the end of the day, not a wealthy, private institution like Harvard, Stanford,or Princeton; rather, it is essentially the top honors program in a very large public school system. The more that you continue to insist upon your need, right, and ability to construct a "better" TJ, the more that others who are either disadvantaged directly by the changes you seek or disadvantaged indirectly (because TJ sucks up so much of the limited bandwidth of those charged with the oversight of TJ) will conclude that the time has come to close the magnet program.

[Anonymous]

So apparently Langley also didn’t notify commended students in time -though they apparently didn’t do so at all. So not just TJ. Hahaha. And another high school too. What will the trouble making conservatives who oppose the new admissions process complain about next?! Nice try.

[Anonymous]

Now all FCPS schools are part of the AG investigation - not just TJ.

https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2023/01/virginia-ag-expands-probe-into-fairfax-county-public-schools-over-delayed-award-notifications/

[Anonymous]

“ South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. ”

Wow. I never heard that before. That’s flooring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

Diversity is an educational benefit to whom? The kids at the bottom or all of them, including those at the top? (Genuinely asking, happy to read studies if you have them)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uh, no, there are more commended students at TJ than semifinalists. He wanted to protect the feelings of the 20% or so of TJ students who were neither semifinalists nor commended.

THIS. And it states so in the emails

Ultimately, he did distribute them so his opinion about the "feelings" is moot.

It's not moot. He used it as a cover-up for why he didn't distribute them when the reality is he just forgot to do it. That's lying to a parent and it's not okay.

He used it as a reason for why they didn’t deliver the letters with much fanfare. Subtle but extremely important distinction there.

"Mr. Kosatka, you told me that you held these letters, in part, because you were concerned about handing them out around students who didn't receive the award."

This. Was. A. Lie.

And it was a lie to cover the fact that he forgot to do it.

We don't know what he actually said or what he meant by it.

Look, I think that the Coalition for TJ is the single worst thing to happen to the school in its existence. It's literally ripping the school apart at the seams, making it more difficult for the school to educate its students and maintain its position. I generally side with the school on most things. And I acknowledge that Yashar, like all of the major players on Asra's side in this, are Republican operatives who are hell bent on destroying public education.

But in reading this e-mail chain and digging into the facts surrounding the situation, there's only one conclusion you can come to, and that's that the DSS either lied to cover his ass or made a decision that was his and his alone to withhold these letters for whatever reason. Either of these are fireable offenses, neither of them should implicate the principal in any way because she CLEARLY wasn't on board with them, and neither of them should be inviting a damn state-level investigation.

+100. The fight between the Coalition and… the school? TJAAG? (Are there even people in TJAAG? I feel like I hear about them very little compared to the Coalition.) is going scorched-earth and everyone will be worse off for it. And if you think it isn’t disruptive, then you’ve never been in class with TJ students fighting Coalition members on Facebook, or run a TJ club with the fear that some nut job parent will get you in trouble because you didn’t pick their kid for a competitive team and that’s apparently racist. Just because it’s not obvious from the outside doesn’t mean this isn’t hurting the school.

-2022 TJ grad who has worried about all the above in the past

The TJAAG is a real group with real people. https://www.tjaag.org/

They are just as active as the Coalition, if not more so; the difference is that they can rely on publications like the Washington Post and bodies like the FCPS School Board to parrot their viewpoints, whereas the Coalition has to make more noise to get people to pay attention.

Fundamentally, the TJAAG tries to thread a needle, in that it's trying to preserve an elitist institution that serves only 3-4% of FCPS high school students and yet suggest that it's deeply committed to principles of equity. They've tied themselves up into some rhetorical knots recently, such as when a number of them have suggested that receiving a letter of commendation is a "consolation prize" and a "4th-rate award," which comes across as awfully elitist when 97% of high school students are neither semifinalists nor commended students.

Overall, many of them (you?) come across as less interested in equity, or for that matter anything having to do with schools other than TJ, so much as just making sure that TJ is sufficiently diverse, with fewer Asian kids, so that all the alumni will still feel comfortable name-dropping that they went to TJ in random conversations with acquaintances.

DP. It's unclear where the rhetorical knots are that you're mentioning. In the context of TJ, the Commended Student recognition is absolutely a consolation prize and the students view it as such. TJ students (for better or for worse) measure themselves against one another, not against the rest of America.

Folks on the right are obsessed with the anti-Asian narrative, but it falls apart in the face of this reality: if TJ's incoming classes were 70% Asian, 10% White, 10% Black, and 10% Hispanic, the pro-diversity crowd would be thrilled. They'd be shouting from the rooftops.

It's never been about fewer Asians, and it's always been about stronger representation amongst historically excluded populations, which means low income students, Black students, and Hispanic students. But folks on the right, because of their resources, connections, and media savvy, have successfully been able to frame the conversation about "anti-Asianness" when it's anything but.

There was a fairly coordinated on the part of the left to portray the environment at TJ as "toxic" and to imply that most Asian students at TJ were only admitted because their allegedly wealthy parents shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for test prep materials.

Statistically, one can see that the increases in Black and Hispanic enrollment have come largely at the expense of Asian enrollment, as the White enrollment has remained relatively steady.

And, to this day, the TJAAG folks and their allies continue to assert that Asian students are "over-represented" at TJ, as if Asian applicants should be looked at, in the first instance, not as individuals but instead primarily as members of a group.

So, good luck with your efforts to suggest conservatives have some unique "media savvy," but the most recent controversies over TJ stem from the left having made a calculated political decision that changing the admissions process to promote the admission of more Black and Hispanic kids would provide more electoral benefits than antagonizing the Asian community (or at least certain segments of the Asian community). The verdict is still out on whether those efforts were politically astute or, for that matter, even legal.

The funny thing about conservatives is that they can't imagine a universe where a political actor would do a thing for a reason other than political or personal benefit. Perhaps, I don't know, diversity in the classroom is an educational benefit that has been corroborated by hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. But then, research and reality tend to skew left compared to today's America...

The fact that Asian students are overrepresented at TJ isn't an assertion - it's an obvious mathematical fact. Now, I'm a firm believer that Asians are absolutely NOT a monolith, and the fact that they are for reporting purposes is highly problematic. The catchment area of TJ is approximately 20% Asian, give or take a few percentage points, but about 3/4 of those are captured by East, Southeast, or Middle Eastern descent. These groups are slightly overrepresented at TJ, but not to an extent that would raise any issues. They're also significantly less well-off and have a much, much higher percentage of FARMS students than their South Asian counterparts.

The group that is wildly overrepresented at TJ are South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. Again, this part of the conversation is not a value judgment - it's a simple math problem. This group is comprised to a much larger level of recent immigrants who are relatively VERY well-off compared to every other demographic in Northern Virginia.

Here's the value judgment part: TJ is toxic and has been for many years not because of its ethnic composition but because of the lack of diversity of interests, approaches to education, and intended college destinations and fields of study of its student body. For too many years under the old process, too large a group of TJ students wanted to accomplish the same things and get to the same goals along the same path - which creates a hyper-competitive and yes, "toxic" atmosphere.

There are those who believe that the substantial increase in the Asian - and especially first-gen South Asian - population is responsible for the streamlining of student goals and ambitions (the "everyone wants to be a doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, or full-stack web developer" problem). Most of the people who believe that are indeed South Asian, but do not understand the relationship between the narrowing of academic focus and the toxicity that it necessarily creates within the environment at TJ (and to a lesser extent, at schools like Rachel Carson and Rocky Run). I would prefer not to believe that, but at every turn I hear people say "well of COURSE I want my child to be a doctor" as though there's nothing wrong with that sentiment when the child is, say, 8 years old.

Diversity is an educational benefit to whom? The kids at the bottom or all of them, including those at the top? (Genuinely asking, happy to read studies if you have them)

all. Diversity makes for better decision-making for teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ South Asians, who comprise about 5% of the catchment area but approximately 45% of TJ students prior to the admissions improvements. ”

Wow. I never heard that before. That’s flooring.

the vast majority of those students are from Loudoun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now all FCPS schools are part of the AG investigation - not just TJ.

https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2023/01/virginia-ag-expands-probe-into-fairfax-county-public-schools-over-delayed-award-notifications/

Elections have consequences. Guessing some folks will need to lawyer up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now all FCPS schools are part of the AG investigation - not just TJ.

https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2023/01/virginia-ag-expands-probe-into-fairfax-county-public-schools-over-delayed-award-notifications/

Elections have consequences. Guessing some folks will need to lawyer up.

Hopefully the next guy picks a random Republican district to go after

[Anonymous]

Since when is it a human right to receive third party notifications? Does this idiot really plan to take this to a jury?