If TJ has such smart kids, why so much cheating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This problem starts with parents who bend the rules to give their kids an unfair advantage. They start to believe the ends justify the means.

The problem is FCPS is a monopoly. There is no competition and there are not many other choices for parents and students.
FCPS becomes incompetent and lazy. Why would they keep using old test materials again and again (if the claim from previous posters that wealthy kids already knew the test materials before the test was legit)?

So, it’s not the fault of the people who illicitly gathered test questions into a “bank,” it’s the fault of people who give the test with the idea that people will be honest?

Whew, that is some complicated ethical gymnastics we’re going through here…

(And FCPS is not a monopoly- there are plenty of private schools available. No one is forcing children to go to a public school over private or to apply to TJ over their base school.)

The changes in the admissions process has always been driven by a racist aversion to having too many asians. It gets lost in the conversation that whites are the largest beneficiaries of these changes almost every time these changes are introduced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see "turn everything into a thing about the admissions process" posters are back.

And to think for pages there we had legitimate discussion on the potential actual causes and effect of cheating among the high performing students at TJ going back decades and extending until today.

To be fair, the question was answered pretty early on. Kids are stressed because the grading is tougher at TJ than at base schools for the exact same course. Instead of giving kids the same grade they would have gotten at their base school for the same performance in the same course, they are curved against other TJ students and an A student at a base school becomes a B student at TJ. Then schools like UVA de-emphasize testing in favor of gpa and all of a sudden a top 1% kid with a 4.3 GPA cant' get into UVA.

If the grading was comparable to base schools and schools like UVA would try to understand that a B at TJ is basically an A at a base school you would see cheating go down almost overnight.

People have repeatedly said that the difference between the base schools and TJ isn't an issue. Remember: UVA has known TJ for decades. They know exactly, better than you or I do, how TJ's grading scale compares to base schools, what the yield is on TJ kids of a certain GPA versus base school kids of a certain GPA, and the like. Some kids may make this excuse, but if so they've been making it for decades. TJ's grading scale is still easier than NCS's, for example. People at NCS complain about their grading scale, but I don't see anyone rationalizing cheating based on it.

Nobody is excusing the cheating, we are explaining the likely source. TJ creates unnecessary pressure and that pressure can lead to cheating.
Eliminate the unnecessary pressure and cheating goes down, at least a bit.
Cheating is not unique to TJ so i expect there is some level of background cheating you just won't get rid of.

If only these kids, had some sense of integrity.

Which kids? You making racist comments about Indian kids again? You really ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This problem starts with parents who bend the rules to give their kids an unfair advantage. They start to believe the ends justify the means.

The problem is FCPS is a monopoly. There is no competition and there are not many other choices for parents and students.
FCPS becomes incompetent and lazy. Why would they keep using old test materials again and again (if the claim from previous posters that wealthy kids already knew the test materials before the test was legit)?

So, it’s not the fault of the people who illicitly gathered test questions into a “bank,” it’s the fault of people who give the test with the idea that people will be honest?

Whew, that is some complicated ethical gymnastics we’re going through here…

(And FCPS is not a monopoly- there are plenty of private schools available. No one is forcing children to go to a public school over private or to apply to TJ over their base school.)

The availability of private schools are a fairly bad argument that people have choice.

Well, public schools are free to all and no one is forced to attend public school if they prefer to make other choices. In what sense are you saying that FCPS, a public school system, is a “monopoly”?

[Anonymous]

They lack integrity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see "turn everything into a thing about the admissions process" posters are back.

And to think for pages there we had legitimate discussion on the potential actual causes and effect of cheating among the high performing students at TJ going back decades and extending until today.

To be fair, the question was answered pretty early on. Kids are stressed because the grading is tougher at TJ than at base schools for the exact same course. Instead of giving kids the same grade they would have gotten at their base school for the same performance in the same course, they are curved against other TJ students and an A student at a base school becomes a B student at TJ. Then schools like UVA de-emphasize testing in favor of gpa and all of a sudden a top 1% kid with a 4.3 GPA cant' get into UVA.

If the grading was comparable to base schools and schools like UVA would try to understand that a B at TJ is basically an A at a base school you would see cheating go down almost overnight.

People have repeatedly said that the difference between the base schools and TJ isn't an issue. Remember: UVA has known TJ for decades. They know exactly, better than you or I do, how TJ's grading scale compares to base schools, what the yield is on TJ kids of a certain GPA versus base school kids of a certain GPA, and the like. Some kids may make this excuse, but if so they've been making it for decades. TJ's grading scale is still easier than NCS's, for example. People at NCS complain about their grading scale, but I don't see anyone rationalizing cheating based on it.

Nobody is excusing the cheating, we are explaining the likely source. TJ creates unnecessary pressure and that pressure can lead to cheating.
Eliminate the unnecessary pressure and cheating goes down, at least a bit.
Cheating is not unique to TJ so i expect there is some level of background cheating you just won't get rid of.

If only these kids, had some sense of integrity.

Which kids? You making racist comments about Indian kids again? You really ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Nobody said anything about Indian kids but you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see "turn everything into a thing about the admissions process" posters are back.

And to think for pages there we had legitimate discussion on the potential actual causes and effect of cheating among the high performing students at TJ going back decades and extending until today.

To be fair, the question was answered pretty early on. Kids are stressed because the grading is tougher at TJ than at base schools for the exact same course. Instead of giving kids the same grade they would have gotten at their base school for the same performance in the same course, they are curved against other TJ students and an A student at a base school becomes a B student at TJ. Then schools like UVA de-emphasize testing in favor of gpa and all of a sudden a top 1% kid with a 4.3 GPA cant' get into UVA.

If the grading was comparable to base schools and schools like UVA would try to understand that a B at TJ is basically an A at a base school you would see cheating go down almost overnight.

People have repeatedly said that the difference between the base schools and TJ isn't an issue. Remember: UVA has known TJ for decades. They know exactly, better than you or I do, how TJ's grading scale compares to base schools, what the yield is on TJ kids of a certain GPA versus base school kids of a certain GPA, and the like. Some kids may make this excuse, but if so they've been making it for decades. TJ's grading scale is still easier than NCS's, for example. People at NCS complain about their grading scale, but I don't see anyone rationalizing cheating based on it.

Nobody is excusing the cheating, we are explaining the likely source. TJ creates unnecessary pressure and that pressure can lead to cheating.
Eliminate the unnecessary pressure and cheating goes down, at least a bit.
Cheating is not unique to TJ so i expect there is some level of background cheating you just won't get rid of.

If only these kids, had some sense of integrity.

Which kids? You making racist comments about Indian kids again? You really ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Nobody said anything about Indian kids but you.

Right? Sometimes I wonder about who it is that actually makes the comments that involve race here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This problem starts with parents who bend the rules to give their kids an unfair advantage. They start to believe the ends justify the means.

The problem is FCPS is a monopoly. There is no competition and there are not many other choices for parents and students.
FCPS becomes incompetent and lazy. Why would they keep using old test materials again and again (if the claim from previous posters that wealthy kids already knew the test materials before the test was legit)?

So, it’s not the fault of the people who illicitly gathered test questions into a “bank,” it’s the fault of people who give the test with the idea that people will be honest?

Whew, that is some complicated ethical gymnastics we’re going through here…

(And FCPS is not a monopoly- there are plenty of private schools available. No one is forcing children to go to a public school over private or to apply to TJ over their base school.)

The availability of private schools are a fairly bad argument that people have choice.

Well, public schools are free to all and no one is forced to attend public school if they prefer to make other choices. In what sense are you saying that FCPS, a public school system, is a “monopoly”?

RWNJs love to trash public schools because they want vouchers to subsidize their kids’ private school tuition. ScHoOl ChOicE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This problem starts with parents who bend the rules to give their kids an unfair advantage. They start to believe the ends justify the means.

The problem is FCPS is a monopoly. There is no competition and there are not many other choices for parents and students.
FCPS becomes incompetent and lazy. Why would they keep using old test materials again and again (if the claim from previous posters that wealthy kids already knew the test materials before the test was legit)?

So, it’s not the fault of the people who illicitly gathered test questions into a “bank,” it’s the fault of people who give the test with the idea that people will be honest?

Whew, that is some complicated ethical gymnastics we’re going through here…

(And FCPS is not a monopoly- there are plenty of private schools available. No one is forcing children to go to a public school over private or to apply to TJ over their base school.)

The availability of private schools are a fairly bad argument that people have choice.

Well, public schools are free to all and no one is forced to attend public school if they prefer to make other choices. In what sense are you saying that FCPS, a public school system, is a “monopoly”?

RWNJs love to trash public schools because they want vouchers to subsidize their kids’ private school tuition. ScHoOl ChOicE

And I notice that they didn’t come back and answer the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This problem starts with parents who bend the rules to give their kids an unfair advantage. They start to believe the ends justify the means.

The problem is FCPS is a monopoly. There is no competition and there are not many other choices for parents and students.
FCPS becomes incompetent and lazy. Why would they keep using old test materials again and again (if the claim from previous posters that wealthy kids already knew the test materials before the test was legit)?

So, it’s not the fault of the people who illicitly gathered test questions into a “bank,” it’s the fault of people who give the test with the idea that people will be honest?

Whew, that is some complicated ethical gymnastics we’re going through here…

(And FCPS is not a monopoly- there are plenty of private schools available. No one is forcing children to go to a public school over private or to apply to TJ over their base school.)

The availability of private schools are a fairly bad argument that people have choice.

Well, public schools are free to all and no one is forced to attend public school if they prefer to make other choices. In what sense are you saying that FCPS, a public school system, is a “monopoly”?

RWNJs love to trash public schools because they want vouchers to subsidize their kids’ private school tuition. ScHoOl ChOicE

And I notice that they didn’t come back and answer the question.

Still haven’t answered.

[Anonymous]

New Poster.

I do think having say about 10% of schools as charter schools would provide competition. Rank schools on whatever measure and schools which stay in the bottom 5% for 5 years can then be handed over to private companies. Something of that sort. Likewise bottom 20% of charter schools that remain for 3 years would change back to a different owner with some financial penalities, etc.

This would give a benchmark for public schools.

Right now we have a lot of waste in public schools on purchasing useless software, renaming schools, etc. Having some competition and consequences would be helpful in improving schools overall.

I support public schools but as we see with any Govt services it tends towards bureaucracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see "turn everything into a thing about the admissions process" posters are back.

And to think for pages there we had legitimate discussion on the potential actual causes and effect of cheating among the high performing students at TJ going back decades and extending until today.

This comment seems out of the blue. It looks like the "evade legitimate discussion by turning everything into an us-vs-them battle" people are back.

No. Jeff cleaned up the comments before what I wrote, actually. So you can't see them any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Poster.

I do think having say about 10% of schools as charter schools would provide competition. Rank schools on whatever measure and schools which stay in the bottom 5% for 5 years can then be handed over to private companies. Something of that sort. Likewise bottom 20% of charter schools that remain for 3 years would change back to a different owner with some financial penalities, etc.

This would give a benchmark for public schools.

Right now we have a lot of waste in public schools on purchasing useless software, renaming schools, etc. Having some competition and consequences would be helpful in improving schools overall.

I support public schools but as we see with any Govt services it tends towards bureaucracy.

No, the last thing we need right now is to defund public schools. It's a public service, not a free market - "competition" won't help improve schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New Poster.

I do think having say about 10% of schools as charter schools would provide competition. Rank schools on whatever measure and schools which stay in the bottom 5% for 5 years can then be handed over to private companies. Something of that sort. Likewise bottom 20% of charter schools that remain for 3 years would change back to a different owner with some financial penalities, etc.

This would give a benchmark for public schools.

Right now we have a lot of waste in public schools on purchasing useless software, renaming schools, etc. Having some competition and consequences would be helpful in improving schools overall.

I support public schools but as we see with any Govt services it tends towards bureaucracy.

Which schools do you think should not have been renamed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Poster.

I do think having say about 10% of schools as charter schools would provide competition. Rank schools on whatever measure and schools which stay in the bottom 5% for 5 years can then be handed over to private companies. Something of that sort. Likewise bottom 20% of charter schools that remain for 3 years would change back to a different owner with some financial penalities, etc.

This would give a benchmark for public schools.

Right now we have a lot of waste in public schools on purchasing useless software, renaming schools, etc. Having some competition and consequences would be helpful in improving schools overall.

I support public schools but as we see with any Govt services it tends towards bureaucracy.

Which schools do you think should not have been renamed?

Renaming schools is the equivalent of "Let They Eat cake". Every dollar that is wasted could have been used to actually provide some targeted help to the economically disadvantaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Poster.

I do think having say about 10% of schools as charter schools would provide competition. Rank schools on whatever measure and schools which stay in the bottom 5% for 5 years can then be handed over to private companies. Something of that sort. Likewise bottom 20% of charter schools that remain for 3 years would change back to a different owner with some financial penalities, etc.

This would give a benchmark for public schools.

Right now we have a lot of waste in public schools on purchasing useless software, renaming schools, etc. Having some competition and consequences would be helpful in improving schools overall.

I support public schools but as we see with any Govt services it tends towards bureaucracy.

No, the last thing we need right now is to defund public schools. It's a public service, not a free market - "competition" won't help improve schools.

I am sure you must be working in Govt. Nope. Pretend to be working.