New TJ Lawsuit Filed 3/10/21 by Pacific Legal Foundation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS School Board is just providing middle school students with a new and different pathway to TJ admissions that will be studied carefully and reverse engineered.

If PP - perhaps a TJ teacher - really has such critical observations to share about the school, she or he should have been testifying in favor of the School Board for the magnet's dissolution.

All these people ever want to do is refashion a TJ that is more to their liking, and makes them feel better about having TJ on their own resumes, while still very much centering a school that fewer than 4% of FCPS high school students will ever attend as if it is the only school in FCPS that remotely matters. And they are more than prepared to engage in overt anti-Asian racism to advance their goal.

increasing black and hispanic enrollment is overt racism? Too bad Kansas didn't think to use that argument to argue Brown

Your logic is shallow, as overt racism has been directed at the Asian students currently at TJ, and there are no restrictions on the ability of any Black or Hispanic student who lives in a participating jurisdiction to apply to TJ.

But please carry on with your strained analogies.

[Anonymous]

Interesting. I mean, isn't the whole middle school placement model something that has already been found to be race neutral? In APS I thought this was the whole thrust of the failed challenge to HB Woodlawn. You can't argue middle school slots = racial preference. It's like precedent in the same federal court that the FCPS case is being brought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS School Board is just providing middle school students with a new and different pathway to TJ admissions that will be studied carefully and reverse engineered.

If PP - perhaps a TJ teacher - really has such critical observations to share about the school, she or he should have been testifying in favor of the School Board for the magnet's dissolution.

All these people ever want to do is refashion a TJ that is more to their liking, and makes them feel better about having TJ on their own resumes, while still very much centering a school that fewer than 4% of FCPS high school students will ever attend as if it is the only school in FCPS that remotely matters. And they are more than prepared to engage in overt anti-Asian racism to advance their goal.

increasing black and hispanic enrollment is overt racism? Too bad Kansas didn't think to use that argument to argue Brown

Your logic is shallow, as overt racism has been directed at the Asian students currently at TJ, and there are no restrictions on the ability of any Black or Hispanic student who lives in a participating jurisdiction to apply to TJ.

But please carry on with your strained analogies.

Talking about issues with TJ students and the culture there =/= making blanket assertions about Asian Americans

There are a lot of TJ students who are not Asian and they contribute to the brutal culture there as well

There are also a HUGE number of Asian Americans who do not attend TJ and those statements don't apply to them at all

Equating criticism of TJ with overt racism against Asian Americans is extremely shallow logic

QED

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, if you say so.

I hope you will read the news involving hate and harassment if Asian Americans and try a bit harder to watch your language. Pro tip— if you call a space with lots of Asian Americans toxic, you’re on the wrong path.

What happened in Atlanta is disgusting and unconscionable. Trying to use those horrific hate-filled murders to justify shutting down a conversation about how harmful TJ’s culture of hyper competition can be to its students simply because it happens to have a high concentration of Asian-Americans is grossly tone-deaf.

It’s important to note here that we will have accomplished absolutely nothing if the racial composition of the school changes but the culture of comparison doesn’t.

Do you have firsthand experience with TJ’s “culture”? I do and disagree with your depiction. I also find you deeply in denial of your racism.

I've had enough people on these boards show appreciation for my experience with TJ to speak for itself.

I know enough about TJ to know that when our students were first surveyed as part of the Challenge Success initiative back in 2018, the two top words they used to describe it were "toxic" and "competitive". Now, the fifth one was "fun", so that's pretty cool, but it's not like I'm inventing those words out of thin air.

I know enough about TJ to know that the former principal, Dr. Evan Glazer, used to tell 8th graders coming in for Freshmen Preview Night that they'd better make 100% sure that they were in love with STEM as 13 and 14 year olds or else "this might not be the place for you".

I could go on and on, but that's besides the point.

My depiction is, like it or not, spot-on and informed by literally decades of experience. The "TJ parents" on here may have something of a snapshot of what the school looks like now from their conversations with their kids, or perhaps even from volunteering from time to time, but that's nothing compared to being on the ground every day and getting to know dozens of kids in each class. And those parents have no context of the history of the school and what it was like 10, 15, 20 years ago. And that's fine, but you haven't put the time in and you just don't know.

The problems with TJ in its current state have less to do with its racial composition and more to do with what the old admissions process selected for. By placing a hard and relatively arbitrary cut-off on exam percentiles - remember, 99th Math, 99th science, and 74th English means you're out of luck - TJ Admissions deeply incentivized families to invest tons of time, money, and effort into beating the exam. And because those exams were graded by percentile score, it's not like you could simply make the grade and be qualified - you had to compete with all of the other students taking those exams to qualify.

The Admissions Office also made it abundantly clear that you had to prove your passion for STEM - which incentivized students and families to drop or put on the back burner any passions they had that were outside of STEM in pursuit of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, Odyssey of the Mind, VEX Robotics, and whatever else filled that bucket. Parents at several schools who had the time and resources to do so would volunteer to "coach" these teams - and in many cases would select their own kids and the kids in their communities to do it and box out others.

All of this is to say that the core problem is that the Admissions Office provided families with a fairly explicit pathway to TJ that - probably unintentionally - incentivized families to sell out to the admissions process and make every single decision based on "how will this help my TJ application". Selecting for kids and families with that attitude leads to having kids in the school who make every decision based on "how will this help my college application". By the way - I know enough about TJ to remember how 8th period transitioned from a chance to relax, hang out with friends, engage in fun activities, and do some healthy volunteerism to what it is now, which is basically an opportunity to enhance a student's LinkedIn profile. Seriously, go take a look at the lists of available activities down through the years and see how it's turned from a needed break in the day to another source of stress and competition for these kids.

These are problems with TJ, not with Asian-Americans. The new process needs to select for exceptional students who want to have a great high school experience and take advantage of all that TJ has to offer, both in STEM and otherwise. It needs to be attractive to those types of students. But when I highlight those problems, because TJ is 70% Asian-American, folks come at me like I'm saying that "Asian-Americans are toxic". That's not what's happening. You don't own TJ enough to claim that a harsh evaluation of TJ is equivalent to a harsh evaluation of Asian-Americans - there are other kids there too who contribute to these issues.

The atmosphere there is toxic and it pervades everything that goes on there. And some students - bless them - dodge it successfully and have a great experience! But hop on over to tjvents on Facebook and tell me that that's a healthy environment.

Fantastic post! This should be required reading for anyone posting about TJ.

-Indian

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS School Board is just providing middle school students with a new and different pathway to TJ admissions that will be studied carefully and reverse engineered.

If PP - perhaps a TJ teacher - really has such critical observations to share about the school, she or he should have been testifying in favor of the School Board for the magnet's dissolution.

All these people ever want to do is refashion a TJ that is more to their liking, and makes them feel better about having TJ on their own resumes, while still very much centering a school that fewer than 4% of FCPS high school students will ever attend as if it is the only school in FCPS that remotely matters. And they are more than prepared to engage in overt anti-Asian racism to advance their goal.

increasing black and hispanic enrollment is overt racism? Too bad Kansas didn't think to use that argument to argue Brown

Your logic is shallow, as overt racism has been directed at the Asian students currently at TJ, and there are no restrictions on the ability of any Black or Hispanic student who lives in a participating jurisdiction to apply to TJ.

But please carry on with your strained analogies.

Talking about issues with TJ students and the culture there =/= making blanket assertions about Asian Americans

There are a lot of TJ students who are not Asian and they contribute to the brutal culture there as well

There are also a HUGE number of Asian Americans who do not attend TJ and those statements don't apply to them at all

Equating criticism of TJ with overt racism against Asian Americans is extremely shallow logic

QED

LOL. That must be why Brabrand et al made a point of displaying charts that illustrated the anticipated reduction in the percentage of Asian kids under a revised admissions approach.

There is nothing more shallow than indulging in the fiction that the revised process will somehow find the kids who "truly" love STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, if you say so.

I hope you will read the news involving hate and harassment if Asian Americans and try a bit harder to watch your language. Pro tip— if you call a space with lots of Asian Americans toxic, you’re on the wrong path.

What happened in Atlanta is disgusting and unconscionable. Trying to use those horrific hate-filled murders to justify shutting down a conversation about how harmful TJ’s culture of hyper competition can be to its students simply because it happens to have a high concentration of Asian-Americans is grossly tone-deaf.

It’s important to note here that we will have accomplished absolutely nothing if the racial composition of the school changes but the culture of comparison doesn’t.

Do you have firsthand experience with TJ’s “culture”? I do and disagree with your depiction. I also find you deeply in denial of your racism.

I've had enough people on these boards show appreciation for my experience with TJ to speak for itself.

I know enough about TJ to know that when our students were first surveyed as part of the Challenge Success initiative back in 2018, the two top words they used to describe it were "toxic" and "competitive". Now, the fifth one was "fun", so that's pretty cool, but it's not like I'm inventing those words out of thin air.

I know enough about TJ to know that the former principal, Dr. Evan Glazer, used to tell 8th graders coming in for Freshmen Preview Night that they'd better make 100% sure that they were in love with STEM as 13 and 14 year olds or else "this might not be the place for you".

I could go on and on, but that's besides the point.

My depiction is, like it or not, spot-on and informed by literally decades of experience. The "TJ parents" on here may have something of a snapshot of what the school looks like now from their conversations with their kids, or perhaps even from volunteering from time to time, but that's nothing compared to being on the ground every day and getting to know dozens of kids in each class. And those parents have no context of the history of the school and what it was like 10, 15, 20 years ago. And that's fine, but you haven't put the time in and you just don't know.

The problems with TJ in its current state have less to do with its racial composition and more to do with what the old admissions process selected for. By placing a hard and relatively arbitrary cut-off on exam percentiles - remember, 99th Math, 99th science, and 74th English means you're out of luck - TJ Admissions deeply incentivized families to invest tons of time, money, and effort into beating the exam. And because those exams were graded by percentile score, it's not like you could simply make the grade and be qualified - you had to compete with all of the other students taking those exams to qualify.

The Admissions Office also made it abundantly clear that you had to prove your passion for STEM - which incentivized students and families to drop or put on the back burner any passions they had that were outside of STEM in pursuit of MathCounts, Science Olympiad, Odyssey of the Mind, VEX Robotics, and whatever else filled that bucket. Parents at several schools who had the time and resources to do so would volunteer to "coach" these teams - and in many cases would select their own kids and the kids in their communities to do it and box out others.

All of this is to say that the core problem is that the Admissions Office provided families with a fairly explicit pathway to TJ that - probably unintentionally - incentivized families to sell out to the admissions process and make every single decision based on "how will this help my TJ application". Selecting for kids and families with that attitude leads to having kids in the school who make every decision based on "how will this help my college application". By the way - I know enough about TJ to remember how 8th period transitioned from a chance to relax, hang out with friends, engage in fun activities, and do some healthy volunteerism to what it is now, which is basically an opportunity to enhance a student's LinkedIn profile. Seriously, go take a look at the lists of available activities down through the years and see how it's turned from a needed break in the day to another source of stress and competition for these kids.

These are problems with TJ, not with Asian-Americans. The new process needs to select for exceptional students who want to have a great high school experience and take advantage of all that TJ has to offer, both in STEM and otherwise. It needs to be attractive to those types of students. But when I highlight those problems, because TJ is 70% Asian-American, folks come at me like I'm saying that "Asian-Americans are toxic". That's not what's happening. You don't own TJ enough to claim that a harsh evaluation of TJ is equivalent to a harsh evaluation of Asian-Americans - there are other kids there too who contribute to these issues.

The atmosphere there is toxic and it pervades everything that goes on there. And some students - bless them - dodge it successfully and have a great experience! But hop on over to tjvents on Facebook and tell me that that's a healthy environment.

Fantastic post! This should be required reading for anyone posting about TJ.

-Indian

Thank you! Best wishes to you and your family!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS School Board is just providing middle school students with a new and different pathway to TJ admissions that will be studied carefully and reverse engineered.

If PP - perhaps a TJ teacher - really has such critical observations to share about the school, she or he should have been testifying in favor of the School Board for the magnet's dissolution.

All these people ever want to do is refashion a TJ that is more to their liking, and makes them feel better about having TJ on their own resumes, while still very much centering a school that fewer than 4% of FCPS high school students will ever attend as if it is the only school in FCPS that remotely matters. And they are more than prepared to engage in overt anti-Asian racism to advance their goal.

increasing black and hispanic enrollment is overt racism? Too bad Kansas didn't think to use that argument to argue Brown

Your logic is shallow, as overt racism has been directed at the Asian students currently at TJ, and there are no restrictions on the ability of any Black or Hispanic student who lives in a participating jurisdiction to apply to TJ.

But please carry on with your strained analogies.

Talking about issues with TJ students and the culture there =/= making blanket assertions about Asian Americans

There are a lot of TJ students who are not Asian and they contribute to the brutal culture there as well

There are also a HUGE number of Asian Americans who do not attend TJ and those statements don't apply to them at all

Equating criticism of TJ with overt racism against Asian Americans is extremely shallow logic

QED

LOL. That must be why Brabrand et al made a point of displaying charts that illustrated the anticipated reduction in the percentage of Asian kids under a revised admissions approach.

There is nothing more shallow than indulging in the fiction that the revised process will somehow find the kids who "truly" love STEM.

*pssst* most kids at tj don't truly love STEM when they walk in - theyre 14 years old - they truly love telling people that they got into tj

many of us develop a passion for it while we're there cuz the teachers and labs are sick

many others never do but we stick it out for our parents aunties and uncles

kids applying to tj are mostly just trying to prove their passion so they get in

[Anonymous]

Just get rid of TJ entirely. It is more trouble than it's worth and it sucks all the air out of the room. It is beyond ridiculous that the current School Board spent as much time on TJ as it has already, and God knows that isn't going to change once everyone starts scrutinizing again who did and didn't get in under the revised admissions process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The FCPS School Board is just providing middle school students with a new and different pathway to TJ admissions that will be studied carefully and reverse engineered.

If PP - perhaps a TJ teacher - really has such critical observations to share about the school, she or he should have been testifying in favor of the School Board for the magnet's dissolution.

All these people ever want to do is refashion a TJ that is more to their liking, and makes them feel better about having TJ on their own resumes, while still very much centering a school that fewer than 4% of FCPS high school students will ever attend as if it is the only school in FCPS that remotely matters. And they are more than prepared to engage in overt anti-Asian racism to advance their goal.

increasing black and hispanic enrollment is overt racism? Too bad Kansas didn't think to use that argument to argue Brown

Your logic is shallow, as overt racism has been directed at the Asian students currently at TJ, and there are no restrictions on the ability of any Black or Hispanic student who lives in a participating jurisdiction to apply to TJ.

But please carry on with your strained analogies.

Talking about issues with TJ students and the culture there =/= making blanket assertions about Asian Americans

There are a lot of TJ students who are not Asian and they contribute to the brutal culture there as well

There are also a HUGE number of Asian Americans who do not attend TJ and those statements don't apply to them at all

Equating criticism of TJ with overt racism against Asian Americans is extremely shallow logic

QED

LOL. That must be why Brabrand et al made a point of displaying charts that illustrated the anticipated reduction in the percentage of Asian kids under a revised admissions approach.

There is nothing more shallow than indulging in the fiction that the revised process will somehow find the kids who "truly" love STEM.

Both things can be and are true:

1) The Asian population percentage will be reduced under this new model (because of the increase in class size, the raw number could actually go up)

2) That's not the point, the point is to increase representation of other voices and bring them into the room

Stop making everything about you - it's not about you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I mean, isn't the whole middle school placement model something that has already been found to be race neutral? In APS I thought this was the whole thrust of the failed challenge to HB Woodlawn. You can't argue middle school slots = racial preference. It's like precedent in the same federal court that the FCPS case is being brought.

APS is a blind lottery based on number of seats allocated per middle school.
TJ is a Governor's School that "has been designed to assist divisions as they meet the needs of a small population of students whose learning levels are remarkably different from their age-level peers. The foundation of the Virginia Governor's School Program centers on best practices in the field of gifted education and the presentation of advanced content to able learners."
If you point is that a race blind lottery is legal, you are correct. The problem FCPS had with the lottery aspect was that you would ultimately miss out on admitting the most able and gifted students who really belong there. That's why they went with the new system: top 1.5% per middle school and then the rest going to the highest ranked applicants. The fight is over what is used to determine the rankings and whether they are using race after abandoning a race blind test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just get rid of TJ entirely. It is more trouble than it's worth and it sucks all the air out of the room. It is beyond ridiculous that the current School Board spent as much time on TJ as it has already, and God knows that isn't going to change once everyone starts scrutinizing again who did and didn't get in under the revised admissions process.

It was much simpler when you had a test administered by TJ to gauge STEM aptitude and preparedness for TJ and took the highest scorers. They just didn't like the outcome of a fair and equitable process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just get rid of TJ entirely. It is more trouble than it's worth and it sucks all the air out of the room. It is beyond ridiculous that the current School Board spent as much time on TJ as it has already, and God knows that isn't going to change once everyone starts scrutinizing again who did and didn't get in under the revised admissions process.

It was much simpler when you had a test administered by TJ to gauge STEM aptitude and preparedness for TJ and took the highest scorers. They just didn't like the outcome of a fair and equitable process.

Two things you can choose to believe:

1) The process wasn't fair or equitable, which is why you haven't had enough Black students in the school's 35 year history to fill a half of a graduating class

OR

2) The process is fair and equitable, and the lack of Black representation is due to some sort of deficiency among Black people with respect to STEM education

You believe one or the other.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but one of the Pacific Legal attorneys testified before the House this morning, and spoke about the anti-Asian sentiments and TJ admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. I mean, isn't the whole middle school placement model something that has already been found to be race neutral? In APS I thought this was the whole thrust of the failed challenge to HB Woodlawn. You can't argue middle school slots = racial preference. It's like precedent in the same federal court that the FCPS case is being brought.

APS is a blind lottery based on number of seats allocated per middle school.
TJ is a Governor's School that "has been designed to assist divisions as they meet the needs of a small population of students whose learning levels are remarkably different from their age-level peers. The foundation of the Virginia Governor's School Program centers on best practices in the field of gifted education and the presentation of advanced content to able learners."
If you point is that a race blind lottery is legal, you are correct. The problem FCPS had with the lottery aspect was that you would ultimately miss out on admitting the most able and gifted students who really belong there. That's why they went with the new system: top 1.5% per middle school and then the rest going to the highest ranked applicants. The fight is over what is used to determine the rankings and whether they are using race after abandoning a race blind test.

So, legally, the issue is basically the test, and ranking of the slots that are NOT allocated by middle school? Isn't the easiest thing for the county to do is give the test, rank neutrally, and allocate slots based equally among the middle schools? The test doesn't say the most advanced learners in a period -- I mean, even other counties have seats capped, so if there is an Arlington student or PWC student who scored highly but the county ran out of seats they are SOL and less "advanced" fcps kids take the spots because FCPS has more seats.

Doesn't this just push the whole tying it to middle schools basically? A could from Sandburg could score 100 poinless less than a kid from Frost and be admitted because Sandburg has seats. Is that why people are going crazy over this? I'm just trying to follow because the complaint doesn't make it clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if this has been posted yet, but one of the Pacific Legal attorneys testified before the House this morning, and spoke about the anti-Asian sentiments and TJ admissions.

It takes a lot of gumption to drop in on a Congressional hearing centered on hate crimes and use it as a platform to push a narrative like this about elite school admissions. I have to think a lot of folks on that committee were sitting there going "wait, what are we talking about? A high school? Did someone get shot there?"