TJ serves the whole community, not just the families who have the means to game the system. |
TJ is not meant to serve a cross section of fairfax any more than any competitive endeavor is supposed to represent a cross section of the general population. TJ is supposed to serve the smartest most advanced students in fairfax and the new admissions process ensures that many of the spots are taken by underprepared kids. The more you try to equate studying with 'gaming the system' the more you reveal the intellectual bankruptcy of your position. Before they changed to the quant q test in the hopes of reducing the asian population, they used a version of the SHSAT, the test that stuyvesant, bronx science and brooklyn tech (collectively, the science schools) use as the SOLE determinant of their admissions. The test selects the smart kids. The science schools in NYC also had very few URM so even though the students were majority FARM students, they still tried to change the admissions process and eliminate the test in large part because what they thought it implied about which communities were smart. The smartest kids are not evenly distributed across every community. They're not born that way, they become that way. |
TJ is not an anti=poverty program. TJ has gone from admitting 25% FARM students for the class of 2025 to 10% for the most recent incoming class. I suspect they will try to keep it at 10% but I don't think aiming for demographic results is as good as aiming for academic results. |