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

[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.

So when you keep talking about all the lack of integrity of curie kids, (which is about 100% indian) you are not referring to race at all?

[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”?

To a significant extent yes.

[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

Charter schools are a thing. You don't need to subsidize private schools to create school choice.

[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.

We're not trying to improve schools, we are trying to improve educational outcomes.
And competition clearly improves educational outcomes in underserved communities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We're not trying to improve schools, we are trying to improve educational outcomes.
And competition clearly improves educational outcomes in underserved communities.

Improving schools is improving educational outcomes.

Defunding FCPS will not improve educational outcomes for most kids.

[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”?

To a significant extent yes.

You really didn’t answer the question that was actually asked above. The question is not whether you think the public school system is some kind of monopoly, but in what way you think it is a monopoly. *How* is it a monopoly? How does it fit into the definition of a monopoly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So when you keep talking about all the lack of integrity of curie kids, (which is about 100% indian) you are not referring to race at all?

No where in the thread you quoted above is there any mention of any particular prep business. They are discussing kids who cheat, so when the poster uses the phrase “these kids,” it seems evident from the context of the discussion that they are referring to any kids who cheat.

They even note that “Cheating is not unique to TJ…,” so they aren’t limiting the discussion to TJ students or applicants but referring to any kids who cheat at any school. Children, and adults, who cheat are lacking in integrity, and sadly, kids and adults from all kinds of backgrounds can be dishonest and cheat at times.

[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

Charter schools are a thing. You don't need to subsidize private schools to create school choice.

They're usually a scam that just siphons off public money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We're not trying to improve schools, we are trying to improve educational outcomes.
And competition clearly improves educational outcomes in underserved communities.

Improving schools is improving educational outcomes.

Defunding FCPS will not improve educational outcomes for most kids.

Noone is talking about defunding FCPS.
FCPS for the most part i9f an excellent school system that works well for its students.
But it is not universal. Alexandria's schools in particular might benefit from some competition.
The URM educational results have been greatly improved by charter schools in NYC
Same with Washington DC
They're not a panacea but just as school choice isn't the solution to everything, a mindless devotion to our current public school system isn't necessarily a great idea either. Assuming you put kids ahead of bureaucrats and union bosses.

[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”?

To a significant extent yes.

You really didn’t answer the question that was actually asked above. The question is not whether you think the public school system is some kind of monopoly, but in what way you think it is a monopoly. *How* is it a monopoly? How does it fit into the definition of a monopoly?

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.

Public education enjoys an absence of competition for the service it provides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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”?

To a significant extent yes.

You really didn’t answer the question that was actually asked above. The question is not whether you think the public school system is some kind of monopoly, but in what way you think it is a monopoly. *How* is it a monopoly? How does it fit into the definition of a monopoly?

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.

Public education enjoys an absence of competition for the service it provides.

Wrong, lots of people choose private.

[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.

Sounds good but it's been tried and always fails. Charters are even more wasteful and it ends up hurting the kids.

[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

Charter schools are a thing. You don't need to subsidize private schools to create school choice.

It's not school choice if the schools can reject the applicants. It's school choice for attractive applicants, who frequently don't need school choice.

FCPS and Northern Virginia in general are the envy of America when it comes to public school quality. There is absolutely no need to subsidize other options here using public money. When Northern Virginians are advocating for "school choice", what they're looking for is a government handout to lower their outlay for private schools. And they're doing it at the expense of kids who would get rejected from either private schools or whatever charters might pop up as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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”?

To a significant extent yes.

You really didn’t answer the question that was actually asked above. The question is not whether you think the public school system is some kind of monopoly, but in what way you think it is a monopoly. *How* is it a monopoly? How does it fit into the definition of a monopoly?

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell'), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular thing.

Public education enjoys an absence of competition for the service it provides.

Sorry, but public education is in no way the only supplier of education where I live. There are all sorts of private schools available that provide education, plus it is perfectly legal to homeschool one’s children. No one is forcing anyone to go to public schools. There are lots of choices available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So when you keep talking about all the lack of integrity of curie kids, (which is about 100% indian) you are not referring to race at all?

No where in the thread you quoted above is there any mention of any particular prep business. They are discussing kids who cheat, so when the poster uses the phrase “these kids,” it seems evident from the context of the discussion that they are referring to any kids who cheat.

They even note that “Cheating is not unique to TJ…,” so they aren’t limiting the discussion to TJ students or applicants but referring to any kids who cheat at any school. Children, and adults, who cheat are lacking in integrity, and sadly, kids and adults from all kinds of backgrounds can be dishonest and cheat at times.

"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?" - in response to the fact that FCPS relied on 3000 teenagers to not talk about the TJ test for the test to remain valid.

The illicit "test bank" they are referring to is Curie, a 100% indian test prep center.