To all those complaining about the TJ lottery

[Anonymous]

This isn't an un-interesting conversation -- and it's not an un-important one. However, OP started the thread by going on an attack, directing it against "you." Look at the original post -- it's full of you this and you that. Who is the "you"? The private school parents? Did liberal left, private school parents instigate the change that OP is enraged by? If not, why take up the diatribe here? It's like OP came to the wrong party to start a shootout.

And by the way, why assume that the same parents who would advocate for a change are the same ones complaining about the lottery? Just because a forum is anonymous, it doesn't mean that they are one and the same. Maybe, just maybe, those (or some if not many) parents who wanted TJ to be more "equitable" are happy with the new lottery system.

Whatever it is, OP, pour yourself a glass of wine. You sound like you need one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are either hypocrites, racists, or both. You wring your hands about diversity and eliminating privilege, but then screech about this decision. Meanwhile you would champion such a policy applied to any suburban or middle class area in the country and would dox those who dared oppose it. Yet the second this idea is applied to the school you personally like, you retreat into "conservative" and "reactionary" defenses like "kids who don't deserve those spots will go there" and "its not fair to those kids who put in the work" and "it will change the character of the school".

No one is surprised by your behavior. This happened in NYC a couple years back with some of their magnet schools, and it also happens every time zoning laws or school redistricting dares to affect suburbs where the 1 percent live (as opposed to those privileged racists in the middle class who hold all the real power, right?).

Its just amazing how blatant your hypocrisy is. I hope TJ becomes a nightmare over the next 10 years. Their alumni were the ones who cultivated the appetite for these changes anyway because of the extreme liberalism encouraged by the school and parents. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. Asians are white adjacent. Academic measures of success are categorically racist. Etc. These are the fruits of your beliefs and I for one am ecstatic the chickens are coming home to roost at least in this one small way. Now we just need affordable housing in your single family neighborhoods too.

You should focus your outrage on the FCPS board, not the people on this blog. They are the governing body who cares so little for black and brown kids that they don't care about the quality of their education nor providing the opportunity for them to attend TJ under the rigorous admissions process. Of the 200,000k kids in FCPS I find it hard to believe there are not black and brown students who couldn't compete for a spot at and do very well at TJ were they provided an excellent education and the opportunity. What are they doing with their almost unheard of in any other district in this COUNTRY $3 billion budget. Shame on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From Sami:
Lottery is wrong because

1. It will destroy TJ's standard and ranking. The goal / definite outcome is downgrade of TJ to a normal good high school. If you look at the presentation (page 25) FCPS
superintendent made to the board, he listed some schools which are good and use lottery as intake method. If you look at the rank of those schools, some are in 100, 600. If TJ
starts lottery TJ will be one of those. Some sample schools he listed are
- Raisbeck Aviation High School, WA with niche.com rank 272, US news rank 108;
- International community school, Washington; niche.com rank 157, US news did not rank the school.


2. Lowering of quality will be extended to future. Student body that will enter through lottery will do worse than usual noting the fact that even students who go through admission
test struggle at TJ. Then teachers will be asked to dumb down the test so the advocates of lottery look better. AP courses all have structured test which will manifest the
degradation in quality. Unless colleges change their admission criteria TJ students will not go to top colleges in usual proportion.

3. About 5% of TJ students finally selected had "Algebra 1" in 8th std. Rest are higher (Geometry 1, Trig etc.). For FCPS that means they took algebra in grade 7 which in turn means
they were top percentile in Iowa Test. Now, Algebra 1 students will be more. Lowering standard again.

4. "Merit" is a falsely used word here. Life only measures , rewards "preparedness for a role". Standardized test is very good (not perfect) at measuring it. Most other methods
cannot cite success over long time. Lottery does not even care for it. If someone disagrees we can measure. Take 90% of students through admission test and take 10%
through lottery. Track their grades for 4 years and the colleges they go to. If the results converge then make lottery the process of admission.

5. If you look at the presentation FCPS superintendent made he mentioned what has been tried to admit more "economically disadvantaged" student (page 6). He acted as if he tried
everything he possible could but still did not get the result. If you notice carefully FCPS did nothing to "improve the quality" of "economically disadvantaged". Only action
(outreach) that could have benefited them was curtailed. He kept on changing the structure of the test and of course did not get result. In case you have any doubt about the
information here is what he presented. Unless someone is absolutely dumb he would not expect these changes to help "economically disadvantaged"

2011 (Class of 2016) –Outreach Specialist Position Created
2013 (Class of 2018) –Holistic Review , Student Information Sheet proctored
2014 (Class of 2019) –Sliding Scale Adjusted, Minimum semifinalist requirements lowered
2015 (Class of 2020) –Problem Solving Essay Added
2016 (Class of 2021) –Outreach Specialist Reduced to 0.5 Position
2017 (Class of 2022) –New Tests Introduced, Quant-Q and ACT Aspire Reading & Science
These changes have not made a significant impact on the application pool or admitted student demographics

This reminds me of going to Iraq war . Saddam was a bad person and removing him was a good goal. But Iraq war was the wrong choice. But this is what jingoism, zealots do. They focus on 1 topic and completely ignore everything else. Fortunately, people will not die if this passes. However, lot of hard work backed dreams will die. More importantly, an institution that took long time to build will die.

All of this is true of any well performing middle class suburban public school or public magnet. And yet all of those places are forced to deal with zoning games and overcrowding and busing the local inner city kids the second they start looking too appealing. But the school does not perform well because of a magic location. It is because of the kids and families who built the school up. Bringing the ghetto into such schools just makes the school a ghetto school. Period. Every time.

So all the schvitzing about TJ is the same thing millions of families across the U.S. deal with constantly, but because Fairfax is a place for the rich and powerful who thought their woke social engineering could never happen to them, suddenly we need to step back and think about the consequences.

[Anonymous]

If suburbs are truly stupid enough to vote for Biden and he wins, the AFFH rules will make what's happening to TJ permanent everywhere. The federal government will have control over zoning to ensure exactly what's happening to TJ happens to every successful school and neighborhood and any resistance to the idea will be labeled racist. I cannot understand why people like those who post here are stupid enough to think this is a good thing while pearl clutching over the TJ lottery. Can people really not connect the dots? If so the suburbs and rich city enclaves deserve what's coming.

My kids are private all the way, so I don't care. I would prefer not to see the middle class completely obliterated in the name of social justice, but that seems to be what the middle class wants lol. I guess they operate under a "it won't happen to MY neighborhood" mentality. And otherwise it feels good to think about sending poor inner city kids to a rich public magnet school. As long as its not yours.

But what gets me is you can see people in this very thread showing they're well aware of the consequences and how these schemes fundamentally DONT work even in the short term.

So?????

[Anonymous]

I literally have no idea what OP's post is talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids are private all the way, so I don't care. I would prefer not to see the middle class completely obliterated in the name of social justice, but that seems to be what the middle class wants lol. I guess they operate under a "it won't happen to MY neighborhood" mentality. And otherwise it feels good to think about sending poor inner city kids to a rich public magnet school. As long as its not yours.

But what gets me is you can see people in this very thread showing they're well aware of the consequences and how these schemes fundamentally DONT work even in the short term.

So?????

For over thirty years, local black activists in Washington, D.C. have accused the ruling white power structure of promoting “The Plan,” a deliberate strategy of removing most of the black population from our national capital and replacing them with whites; and this “conspiracy theory” has been endlessly ridiculed as absurdly paranoid nonsense by our elite Washington media. Meanwhile, during this same thirty year period, Washington’s black population dropped from over 70% to less than half and will probably fall below the white total within the next few years.

Indeed, the strong support of our political elites for Section 8 housing vouchers may be less connected with any alleged social benefits these provide than with their important role in moving large numbers of impoverished urban residents away from the near vicinity of wealthy neighborhoods out into the remote suburbs of the middle class.

Elite selfishness is hardly surprising and a policy of exporting those populations with a strong link to crime into other localities seems a natural strategy, especially if this can be accomplished under the altruistic guise of socially-uplifting anti-poverty programs.

During the 1960s black author James Baldwin coined the widely-quoted phrase “Urban renewal means Negro removal.” I suspect that a somewhat similar semi-intentional national policy is today transforming America’s leading urban centers, although it remains almost entirely unreported by our mainstream media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For over thirty years, local black activists in Washington, D.C. have accused the ruling white power structure of promoting “The Plan,” a deliberate strategy of removing most of the black population from our national capital and replacing them with whites; and this “conspiracy theory” has been endlessly ridiculed as absurdly paranoid nonsense by our elite Washington media. Meanwhile, during this same thirty year period, Washington’s black population dropped from over 70% to less than half and will probably fall below the white total within the next few years.

Indeed, the strong support of our political elites for Section 8 housing vouchers may be less connected with any alleged social benefits these provide than with their important role in moving large numbers of impoverished urban residents away from the near vicinity of wealthy neighborhoods out into the remote suburbs of the middle class.

Elite selfishness is hardly surprising and a policy of exporting those populations with a strong link to crime into other localities seems a natural strategy, especially if this can be accomplished under the altruistic guise of socially-uplifting anti-poverty programs.

During the 1960s black author James Baldwin coined the widely-quoted phrase “Urban renewal means Negro removal.” I suspect that a somewhat similar semi-intentional national policy is today transforming America’s leading urban centers, although it remains almost entirely unreported by our mainstream media.

Did not know that about DC demographics. Interesting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Righteous indignation aside, what does this have to do with independent schools?

Hilarious. Suddenly TJ admissions magically aren't related to the topic of this board. As if private schools in DC aren't structured around TJ admissions. Grow up.

Huh? I live in Maryland, so maybe I'm clueless. I didn't think that that VA residents made up such a significant portion of DC privates -- enough that DC schools are structured around TJ admissions. Maybe I'm misinformed. But I'll take your advice and try to "grow up". Thanks for the helpful tip.

I thought you had to live in certain part so VA to be eligible. There are a small handful of VA kids at our small DC private. Nice kids but doubt they would do well at TJ or a Big 3. Why isn’t this on VA Public School thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are either hypocrites, racists, or both. You wring your hands about diversity and eliminating privilege, but then screech about this decision. Meanwhile you would champion such a policy applied to any suburban or middle class area in the country and would dox those who dared oppose it. Yet the second this idea is applied to the school you personally like, you retreat into "conservative" and "reactionary" defenses like "kids who don't deserve those spots will go there" and "its not fair to those kids who put in the work" and "it will change the character of the school".

No one is surprised by your behavior. This happened in NYC a couple years back with some of their magnet schools, and it also happens every time zoning laws or school redistricting dares to affect suburbs where the 1 percent live (as opposed to those privileged racists in the middle class who hold all the real power, right?).

Its just amazing how blatant your hypocrisy is. I hope TJ becomes a nightmare over the next 10 years. Their alumni were the ones who cultivated the appetite for these changes anyway because of the extreme liberalism encouraged by the school and parents. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. Asians are white adjacent. Academic measures of success are categorically racist. Etc. These are the fruits of your beliefs and I for one am ecstatic the chickens are coming home to roost at least in this one small way. Now we just need affordable housing in your single family neighborhoods too.

Wow, OP. You need a Valium and to chill. Not really sure why you think a lot of private school parents care about TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Wow, OP. You need a Valium and to chill. Not really sure why you think a lot of private school parents care about TJ.

No dog in this fight but are we really all pretending that no one cares about TJ? It is literally considered the best high school in the entire United States by many rankings. Not only does it far outperform the precious Big 3 in college admissions, but it's free. It sent 96 kids to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale over the past 3 years. Compare that to Sidwell, which sent 18 kids to those schools over the same time period. Until this thread, I have never ever heard people act like TJ wasn't the obvious best choice for high school.

If private school parents don't care about TJ, they should. There is absolutely no reason to pay exorbitant money for a Big 3 education when the outcome is worse that TJ almost by an order of magnitude. Seriously. Whatever you hope to get out of an elite private education, ultimately college admission is number one. And TJ wipes the floor with the Big 3. In fact, out of curiosity I checked the numbers and for the Big 3 they sent 44 kids to those 3 schools TOTAL over the past 3 years, meaning in that time frame TJ more than doubled that number by itself.

[Anonymous]

Yet still most don’t care and PP fundamentally does not understand why people choose private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Heads up to all those calling this off topic and low key asking for it to get deleted: I am not OP but I am fascinated by this thread. I also work for a moderate circulation DC paper. If this thread gets deleted I will write an article about white fragility using this thread getting deleted as an example

Just let it ride and deal with it, you fragile wasp creeps.

White people will gain the most from this change, at the expense of Asians. This whole change is an exercise in white fragility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Wow, OP. You need a Valium and to chill. Not really sure why you think a lot of private school parents care about TJ.

No dog in this fight but are we really all pretending that no one cares about TJ? It is literally considered the best high school in the entire United States by many rankings. Not only does it far outperform the precious Big 3 in college admissions, but it's free. It sent 96 kids to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale over the past 3 years. Compare that to Sidwell, which sent 18 kids to those schools over the same time period. Until this thread, I have never ever heard people act like TJ wasn't the obvious best choice for high school.

If private school parents don't care about TJ, they should. There is absolutely no reason to pay exorbitant money for a Big 3 education when the outcome is worse that TJ almost by an order of magnitude. Seriously. Whatever you hope to get out of an elite private education, ultimately college admission is number one. And TJ wipes the floor with the Big 3. In fact, out of curiosity I checked the numbers and for the Big 3 they sent 44 kids to those 3 schools TOTAL over the past 3 years, meaning in that time frame TJ more than doubled that number by itself.

I’m in a STEM profession. I am not interested in my kid getting a STEM focused education in high school. I want my kid to get a good broad based humanities education. If DC is interested in STEM, plenty of time for that in college.

I could care less about the ivies or the brand name. I want my kid to go to the college that is the best fit for him.

You are fixated by the ivies it seems from your post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Wow, OP. You need a Valium and to chill. Not really sure why you think a lot of private school parents care about TJ.

No dog in this fight but are we really all pretending that no one cares about TJ? It is literally considered the best high school in the entire United States by many rankings. Not only does it far outperform the precious Big 3 in college admissions, but it's free. It sent 96 kids to Harvard, Princeton, and Yale over the past 3 years. Compare that to Sidwell, which sent 18 kids to those schools over the same time period. Until this thread, I have never ever heard people act like TJ wasn't the obvious best choice for high school.

If private school parents don't care about TJ, they should. There is absolutely no reason to pay exorbitant money for a Big 3 education when the outcome is worse that TJ almost by an order of magnitude. Seriously. Whatever you hope to get out of an elite private education, ultimately college admission is number one. And TJ wipes the floor with the Big 3. In fact, out of curiosity I checked the numbers and for the Big 3 they sent 44 kids to those 3 schools TOTAL over the past 3 years, meaning in that time frame TJ more than doubled that number by itself.

We live in Maryland and have zero interest in moving to Virginia for a public school regardless of which one. The only people who are eligible for TJ are in Fairfax and can afford prep classes while being willing to cheat.

So your constant accusation that we don't care about TJ, and your assumption that we should is flawed. While I am not a fan of any Big 3, your stats are meaningless on the number of students going on to specific colleges. There are over 1,700 kids in TJ which is multiples of the number of kids in any single or group of many privates. They should be sending more to colleges you care about just based on numbers.

Go back to the AAP forum and tell it to someone who cares. This is not a place where everyone is looking for STEM education, cares about TJ, or lives in Fairfax to even apply. We just don't care. Sorry to break it to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heads up to all those calling this off topic and low key asking for it to get deleted: I am not OP but I am fascinated by this thread. I also work for a moderate circulation DC paper. If this thread gets deleted I will write an article about white fragility using this thread getting deleted as an example

Just let it ride and deal with it, you fragile wasp creeps.

White people will gain the most from this change, at the expense of Asians. This whole change is an exercise in white fragility.

Is this post implying that if it benefits black children the most it is an exercise in black fragility? What does that even mean?