FCPS TJ Class of 2024 Press Release - Buried; AA Admits "TS" to Mention

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an African American student that currently attends TJHSST (rare I know) I don't necessarily agree with everything said. I do believe that there SHOULD be some sort of cut off from certain races that attend TJHSST. After administering a poll to my classmates, the majority of the black students there said that once they get into TJ they feel comfortable there. While the work is tough, they don't feel discriminated against by any of their peers. With that being said, I feel as if not enough African American students are getting a chance to attend TJ because they're being overshadowed by predominantly Asian students. This starts from the bottom and works it way up and African American people have been at the bottom economically for generations now. So for the people that choose who gets accepted into the school, it's unfair for African American students to be compared to Asian students in the admissions process, when clearly, they'll lose out everytime. And for the fact that's it is less than 10 just shows where we are at this point and what we need to improve on. Thanks!

Why do you think AA students lose out to Asian? Our child attended Kumon for several years, which helped them to do well at school and on the TJ admission test. We paid $110-120 per month for Kumon - not that much in my view. Wouldn’t a typical FCPS AA family be able to afford that?

Stop trolling and pretending to be an Asian parent. You're trying to label TJ students as preppers. Kumon is actually not helpful at all to TJ admission and competitive work.

Aren't they? ??

[Anonymous]

No, of course not. Those kind of blanket statements are ridiculous and unfair to these kids. Including who didn’t prep for AAP or TJ. Many of the kids there are the same. Many prepped kids do not get in. The ones who do tend to struggle more.

[Anonymous]

I left out the “mine” after “Including.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an African American student that currently attends TJHSST (rare I know) I don't necessarily agree with everything said. I do believe that there SHOULD be some sort of cut off from certain races that attend TJHSST. After administering a poll to my classmates, the majority of the black students there said that once they get into TJ they feel comfortable there. While the work is tough, they don't feel discriminated against by any of their peers. With that being said, I feel as if not enough African American students are getting a chance to attend TJ because they're being overshadowed by predominantly Asian students. This starts from the bottom and works it way up and African American people have been at the bottom economically for generations now. So for the people that choose who gets accepted into the school, it's unfair for African American students to be compared to Asian students in the admissions process, when clearly, they'll lose out everytime. And for the fact that's it is less than 10 just shows where we are at this point and what we need to improve on. Thanks!

Why do you think AA students lose out to Asian? Our child attended Kumon for several years, which helped them to do well at school and on the TJ admission test. We paid $110-120 per month for Kumon - not that much in my view. Wouldn’t a typical FCPS AA family be able to afford that?

Stop trolling and pretending to be an Asian parent. You're trying to label TJ students as preppers. Kumon is actually not helpful at all to TJ admission and competitive work.

I’m not Asian, and my child started attending Kumon in early elementary school. We didn’t even know about TJ at that time (we are immigrants). However, it definitely helped our child with math. Therefore I’m genuinely wondering what we (Asian and non-Asian immigrants) are doing that local AA can’t do? Can’t they afford $120 (maybe $140 now) a month for math classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an African American student that currently attends TJHSST (rare I know) I don't necessarily agree with everything said. I do believe that there SHOULD be some sort of cut off from certain races that attend TJHSST. After administering a poll to my classmates, the majority of the black students there said that once they get into TJ they feel comfortable there. While the work is tough, they don't feel discriminated against by any of their peers. With that being said, I feel as if not enough African American students are getting a chance to attend TJ because they're being overshadowed by predominantly Asian students. This starts from the bottom and works it way up and African American people have been at the bottom economically for generations now. So for the people that choose who gets accepted into the school, it's unfair for African American students to be compared to Asian students in the admissions process, when clearly, they'll lose out everytime. And for the fact that's it is less than 10 just shows where we are at this point and what we need to improve on. Thanks!

I, too am an African American, and I graduated from TJ 11 years ago. I've been following this discussion and trying to parse out in my own head how I feel about all of this. It's a complicated matter with no simple solution. It definitely hurts to see the minuscule AA admission rate, and I would like to see it higher. At the same time, I don't think the solution is as simple as some of these posts suggest. As I understand it, admissions are race blind (hopefully that's true), which leads me to believe the admitted students have a certain level of ability regardless of race. If certain students who don't fall within that level of ability are admitted on account of racial equity (or any other reason for that matter), that could be doing a disservice to those kids because they might not be able to succeed in that environment. I believe this is a problem that needs to be addressed starting at the preschool level. Kids who succeed at TJ don't just suddenly become capable at that level in 8th grade when it's time to apply to TJ. It takes years of development, encouragement, modeling, mentorship, AAP and peer culture to get someone in the position to succeed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an African American student that currently attends TJHSST (rare I know) I don't necessarily agree with everything said. I do believe that there SHOULD be some sort of cut off from certain races that attend TJHSST. After administering a poll to my classmates, the majority of the black students there said that once they get into TJ they feel comfortable there. While the work is tough, they don't feel discriminated against by any of their peers. With that being said, I feel as if not enough African American students are getting a chance to attend TJ because they're being overshadowed by predominantly Asian students. This starts from the bottom and works it way up and African American people have been at the bottom economically for generations now. So for the people that choose who gets accepted into the school, it's unfair for African American students to be compared to Asian students in the admissions process, when clearly, they'll lose out everytime. And for the fact that's it is less than 10 just shows where we are at this point and what we need to improve on. Thanks!

Why do you think AA students lose out to Asian? Our child attended Kumon for several years, which helped them to do well at school and on the TJ admission test. We paid $110-120 per month for Kumon - not that much in my view. Wouldn’t a typical FCPS AA family be able to afford that?

What an incredibly misinformed statement. Do you really think Kumon or equivalent attendance guarantees a spot to TJ? Even higher quality prep programs than Kumon still fail, as shown by the large number of preppers who don't make the cut. It takes years of studying, hard work, AND genuine interest, often starting from an elementary school level to be competitively prepared. And part of that hard work is the dedication that parents put into a child's education (through time, resources, and genuine encouragement). Here's a hint: Why do you think TJ acceptance is so extremely tightly correlated with economic status?

I'm happy to hear from the above student that the polling at TJ suggest most AA kids there don't feel out of place. This is actually awesome and shows that TJ is nowhere near as toxic as some crazy posters on this thread are suggesting. And I absolutely agree that getting more AA to be competitive in admissions process needs preparation from early onward, i.e elementary school. If FCPS really cares, they need to fund programs to identify promising kids from early elementary and SUPPORT them throughout elementary and middle school.

So yeah, FCPS needs to put their money where their mouth is if they want to lower the imbalance in TJ's demographics. One great way to start is to emulate BEAM, which already does a fantastic job with this: https://www.beammath.org/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an African American student that currently attends TJHSST (rare I know) I don't necessarily agree with everything said. I do believe that there SHOULD be some sort of cut off from certain races that attend TJHSST. After administering a poll to my classmates, the majority of the black students there said that once they get into TJ they feel comfortable there. While the work is tough, they don't feel discriminated against by any of their peers. With that being said, I feel as if not enough African American students are getting a chance to attend TJ because they're being overshadowed by predominantly Asian students. This starts from the bottom and works it way up and African American people have been at the bottom economically for generations now. So for the people that choose who gets accepted into the school, it's unfair for African American students to be compared to Asian students in the admissions process, when clearly, they'll lose out everytime. And for the fact that's it is less than 10 just shows where we are at this point and what we need to improve on. Thanks!

I, too am an African American, and I graduated from TJ 11 years ago. I've been following this discussion and trying to parse out in my own head how I feel about all of this. It's a complicated matter with no simple solution. It definitely hurts to see the minuscule AA admission rate, and I would like to see it higher. At the same time, I don't think the solution is as simple as some of these posts suggest. As I understand it, admissions are race blind (hopefully that's true), which leads me to believe the admitted students have a certain level of ability regardless of race. If certain students who don't fall within that level of ability are admitted on account of racial equity (or any other reason for that matter), that could be doing a disservice to those kids because they might not be able to succeed in that environment. I believe this is a problem that needs to be addressed starting at the preschool level. Kids who succeed at TJ don't just suddenly become capable at that level in 8th grade when it's time to apply to TJ. It takes years of development, encouragement, modeling, mentorship, AAP and peer culture to get someone in the position to succeed.

Yes, this is spot on! (I wrote the same thing in the earlier post). FCPS should look at other proven programs that work such as BEAM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an African American student that currently attends TJHSST (rare I know) I don't necessarily agree with everything said. I do believe that there SHOULD be some sort of cut off from certain races that attend TJHSST. After administering a poll to my classmates, the majority of the black students there said that once they get into TJ they feel comfortable there. While the work is tough, they don't feel discriminated against by any of their peers. With that being said, I feel as if not enough African American students are getting a chance to attend TJ because they're being overshadowed by predominantly Asian students. This starts from the bottom and works it way up and African American people have been at the bottom economically for generations now. So for the people that choose who gets accepted into the school, it's unfair for African American students to be compared to Asian students in the admissions process, when clearly, they'll lose out everytime. And for the fact that's it is less than 10 just shows where we are at this point and what we need to improve on. Thanks!

Thank you for that. It is indeed shameful that the school does not have adequate AA and low income kids. And the county should make resources available and even have quotas for underrepresented middle schools ( where they can and should offer supplemental tutoring). That is totally constructive and equity driven.

Converting the school to a local school so that cranky lady’s property prices go up is totally bizarre

You keep repeating this. Why do you think her property prices would go up? Instead of proximity to a world-class high school, she would be zoned for a community school largely comprised of Annandale/Springfield/West Alexandria students. Why do you perceive that to be some financial windfall?

[Anonymous]

Any student, no matter his or her race, will not do well once admitted to TJ if they are not able to handle the rigor. Same goes for gender. We are not doing any one any favors by putting them in a school that they will do poorly in.

[Anonymous]

We should also keep in mind that the TJ admissions process isn’t complete. In recent years a strong number of students have been admitted from the waitlist in one round over the summer (usually mid-July), and a number of spots are reserved separately for summer admits. The process is race-blind and is handled separately from the actual school itself (like the principal has nothing to do with it).

[Anonymous]

I think the very first step is to provide everyone with a decent preschool education. Without that, it's extremely hard to compete. Research proves it time and time again. Beyond preschool, and before shoving anything down anyone's throat in the name of equity, we need to be asking AA and Latinx parents and students whether they might be interested in a specialized STEM high school in the future. Those who are interested should be the participants in the program designed to increase AA and Latinx enrollment at TJ. Concurrently, we need programs to expose these families to why they might even want to pursue STEM. Quite frankly, and generally speaking, these communities don't put much thought or value in TJ. We could go into the myriad of reasons for this, but let's suffice it to say that there is a demand issue here. If certain people think it's a good idea to have proportionate representation of the races at TJ, then work needs to be done to evangelize the virtues of STEM to the targeted groups because the demand from these groups isn't there, and the supports aren't there for those kids who are interested. I believe that there are intelligent ones in every race who could make important contributions to STEM, and we as a society should work to reach as many of these as possible.

Signed,
A Latina Mom of a Brilliant Future Scientist

[Anonymous]

Seems like a chicken or egg problem. It’s obviously not encouraging for younger black and Hispanic kids and their families when the message from FCPS for years has been that maybe 3-4% of their 8th graders are worthy of TJ while TJ admits about 25% of the Asian kids. It’s one thing to go through the application process thinking you have a 1-in-4 chance of getting in and another when it’s more like 1-in-25.

[Anonymous]

Didn’t really read the 29 pages of comments but I attended TJ in the 90’s and even back then there weren’t enough black kids. TJ and the county have been working really hard, offering special prep classes to black kids, trying to improve retention (kids drop out of TJ). I have seen more than a handful programs and I wasn’t even looking. It’s literally 30 years later and TJ has the same problem.

I don’t think it is because TJ admissions is racist that black kids can’t get in. I’m not saying black kids aren’t smart but they don’t apply, they don’t want to go, they don’t care, and they are just as smart but they aren’t pushed from home. Their parents aren’t saying to them “if you go to TJ, it would be a wonderful dream come true” from a young age.

To allege that it’s because of a discriminatory process after all the work I have seen them put in for 30 years is just not fair.

[Anonymous]

There are two issues here: (1) Black kids may not be exposed to materials since young from home; (2) Black kids may not be encouraged to apply due to family values. Perhaps TJ is simply not a priority for the Black families. In my kid 1st grade class, there are two Black girls with very supportive and involved parents. These two girls are the best students in class. So, no discrimination, just different priorities, which is perfectly fine.

[Anonymous]

It has been fun being part of this discussion. Of course calling out somebody with an agenda was a big part of it. And now I see that my post and maybe posts have been deleted. Either the OP with agenda has reported it or the powers that be have deleted it because it did not fit well with their politics.

In any case if you bring your dad in every time there is a playground quarrel, I am outta here. Good luck with your quest to convert TJ into a community school.