TJ Admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Yet another environment outside of the kid’s control.

Yes, but they put in the work and the results are a reflection of their ability and effort.
It is certainly more fair than picking kids based on skin color.

Good thing TJ admissions is not doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Yet another environment outside of the kid’s control.

Yes, but they put in the work and the results are a reflection of their ability and effort.
It is certainly more fair than picking kids based on skin color.

Good thing TJ admissions is not doing that.

Maybe not, but it was what colleges were doing with affirmative action.
And now we have to deal with the question of whether the process itself is racist even though it is racially neutral.
Was the process put in place to reduce the asian population and increase students of other races

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had tod evise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart.

Nobody said that.

The big issue with the prior admissions process was that it allowed families from affluent middle schools to hoard TJ seats. The disparity of outcomes was increasingly exacerbated by the TJ Test Prep Industry(tm).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had tod evise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had tod evise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

Seems like they just enjoy writing fiction. Since everyone knows what they're claiming is illegal, and if they had proof, they could win millions in court. They're just bitter and want to spread these false claims that have no basis in fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had to devise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

I'm a fairfax resident and this is what6 FCPS did. The new process selects a cross s3ection of the applicant pool without much regard to merit and so you get an entering class that approximates the applicant pool. This reduces the number of asians and increases the number of everyone else. The prioblem is that it switches out about 400 of the smartest kids for 400 kids that are smart but not quite as smart as the previous cohorts. This is why we see such large drops in standardized testing and grades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had tod evise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

Seems like they just enjoy writing fiction. Since everyone knows what they're claiming is illegal, and if they had proof, they could win millions in court. They're just bitter and want to spread these false claims that have no basis in fact.

Walk me through how i would win millions in court.

Did the plaintiffs in SFFA vs harvard win millions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had to devise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

I'm a fairfax resident and this is what6 FCPS did. The new process selects a cross s3ection of the applicant pool without much regard to merit and so you get an entering class that approximates the applicant pool. This reduces the number of asians and increases the number of everyone else. The prioblem is that it switches out about 400 of the smartest kids for 400 kids that are smart but not quite as smart as the previous cohorts. This is why we see such large drops in standardized testing and grades.

TJ is a governor's school for gifted STEM kids. Not for "the most gifted STEM kids" but for any and all gifted STEM kids. IOW, there's no problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had to devise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

I'm a fairfax resident and this is what6 FCPS did. The new process selects a cross s3ection of the applicant pool without much regard to merit and so you get an entering class that approximates the applicant pool. This reduces the number of asians and increases the number of everyone else. The prioblem is that it switches out about 400 of the smartest kids for 400 kids that are smart but not quite as smart as the previous cohorts. This is why we see such large drops in standardized testing and grades.

TJ is a governor's school for gifted STEM kids. Not for "the most gifted STEM kids" but for any and all gifted STEM kids. IOW, there's no problem.

TJ is for most qualified STEM kids, not for struggling kids. All students are gifted one way or the other, and there are base schools for all of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had to devise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

I'm a fairfax resident and this is what6 FCPS did. The new process selects a cross s3ection of the applicant pool without much regard to merit and so you get an entering class that approximates the applicant pool. This reduces the number of asians and increases the number of everyone else. The prioblem is that it switches out about 400 of the smartest kids for 400 kids that are smart but not quite as smart as the previous cohorts. This is why we see such large drops in standardized testing and grades.

TJ is a governor's school for gifted STEM kids. Not for "the most gifted STEM kids" but for any and all gifted STEM kids. IOW, there's no problem.

I didn't say they were gifted. Getting a 3.5 GPA in middle school doesn't make you gifted. A 3.5 GPA in middle school puts you on-track to go to college and that's about it.
The governor's schools are "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."
A 3.5 is routine and even a 4.0 fairly common.
So when they lower standards like this, they are subverting the purpose of the governor's school
Lowering standards is not unconstitutional.

The unconstitutional part is the reason and intent behind their lowering of standards.
They did this to lower asian population and increase the population of all other groups.
That's the unconstitutional part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart.

Nobody said that.

The big issue with the prior admissions process was that it allowed families from affluent middle schools to hoard TJ seats. The disparity of outcomes was increasingly exacerbated by the TJ Test Prep Industry(tm).

Yes, because they were the only ones who could afford to buy early access to the test questions from elite prep centers that had been compiling the question banks. The board knew this was going on, especially after one brazenly bought a full-page ad in the paper to show how just their customers made up over 30% of the TJ entering class. Many believe this was the main driver of the change in selection process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ MathCounts, AMC, Olympiads, ”

And those also aren’t offered everywhere. We aren’t in a “bad” pyramid either. Just a middle of the road one for FCPS.

Mathcounts allows students to sign up as non school competitors if their school isn't competing.
AMCs are offered by Fairfax math circle, FCAG, AoPS, and a number of other places.
Any motivated kid should be able to participate in both of these, even if it's not offered by their school.

But what if they can’t participate because they have to take care of their younger brother because both parents work?

If they're so overburdened with childcare or other responsibilities that they cannot even escape for a single day for an academic competition, how on earth are they going to have the time to be successful TJ students? TJ is a huge time sink, even for the kids who are minimally participating in all that TJ has to offer.

DP. That is for them to figure out, not for you to pretend concern over.

The idea that kids who have adversity to deal with should not have access to elite educational opportunities because they would take a different approach than you would is gross.

You do a disservice to people who are on your side when you make comments like this - making them appear uncaring and out of touch with reality.

That's not the idea. The idea is that when you eliminate all testing, because you feel that poor kids are incapable of prepping themselves, you eliminate all consideration of extracurricular achievements, because poor kids might be stuck babysitting the siblings, you eliminate consideration of math level, because even though 7th grade Algebra I is offered at every middle school and every single bright FCPS kid should have reasonable access, you feel that poor kids simply can't make it work, you eliminate teacher recommendations, because they might be biased, and you don't even require the kids to take all honors, because poor kids might not opt into them for whatever reason, there isn't much left.

You can either admit a broad spectrum of kids and accept that there will be high attrition at TJ, or you can admit a narrower group of kids and minimize attrition. Neither view is specifically incorrect. It comes down to whether you think it's worse to bar kids from TJ who have obstacles and haven't yet demonstrated that they can rise above those obstacles, or whether you think it's worse to set up a bunch of kids to wash out of TJ. For my part, I'm not a fan of setting kids up for failure or using kids to score political points. I hope all of the kids who are admitted understand what they're getting into and whether they really are prepared for the rigor.

I appreciate your response on some level, although I'm not sure that you really believe that both perspectives are valid.

While I recognize that most people on my side of the conversation disagree with this, I personally believe that teacher recommendations are an absolute necessity to return to the TJ admissions process. They should be similar to scantrons rather than long and narrative-based, and they should ask teachers to compare students against each other within their schools and classes. They should include ratings on grit, determination, academic integrity, contributions to the classroom environment, and an honest evaluation of whether the student is more interested in grades or learning. And they should be able to be completed in 5-10 minutes tops.

And while we're at it, afford each teacher the ability to write in greater depth about at most 3-5 students, whether to encourage admission or to warn about a student whose profile might appear worthy of TJ but who for other reasons (integrity or poor classroom ethic) would be a detriment to the educational environment.

I do believe that both perspectives are valid, providing that falling back to base school from TJ isn't too devastating for the kids and doesn't ruin their college chances too much. My biggest issue with the current admissions process is that the inputs are too sparse. I agree with you that teacher recommendations are necessary. I also would love to see PSAT 8/9 or SHSAT added, at the very least as a baseline competency test. The cynical side of me feels that FCPS designed the admissions to get the best press release possible, but they don't overly care about what happens to the kids after they've been admitted.

We are pretty much in agreement. I think if a PSAT or something similar were used as a baseline (i.e. clear the hurdle and then throw the score out before evaluating the kids that met the threshold), I could live with that as long as it didn't incur significant additional costs.

I also think that you might be on to something with respect to FCPS. It's important as part of this conversation to decouple FCPS and TJ - no one at TJ had any input whatsoever in the design of, implementation of, or execution of the current admissions process. I can guarantee you that the current TJ administration is deeply invested in the success of the kids who are currently attending, but I haven't seen evidence that FCPS is equally invested in that effort.

I'm appreciating the level of nuance in this conversation and the attempt to meet mutually agreeable goals through pragmatism. While I have no interest in serving the folks who just want to protect privileged access to elite educational opportunities, I believe that there's more we can do to ensure that it's the right kids from underrepresented schools and socioeconomic backgrounds who end up at TJ.

The part that frustrates me the most is that they aren't even looking at SOL scores. As a baseline check, kids should need at least a 480 in 7th grade reading, at least a 480 in Algebra I if the kid took that in 7th, and at least a 500 if the kid took M7H. At the end of 8th, any kid who didn't at least score 450+ (or 480+, or some other threshold) in their 8th grade SOL exams should have their TJ admissions rescinded.

I'm all for giving disadvantaged kids a chance. If the SOL scores show that a kid doesn't have the foundation to succeed at TJ, then there's no reason to set that kid up to fail.

That's is because you have a different motivation than the people who created this system.
If the point was simply to give a preference to poor kids, they could have done that without eliminating merit.
The point wasn't to help disadvantaged kids.
The point was to have a more racially balanced entering class and they could not achieve anytime soon that without removing a lot of the merit filter.

Objective measures are anathema to a process that hopes to achieve racial balance through various race neutral measures.
Once they start to track things like test scores they lose.
You start to see large disparities in test scores. You see disparities between center and non-center schools; you see socioeconomic disparities; and you see racial disparities.

The part they don't want is the racial disparities but they cannot avoid it without eliminating much of the merit filter.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is noticable at a wealthy school like carson where pretty much all the parents place a pretty high value on education and have the resources to support that.
The cultural advantage of a focus on education is overwhelming at a poor school where no one has a lot of resources and you are sacrificing things to pursue education.
The sacrifices that it takes for a poor kid to excel academically can be painful and it takes an almost religious faith in the value of education to make those painful tradeoffs.

Well put.

The prior school board also sought to eliminate the advantages of unearned Asian privilege.

Unearned Asian privilege refers to the advantages that Asian American students gain from their parents' strong commitment to education.

Locally, whether they are white-collar professionals working in Reston or scraping dishes at a restaurant in Falls Church or washing clothes at dry cleaners in Herndon, Asian parents invest significant time and energy to ensure their children succeed academically. This often involves working long hours, taking on extra jobs, and sacrificing their own leisure time. In many cases, one parent—usually the mother—may choose not to work or quit her job entirely to focus on supervising their FCPS student, allowing them to concentrate on their studies.

The values of hard work, self-improvement, and a love of learning are instilled in their student from a young age, reinforcing the belief that education is the path to a successful life. A parent might even forgo buying a new winter coat to save money for their children's Kumon fees. All of this is motivated by the hope that their children will achieve better grades, gain admission to good universities, and ultimately break the cycle of poverty, creating a better life than their parents had.

And this is what the prior FCPS Board set out to counter, for their own racial equity goals.

Just like the advantages that students gain from having wealthy parents. Or from have legacy status.

Having legacy status does not require you to work harder. Those asian parents require you to work harder.

Legacy status is going away. California has passed legislation that bans it for every school in the state. I think at least one other state has done the same. Many schools have announced that they are removing legacies, to include a good number of Ivies. Legacy status was expected to be challenged in the courts after the Supreme Court ruling on race related admissions and school are getting ahead of the curve.

Which will ultimately only hurt merit students as universities lose donations from families.

Oh well.

Whenever I read the term merit on this forum now, I just substitute test buying.

That's what racists with mediocre kids.

Not sure about that but it does seem like you're an elitist since you want to keep all but the wealthy students who could afford elite prep out of TJ.

Stop saying that poor kids can't be smart. It's simply not true.
The science high schools in NYC is majority free and reduced lunch.
A poor kid can score every bit as well on the SHSAT as a wealthy kid.
Under the old system, they frequently did but then got filtered out by the "holistic" part of the admissions process where the wealthy kids could talk about all the cool (and expensive) experiences that led them to a passion for STEM.

For example for the class of 2022
24 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 7 made it out of the pool. 29% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
91 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 33 made it out of the pool. 36% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
161 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 78 made it out of the pool. 48% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

For the class of 2024, we see this pattern continue:
36 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, <10 made it out of the pool. <26% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
76 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Rocky Run, 32 made it out of the pool. 42% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.
143 kids got into the pool based on test scores from Hughes, 82 made it out of the pool. 57% of the kids with sufficiently high test scores were able to make it past the holistic screen to get into TJ.

If we got rid of the holistic screen we would get more kids from other schools but we didn't do that because we don't really care that much about which school these kids come from, we care about their skin color so we had to devise an admissions process that allowed the filter to let through fewer asians and more of everyone else.

You don't really care about helping out smart poor kids, you just want to see racial diversity because the racial profile at TJ embarrasses you.
If TJ had a bunch of wealthy black and hispanic kids, you would be perfectly satisfied, just like the selective colleges were perfectly satisfied with creating "diversity" with wealthy black and hispanic students.

That part I bolded above begs the question:

- are you a former or current member of the FCPS school board, PP?

I'm a fairfax resident and this is what6 FCPS did. The new process selects a cross s3ection of the applicant pool without much regard to merit and so you get an entering class that approximates the applicant pool. This reduces the number of asians and increases the number of everyone else. The prioblem is that it switches out about 400 of the smartest kids for 400 kids that are smart but not quite as smart as the previous cohorts. This is why we see such large drops in standardized testing and grades.

TJ is a governor's school for gifted STEM kids. Not for "the most gifted STEM kids" but for any and all gifted STEM kids. IOW, there's no problem.

I didn't say they were gifted. Getting a 3.5 GPA in middle school doesn't make you gifted. A 3.5 GPA in middle school puts you on-track to go to college and that's about it.
The governor's schools are "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."
A 3.5 is routine and even a 4.0 fairly common.
So when they lower standards like this, they are subverting the purpose of the governor's school
Lowering standards is not unconstitutional.

The unconstitutional part is the reason and intent behind their lowering of standards.
They did this to lower asian population and increase the population of all other groups.
That's the unconstitutional part.

This is where you're mistaken. They raised the standards by basing selection on merit instead of memorizing the test questions.