Race and TJ admissions

[Anonymous]

Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

[Anonymous]

if you understand statistics, its not that hard to come up with a classification that is proxy to the race with out actually saying the word 'race'. This is very similar to voter suppression efforts as you may not find anything explicit in the law, but you will find that there are certain restrictions that overwhelmingly affect specific groups such as minorities, students etc. (ex: reducing poling locations, voting hours, early voting/mail-in, only allow certain type of photo ids and/or making it a little harder to get photo ids just to name a few).

In case of TJ admission changes, its no secret that attending school base quotas (not base school) and all of the bonus points given to 'other' experience factors are specifically designed to suppress kids who go to AAP centers and do not qualify for reduced meals. From what I read, new admissions are based on 1200 points where 300 comes for entire GPA (all core courses), 300 from single math/science essay, 300 from portrait sheet and remaining 300 comes from other factors such as under represented schools, esol, reduced meals etc. So, the AAP center kids who do not qualify for reduced meals max out at 900 in the point based system and hope best that their points are enough to compete. This affect is even dramatic for schools like Carson, which is predominantly AAP (ie., 67% of school or about 500 kids from each grade are in AAP) and represents entire north western part of Fairfax county and Carson is treated just like any other non-AAP school in the county. Rocky Run and Longfellow are very similar. These schools do get spill over seats, but we can clearly see which specific schools were negatively affected. FCPS knows that this geographic area is popular for working/middle/upper-middle class parents who tend to focus on academics and asians do represent a good percent. Judge had enough proof to agree that changes were racially motivated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

It's the fact that multiple board members are on record stating we need to change standards to have more blacks and hispanics and a couple times they actually said less asians. You can't say that out loud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

It's the fact that multiple board members are on record stating we need to change standards to have more blacks and hispanics and a couple times they actually said less asians. You can't say that out loud.

Haha.. don't say the quiet part of out loud! So stupid!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

It's the fact that multiple board members are on record stating we need to change standards to have more blacks and hispanics and a couple times they actually said less asians. You can't say that out loud.

That’s math, not racism.

The opinion writer is anti-affirmative action. So be it. I disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

So.... no. The bottom line is that you have two groups that are at odds with one another:

1) FCPS and the School Board, which, for better or for worse, sees a problem with the composition of the school across whatever metrics

2) A "parent group" supported by dark money that is seeking to use TJ as a test case to invalidate the idea of affirmative action in all academic areas.

There are individuals (presumably, like you) who profess to be more worried with how things were done than what was done, but the reality is that the major thrust behind C4TJ are people who want to preserve their ability to use their resources and enthusiasm for TJ to give their children advantages in the admissions process.

They want an admissions process that is completely transparent and objective so that they can mold their children to check the respective boxes - which invariably results in a student body that is very similar to one another, perhaps along racial lines but certainly in terms of goals, ambitions, and interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:if you understand statistics, its not that hard to come up with a classification that is proxy to the race with out actually saying the word 'race'. This is very similar to voter suppression efforts as you may not find anything explicit in the law, but you will find that there are certain restrictions that overwhelmingly affect specific groups such as minorities, students etc. (ex: reducing poling locations, voting hours, early voting/mail-in, only allow certain type of photo ids and/or making it a little harder to get photo ids just to name a few).

In case of TJ admission changes, its no secret that attending school base quotas (not base school) and all of the bonus points given to 'other' experience factors are specifically designed to suppress kids who go to AAP centers and do not qualify for reduced meals. From what I read, new admissions are based on 1200 points where 300 comes for entire GPA (all core courses), 300 from single math/science essay, 300 from portrait sheet and remaining 300 comes from other factors such as under represented schools, esol, reduced meals etc. So, the AAP center kids who do not qualify for reduced meals max out at 900 in the point based system and hope best that their points are enough to compete. This affect is even dramatic for schools like Carson, which is predominantly AAP (ie., 67% of school or about 500 kids from each grade are in AAP) and represents entire north western part of Fairfax county and Carson is treated just like any other non-AAP school in the county. Rocky Run and Longfellow are very similar. These schools do get spill over seats, but we can clearly see which specific schools were negatively affected. FCPS knows that this geographic area is popular for working/middle/upper-middle class parents who tend to focus on academics and asians do represent a good percent. Judge had enough proof to agree that changes were racially motivated.

Geography is literally race-blind. Anyone in the county is now free to move to any middle school they want if they believe they stand a better chance to get into TJ from a specific base school. Yes, right now, wealthy Asian families are concentrated in the northwest, so on the surface it seems that you can accuse FCPS of using zip code as a "proxy" for race at this moment in time. But again, now anyone in the county can choose to move anywhere they want for a potentially better chance at admission to TJ, so the proxy accusation falls apart.

[Anonymous]

I think another poster said this, but the history of racism in the US for the last 150 years is literally the history of facially neutral laws with racist intent and effect. You can't assess race blindness without understanding the circumstances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think another poster said this, but the history of racism in the US for the last 150 years is literally the history of facially neutral laws with racist intent and effect. You can't assess race blindness without understanding the circumstances.

Yep. Standardized exams and "literacy tests" are in the same family here. Look 'em up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think another poster said this, but the history of racism in the US for the last 150 years is literally the history of facially neutral laws with racist intent and effect. You can't assess race blindness without understanding the circumstances.

And affirmative action is facially "racist" with racist intent and effect - just the opposite of previous. Affirmative action is under fire because it is not neutral -- but it's not supposed to be. The question is, why is that not okay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

So.... no. The bottom line is that you have two groups that are at odds with one another:

1) FCPS and the School Board, which, for better or for worse, sees a problem with the composition of the school across whatever metrics

2) A "parent group" supported by dark money that is seeking to use TJ as a test case to invalidate the idea of affirmative action in all academic areas.

There are individuals (presumably, like you) who profess to be more worried with how things were done than what was done, but the reality is that the major thrust behind C4TJ are people who want to preserve their ability to use their resources and enthusiasm for TJ to give their children advantages in the admissions process.

They want an admissions process that is completely transparent and objective so that they can mold their children to check the respective boxes - which invariably results in a student body that is very similar to one another, perhaps along racial lines but certainly in terms of goals, ambitions, and interests.

I am also one of those who is worried about the direction TJ is going in order to "punish" prep centers, but they don't realize that they are also punishing the specific kids as well that fall into targeted categories even if they are not being prepped. There are 500 kids in AAP alone in Carson in each grade and more than half of them apply to TJ and even if you assume half (which is high) are prepped, then the other half are facing increased competition by just being there. Even the kids who are prepped, they may be inherently smart and do not deserve the negative treatment.

No matter how you design, it is very difficult to avoid prepping. Even if fully focussed on GPA, there is a lot of after school enrichment, personal tutoring that puts some kids ahead of the curve. Some kids interact better with teachers and some don't which affect referrals. Some kids are have much better writing skills than technical/stem knowledge who have a leg up in the game over shy by real geeky kid. The point here is, it is almost impossible to find true hidden talent unless you closely interact with a person on a regular basis and if you are trying to use the new admission process to find those, then you are out of luck.

So, in the end, I am worried that TJ is being slowly watered down. Sure, it might still be better than other base high schools, but may not be a hyper competitive environment like before. It will not be much different from any AP/Honors class. If the kid maintains relatively good gpa and ability to write good sentences, its all that is needed to get into TJ, especially if the kid is not from Carson, Longfellow or Rocky Run. Even at these 3 schools, new admission criteria may not clearly make smart STEM focussed kids stand out from others who just study for grades. So, over time, the environment at TJ may mellow down, while other base schools start to compete with TJ. If this is the intended goal for TJ, then there is nothing much to argue here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal court found with proof that it’s discrimination against Asians. Can anyone on this forum give process that there was No discrimination and that federal court is wrong. Evidence and facts are appreciated here.

No one is arguing about the evidence, the question is whether or not the law was correctly applied. If this case stands, desecration is de facto unconstitutional because it will always have a disproportionate effect on whatever race is dominant in the institution being desegregated.

I don't think most of the complaints are targeted towards boards decision to improve the admission process. It is the specific targeted changes and the manor in which the board pushed the changes. Its inevitable that any improvements will negatively effect the dominant group and thats not an issue here. Contrary to what many are interpreting, this is not what people are angry about.

Just get rid of the other experience factors (a.k.a. free bonus points), remove attending school based quotas and everyone will be fine even if it ends up with lower asians. If the board insists on quotas, keep it a school pyramid level or at least do it based on 'base' middle schools so it won't discriminate against AAP ex: allocate half of the seats equally among each school pyramid and keep the other half in an open pool for all. Very few will complain about it.

Personally, I would like to have a tricky to prep test like olympiads, teacher referrals and gpa combined into a relatively difficult admission process. But apparently, this would lead to even more asians than we currently have, so it was a no go from the start. Oh well

So.... no. The bottom line is that you have two groups that are at odds with one another:

1) FCPS and the School Board, which, for better or for worse, sees a problem with the composition of the school across whatever metrics

2) A "parent group" supported by dark money that is seeking to use TJ as a test case to invalidate the idea of affirmative action in all academic areas.

There are individuals (presumably, like you) who profess to be more worried with how things were done than what was done, but the reality is that the major thrust behind C4TJ are people who want to preserve their ability to use their resources and enthusiasm for TJ to give their children advantages in the admissions process.

They want an admissions process that is completely transparent and objective so that they can mold their children to check the respective boxes - which invariably results in a student body that is very similar to one another, perhaps along racial lines but certainly in terms of goals, ambitions, and interests.

I am also one of those who is worried about the direction TJ is going in order to "punish" prep centers, but they don't realize that they are also punishing the specific kids as well that fall into targeted categories even if they are not being prepped. There are 500 kids in AAP alone in Carson in each grade and more than half of them apply to TJ and even if you assume half (which is high) are prepped, then the other half are facing increased competition by just being there. Even the kids who are prepped, they may be inherently smart and do not deserve the negative treatment.

No matter how you design, it is very difficult to avoid prepping. Even if fully focussed on GPA, there is a lot of after school enrichment, personal tutoring that puts some kids ahead of the curve. Some kids interact better with teachers and some don't which affect referrals. Some kids are have much better writing skills than technical/stem knowledge who have a leg up in the game over shy by real geeky kid. The point here is, it is almost impossible to find true hidden talent unless you closely interact with a person on a regular basis and if you are trying to use the new admission process to find those, then you are out of luck.

So, in the end, I am worried that TJ is being slowly watered down. Sure, it might still be better than other base high schools, but may not be a hyper competitive environment like before. It will not be much different from any AP/Honors class. If the kid maintains relatively good gpa and ability to write good sentences, its all that is needed to get into TJ, especially if the kid is not from Carson, Longfellow or Rocky Run. Even at these 3 schools, new admission criteria may not clearly make smart STEM focussed kids stand out from others who just study for grades. So, over time, the environment at TJ may mellow down, while other base schools start to compete with TJ. If this is the intended goal for TJ, then there is nothing much to argue here.

I think this is another reasoned take here. What you may learn as a function of this situation is how much of TJ's excellence is due to the environment and how much of it has simply been due to selecting the types of students who tend to perform well on historically valued metrics (like standardized exams).

I am the most vocal and experienced pro-reform poster on this board, and in the end, I am hoping that they come to something of a middle ground where there remains no standardized exam but perhaps where the allocated seats are lowered to 1% and teacher recommendations return to the overall evaluation.

While the updated process is a significant improvement, I think it represents a bit of an overcorrection and I'm hoping that the increase in students from underrepresented groups in this class results in a significant uptick in interest in TJ from the top-performing members of those groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:if you understand statistics, its not that hard to come up with a classification that is proxy to the race with out actually saying the word 'race'. This is very similar to voter suppression efforts as you may not find anything explicit in the law, but you will find that there are certain restrictions that overwhelmingly affect specific groups such as minorities, students etc. (ex: reducing poling locations, voting hours, early voting/mail-in, only allow certain type of photo ids and/or making it a little harder to get photo ids just to name a few).

In case of TJ admission changes, its no secret that attending school base quotas (not base school) and all of the bonus points given to 'other' experience factors are specifically designed to suppress kids who go to AAP centers and do not qualify for reduced meals. From what I read, new admissions are based on 1200 points where 300 comes for entire GPA (all core courses), 300 from single math/science essay, 300 from portrait sheet and remaining 300 comes from other factors such as under represented schools, esol, reduced meals etc. So, the AAP center kids who do not qualify for reduced meals max out at 900 in the point based system and hope best that their points are enough to compete. This affect is even dramatic for schools like Carson, which is predominantly AAP (ie., 67% of school or about 500 kids from each grade are in AAP) and represents entire north western part of Fairfax county and Carson is treated just like any other non-AAP school in the county. Rocky Run and Longfellow are very similar. These schools do get spill over seats, but we can clearly see which specific schools were negatively affected. FCPS knows that this geographic area is popular for working/middle/upper-middle class parents who tend to focus on academics and asians do represent a good percent. Judge had enough proof to agree that changes were racially motivated.

Geography is literally race-blind. Anyone in the county is now free to move to any middle school they want if they believe they stand a better chance to get into TJ from a specific base school. Yes, right now, wealthy Asian families are concentrated in the northwest, so on the surface it seems that you can accuse FCPS of using zip code as a "proxy" for race at this moment in time. But again, now anyone in the county can choose to move anywhere they want for a potentially better chance at admission to TJ, so the proxy accusation falls apart.

This is really funny! This is literally the argument used to defend voter suppression. It is a well documented that people tend to segregate based on race, political leanings etc. and this is essentially the basis for voter suppression. If you don't believe, just look at the census data. TJ admission changes might not be as blatant as voter suppression, but did use similar tactics though to a lesser extent. Yes, people are free to move to anywhere in the county or even country, but every time there is a change in an admission process for one school that your kid may or may not get into, do you expect a mass migration of families from our geographical area to other? It is simply not a big enough reason to put up with hassle and expense for the most people. Honestly, will you move for this reason alone?