Has the Coalition for TJ (or any other groups) considered another lawsuit?

[Anonymous]

We knew quite a few kids that got in and didn't go. Perhaps not everyone wants to go to this school after they consider the commute and the competitive vibe so FCPS has to pull other kids in. How many kids get in sophomore year or from the waitlist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ admissions policy is discriminating against students based on their national origin. Giving bonus "experience" points to students who are ELLs is a form of discrimination against students who are born in the United States and therefore are most likely to speak English. Equating speaking a foreign language has been used in lawsuits before to show discrimination based on national origin.

A student with a perfect score of 900 on the TJ admissions scoresheet can't compete with a student who scored 871, but received 30 bonus points due to ELL status. This is 100% discrimination against students with United States as their national origin.

Are you randomly making up numbers for your example or are TJ scoresheets really up to 900 points and then 30 points for each experience factor? If that’s actual scoring, do you know how the math and student profile essays get scored? Is it a possible 500 for the 1 math question and then 100 possible for each of the 4 profile essays? Or what is breakdown?

Thanks!

Total Score Possible for students that are not ELL, FARMS, or have an IEP is 900:
300 points for GPA
300 points for SPS
300 points for PSE

ELL +30 points experience factor points
FARMS +30 points experience factor points
Special Education +30 points experience factor points

Total possible for students with all 3 experience factors is 990.

Unless they have since changed things, GPA is effectively only 37.5 points. A kid with a 3.5 GPA got 262.5 points, since the scale was (GPA/4)*300. Also, FARMS was worth more than 30 points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academic Talent isn't relevant. You don't need to be the highest scoring student in the county to benefit from a better equipped lab.

Academic talent is the ONLY thing that is relevant. They are the only ones that need those better equipped labs and the higher level math and science courses.

WTF is your average kid going to do with a quantum physics and optics lab?
Why does the average kid need access to linear algebra (which is actually pretty widely available throughout FCPS), concrete math, number theory.

Sending a few kids that are going to be taking AP Calculus and AP Physics in their senior year is fine but about 1/3 of the kids at TJ are on this track right now. Most of those kids are getting nothing out of TJ that they would not get at their base school.

There is a huge amount of space between “average” and the tiny number of truly gifted students.

Advanced kids from around the region should have access to TJ, not just kids from a handful of wealthy feeders.

I agree, and their argument just doesn't hold up. Sure, kids whose parents have spent $20k on test prep do well on tests, but hardly matters since the kids being selected now are the very top students and typically surprass the prepsters before graduating.

Nobody spent $20K on test prep. Don't be ridiculous.

PSAT scores down 120 points at TJ and pretty much ONLY TJ.
NMSF down 50% at TJ
SOL advance pass down across the board at TJ
The math department at TJ had to send out an email to the math 4 class telling them their final exam test results were the worst they have ever seen.

They’ve sent out that same email before.

Really? When? I thought 2022 was the only time they sent that out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academic Talent isn't relevant. You don't need to be the highest scoring student in the county to benefit from a better equipped lab.

Academic talent is the ONLY thing that is relevant. They are the only ones that need those better equipped labs and the higher level math and science courses.

WTF is your average kid going to do with a quantum physics and optics lab?
Why does the average kid need access to linear algebra (which is actually pretty widely available throughout FCPS), concrete math, number theory.

Sending a few kids that are going to be taking AP Calculus and AP Physics in their senior year is fine but about 1/3 of the kids at TJ are on this track right now. Most of those kids are getting nothing out of TJ that they would not get at their base school.

There is a huge amount of space between “average” and the tiny number of truly gifted students.

Advanced kids from around the region should have access to TJ, not just kids from a handful of wealthy feeders.

I agree, and their argument just doesn't hold up. Sure, kids whose parents have spent $20k on test prep do well on tests, but hardly matters since the kids being selected now are the very top students and typically surprass the prepsters before graduating.

Nobody spent $20K on test prep. Don't be ridiculous.

PSAT scores down 120 points at TJ and pretty much ONLY TJ.
NMSF down 50% at TJ
SOL advance pass down across the board at TJ
The math department at TJ had to send out an email to the math 4 class telling them their final exam test results were the worst they have ever seen.

Could it be the TJ math faculty that is actually failing? Once faced with students that are not propped up by outside “enrichment,” their math program is maybe not up to snuff?

Either that outside enrichment is as hollow and meaningless as you claim and the current students are really better than previous students (as you claim) or that outside enrichment was in fact enriching them.

The fact of the matter is that too many of those kids were getting a very thin understanding of their math courses at their middle schools. Some middle schools teach a very superficial version of some subjects because there simply isn't a critical mass of students that are prepared to tackle a more in depth curriculum. That is why you end up with feeder schools.

And if the math program at TJ is really as shoddy as you think then why are you trying so goddam hard to get racial proportionality at the school?

We are trying to get smart kids from all over the county, even kids who weren’t lucky enough to be born into affluent families, attend feeder schools, or get outside enrichment.

Yeah, but that's not what we're getting.
We are getting an almost random sampling of the applicant pool.
If you want to keep some sort of geographic quota, I suppose that with the current school board, that is what the political reality demands but at least pick the smartest kids from within each boundary.
Testing will achieve this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academic Talent isn't relevant. You don't need to be the highest scoring student in the county to benefit from a better equipped lab.

Academic talent is the ONLY thing that is relevant. They are the only ones that need those better equipped labs and the higher level math and science courses.

WTF is your average kid going to do with a quantum physics and optics lab?
Why does the average kid need access to linear algebra (which is actually pretty widely available throughout FCPS), concrete math, number theory.

Sending a few kids that are going to be taking AP Calculus and AP Physics in their senior year is fine but about 1/3 of the kids at TJ are on this track right now. Most of those kids are getting nothing out of TJ that they would not get at their base school.

There is a huge amount of space between “average” and the tiny number of truly gifted students.

Advanced kids from around the region should have access to TJ, not just kids from a handful of wealthy feeders.

I agree, and their argument just doesn't hold up. Sure, kids whose parents have spent $20k on test prep do well on tests, but hardly matters since the kids being selected now are the very top students and typically surprass the prepsters before graduating.

Nobody spent $20K on test prep. Don't be ridiculous.

PSAT scores down 120 points at TJ and pretty much ONLY TJ.
NMSF down 50% at TJ
SOL advance pass down across the board at TJ
The math department at TJ had to send out an email to the math 4 class telling them their final exam test results were the worst they have ever seen.

Could it be the TJ math faculty that is actually failing? Once faced with students that are not propped up by outside “enrichment,” their math program is maybe not up to snuff?

Either that outside enrichment is as hollow and meaningless as you claim and the current students are really better than previous students (as you claim) or that outside enrichment was in fact enriching them.

The fact of the matter is that too many of those kids were getting a very thin understanding of their math courses at their middle schools. Some middle schools teach a very superficial version of some subjects because there simply isn't a critical mass of students that are prepared to tackle a more in depth curriculum. That is why you end up with feeder schools.

And if the math program at TJ is really as shoddy as you think then why are you trying so goddam hard to get racial proportionality at the school?

You are projecting a lot on me. I’m really just curious if the kids at TJ are really so great because of TJ or whether they are really learning most things outside of school (at their parents’ expense). One of my kids took Algebra and Geometry in middle with no enrichment and transferred to a rigorous private (outside of DMV) for HS and had to retake Geometry and struggled in Algebra 2. I think the middle school teaching of those courses was inadequate. Was my kid not mature enough? Most likely. Kid is in a respected STEM PhD program now so I think it worked out (and did not matter that they “only” went to Calc 1 in high school). I think the social pressure to push your kid ahead in AAP and FCPS is not healthy and I’ll admit, I fell for it to my kid’s detriment.

I thought I was responding to the previous poster.

The anonymous nature of this board makes it hard to discern who I am replying to so most new entrants into a conversations start their post with DP (different poster) to indicate they are not the person that was being responded to.

The teachers are not always much better at TJ than any other school except they are all qualified to teach honors/AP classes but they are not what makes TJ special.
The labs may be bigger and have more options but that isn't what makes TJ special
The students are what makes TJ special. The higher caliber of student allows them to teach at an accelerated pace and at a more advanced level.
They were not able to do so that spring.

Regardless of what happened to your kid, the fact of the matter is when the students were being selected based on merit, they were able to withstand the accelerated pace and higher level of rigor.
There is nothing magical about the physical facilities or the faculty. We could recreate the facilities without too much trouble. The faculty could be reproduced with a bit more trouble.
But the student body is (or at least was) the best in the country and that was based on a merit based selection process without regard to race, gender or income.

There was one school in FCPS where merit mattered above all else and we strangling it because we don't like what it might say about race, income and gender.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“ Those kids develop real skills and ability through effort and diligence at places like Curie. Do we negate that effort and diligence in an attempt try and suss out "natural ability?"

Well I’d say yes. I think the effort should be to pick the most math and science oriented kids who are mainly relying on the schools for those subjects not give a leg up mainly to families that decided to investment in years of outside math prep (or “studying”/classes - whatever you want to call it) to accelerate their kids beyond the school’s various pathways for that. I just am of the view that a kid who is great at math and in accelerated classes (such as geometry in 8th) should not be disadvantaged for not having done outside prep / classes.

In what way is the current method any better at picking the kids you want than the old method?

And why should kids who don't do extra work be insulated from competition against kids that do more work?
We don't do this in even less consequential aspects of their lives like sports or music. Why would we ignore differences in academic ability based on actual work done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We knew quite a few kids that got in and didn't go. Perhaps not everyone wants to go to this school after they consider the commute and the competitive vibe so FCPS has to pull other kids in. How many kids get in sophomore year or from the waitlist?

These are good questions that the school refuses to divulge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academic Talent isn't relevant. You don't need to be the highest scoring student in the county to benefit from a better equipped lab.

Academic talent is the ONLY thing that is relevant. They are the only ones that need those better equipped labs and the higher level math and science courses.

WTF is your average kid going to do with a quantum physics and optics lab?
Why does the average kid need access to linear algebra (which is actually pretty widely available throughout FCPS), concrete math, number theory.

Sending a few kids that are going to be taking AP Calculus and AP Physics in their senior year is fine but about 1/3 of the kids at TJ are on this track right now. Most of those kids are getting nothing out of TJ that they would not get at their base school.

There is a huge amount of space between “average” and the tiny number of truly gifted students.

Advanced kids from around the region should have access to TJ, not just kids from a handful of wealthy feeders.

I agree, and their argument just doesn't hold up. Sure, kids whose parents have spent $20k on test prep do well on tests, but hardly matters since the kids being selected now are the very top students and typically surprass the prepsters before graduating.

Nobody spent $20K on test prep. Don't be ridiculous.

PSAT scores down 120 points at TJ and pretty much ONLY TJ.
NMSF down 50% at TJ
SOL advance pass down across the board at TJ
The math department at TJ had to send out an email to the math 4 class telling them their final exam test results were the worst they have ever seen.

Could it be the TJ math faculty that is actually failing? Once faced with students that are not propped up by outside “enrichment,” their math program is maybe not up to snuff?

Either that outside enrichment is as hollow and meaningless as you claim and the current students are really better than previous students (as you claim) or that outside enrichment was in fact enriching them.

The fact of the matter is that too many of those kids were getting a very thin understanding of their math courses at their middle schools. Some middle schools teach a very superficial version of some subjects because there simply isn't a critical mass of students that are prepared to tackle a more in depth curriculum. That is why you end up with feeder schools.

And if the math program at TJ is really as shoddy as you think then why are you trying so goddam hard to get racial proportionality at the school?

We are trying to get smart kids from all over the county, even kids who weren’t lucky enough to be born into affluent families, attend feeder schools, or get outside enrichment.

That's why they need a much more robust application packet, including standardized test scores, teacher recommendations, achievements, consideration of math level, courses taken, SOL scores, etc. With a bit of training in how to read the applications, it would be much easier to find kids who are truly talented, but less advantaged. It would also be easy to find and eliminate the preppers. A kid at a high FARMS school who still has high test scores (not sky high, but solid), strong teacher recommendations, and Geometry in 8th, but "worse" achievements or less polished essays should come across as a smart, but less privileged kid who belongs at TJ. A kid from a wealthier school with sky high test scores, high math level, very polished essays, but somewhat mediocre recommendations and achievements that do not match the test scores or rest of the packet should come across as a privileged prepper.

Requiring less information just makes the process random. More information with an eye to ferret out prepping and find those diamonds in the rough would ensure that the right kids are admitted to TJ.

[Anonymous]

C4TJ's case was a joke. It had no merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academic Talent isn't relevant. You don't need to be the highest scoring student in the county to benefit from a better equipped lab.

Academic talent is the ONLY thing that is relevant. They are the only ones that need those better equipped labs and the higher level math and science courses.

WTF is your average kid going to do with a quantum physics and optics lab?
Why does the average kid need access to linear algebra (which is actually pretty widely available throughout FCPS), concrete math, number theory.

Sending a few kids that are going to be taking AP Calculus and AP Physics in their senior year is fine but about 1/3 of the kids at TJ are on this track right now. Most of those kids are getting nothing out of TJ that they would not get at their base school.

There is a huge amount of space between “average” and the tiny number of truly gifted students.

Advanced kids from around the region should have access to TJ, not just kids from a handful of wealthy feeders.

I agree, and their argument just doesn't hold up. Sure, kids whose parents have spent $20k on test prep do well on tests, but hardly matters since the kids being selected now are the very top students and typically surprass the prepsters before graduating.

Nobody spent $20K on test prep. Don't be ridiculous.

PSAT scores down 120 points at TJ and pretty much ONLY TJ.
NMSF down 50% at TJ
SOL advance pass down across the board at TJ
The math department at TJ had to send out an email to the math 4 class telling them their final exam test results were the worst they have ever seen.

Could it be the TJ math faculty that is actually failing? Once faced with students that are not propped up by outside “enrichment,” their math program is maybe not up to snuff?

Either that outside enrichment is as hollow and meaningless as you claim and the current students are really better than previous students (as you claim) or that outside enrichment was in fact enriching them.

The fact of the matter is that too many of those kids were getting a very thin understanding of their math courses at their middle schools. Some middle schools teach a very superficial version of some subjects because there simply isn't a critical mass of students that are prepared to tackle a more in depth curriculum. That is why you end up with feeder schools.

And if the math program at TJ is really as shoddy as you think then why are you trying so goddam hard to get racial proportionality at the school?

We are trying to get smart kids from all over the county, even kids who weren’t lucky enough to be born into affluent families, attend feeder schools, or get outside enrichment.

That's why they need a much more robust application packet, including standardized test scores, teacher recommendations, achievements, consideration of math level, courses taken, SOL scores, etc. With a bit of training in how to read the applications, it would be much easier to find kids who are truly talented, but less advantaged. It would also be easy to find and eliminate the preppers. A kid at a high FARMS school who still has high test scores (not sky high, but solid), strong teacher recommendations, and Geometry in 8th, but "worse" achievements or less polished essays should come across as a smart, but less privileged kid who belongs at TJ. A kid from a wealthier school with sky high test scores, high math level, very polished essays, but somewhat mediocre recommendations and achievements that do not match the test scores or rest of the packet should come across as a privileged prepper.

Requiring less information just makes the process random. More information with an eye to ferret out prepping and find those diamonds in the rough would ensure that the right kids are admitted to TJ.

Fantastic set of recommendations. Agree 100%.

Instead of implementing these kind of changes which would take effort, careful thought, but not much publicity, the board just jumped on the BLM and woke nonsense to rush through half baked admission changes.

[Anonymous]

My child did not make it through the lottery process. However, in 9th grade one kind teacher at base HS encouraged my child to apply to TJ, wrote a recommendation letter for sophomore admissions. Child got in and having a great experience at TJ.

The current freshman process is broken and is missing many students who would benefit from TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Those kids develop real skills and ability through effort and diligence at places like Curie. Do we negate that effort and diligence in an attempt try and suss out "natural ability?"

Well I’d say yes. I think the effort should be to pick the most math and science oriented kids who are mainly relying on the schools for those subjects not give a leg up mainly to families that decided to investment in years of outside math prep (or “studying”/classes - whatever you want to call it) to accelerate their kids beyond the school’s various pathways for that. I just am of the view that a kid who is great at math and in accelerated classes (such as geometry in 8th) should not be disadvantaged for not having done outside prep / classes.

In what way is the current method any better at picking the kids you want than the old method?

And why should kids who don't do extra work be insulated from competition against kids that do more work?
We don't do this in even less consequential aspects of their lives like sports or music. Why would we ignore differences in academic ability based on actual work done.

I’m not saying the new process is perfect. But the old process seemed to mainly work for kids willing to prep / do outside math stuff beyond school. It should be open in my view to the great math kids who just do math in school. The current system gets us slightly closer to that but a huge problem is that it is bad at picking the top kids from within a GIVEN school.

Personally I strongly support the MS % angle and just think it needs refined a bit more.

You have a different view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“ Those kids develop real skills and ability through effort and diligence at places like Curie. Do we negate that effort and diligence in an attempt try and suss out "natural ability?"

Well I’d say yes. I think the effort should be to pick the most math and science oriented kids who are mainly relying on the schools for those subjects not give a leg up mainly to families that decided to investment in years of outside math prep (or “studying”/classes - whatever you want to call it) to accelerate their kids beyond the school’s various pathways for that. I just am of the view that a kid who is great at math and in accelerated classes (such as geometry in 8th) should not be disadvantaged for not having done outside prep / classes.

In what way is the current method any better at picking the kids you want than the old method?

And why should kids who don't do extra work be insulated from competition against kids that do more work?
We don't do this in even less consequential aspects of their lives like sports or music. Why would we ignore differences in academic ability based on actual work done.

I’m not saying the new process is perfect. But the old process seemed to mainly work for kids willing to prep / do outside math stuff beyond school. It should be open in my view to the great math kids who just do math in school. The current system gets us slightly closer to that but a huge problem is that it is bad at picking the top kids from within a GIVEN school.

Personally I strongly support the MS % angle and just think it needs refined a bit more.

You have a different view.

Agree. I think they should keep the MS allotments and add in more metrics for admissions - something accessible to all like SOL scores.

[Anonymous]

"The TJ admissions policy is discriminating against students based on their national origin..."

Line 1: Incorrect. Not reading the rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Academic Talent isn't relevant. You don't need to be the highest scoring student in the county to benefit from a better equipped lab.

Academic talent is the ONLY thing that is relevant. They are the only ones that need those better equipped labs and the higher level math and science courses.

WTF is your average kid going to do with a quantum physics and optics lab?
Why does the average kid need access to linear algebra (which is actually pretty widely available throughout FCPS), concrete math, number theory.

Sending a few kids that are going to be taking AP Calculus and AP Physics in their senior year is fine but about 1/3 of the kids at TJ are on this track right now. Most of those kids are getting nothing out of TJ that they would not get at their base school.

There is a huge amount of space between “average” and the tiny number of truly gifted students.

Advanced kids from around the region should have access to TJ, not just kids from a handful of wealthy feeders.

I agree, and their argument just doesn't hold up. Sure, kids whose parents have spent $20k on test prep do well on tests, but hardly matters since the kids being selected now are the very top students and typically surprass the prepsters before graduating.

Nobody spent $20K on test prep. Don't be ridiculous.

PSAT scores down 120 points at TJ and pretty much ONLY TJ.
NMSF down 50% at TJ
SOL advance pass down across the board at TJ
The math department at TJ had to send out an email to the math 4 class telling them their final exam test results were the worst they have ever seen.

They’ve sent out that same email before.

Really? When? I thought 2022 was the only time they sent that out.

1) In 2022, math teachers sent out the email to the spring Math 4 class, which would have been primarily the class of 2024 students, admitted before the admissions change.


2) In 2012, math teachers complained about the "profound lack of preparation and readiness.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/education/620805/one-third-of-tj-freshmen-need-math-science-remediation/
“One-third of the freshmen at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology — the elite Alexandria magnet school ranked No. 2 in the nation — have been recommended for remediation in math, science or both, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Examiner.
Math teachers at “TJ” blamed slackened admissions standards and, in analyzing the admissions test, found that the typical math question reflects the standards taught to sixth-graders in Fairfax County Public Schools.”