TJ Admissions Roundup

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

The problem with this is most of those getting in were from a small set of wealthy schools, and the largest beneficiaries of the change were low-income Asians.

It's great that TJ is now accessible to all residents.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

The problem with this is most of those getting in were from a small set of wealthy schools, and the largest beneficiaries of the change were low-income Asians.

It's great that TJ is now accessible to all residents.

Including the ones who are bad at math

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

The problem with this is most of those getting in were from a small set of wealthy schools, and the largest beneficiaries of the change were low-income Asians.

It's great that TJ is now accessible to all residents.

Including the ones who are bad at math

Sorry you kid couldn't get in without buying the test answers, but envy is not a good look on you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

The problem with this is most of those getting in were from a small set of wealthy schools, and the largest beneficiaries of the change were low-income Asians.

It's great that TJ is now accessible to all residents.

But it isn't meant for all residents, it is meant for the smartest residents and that is no longer what is happening.

And that's exactly why the new process only selects the top 1.5% from EVERY school.

It doesn't select the top of anything, it's not like they rank order the GPAs or anything.
PSAT scores are down over 100 points.
Academic teams are struggling where they used to dominate.
TJ now has almost a third of their students getting Cs or in remedial programs.
If a kid comes from a school that is only sending 1.5% of its students, those students are likely very unprepared and will struggle at TJ.

Citation?

#fakenews

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

The problem with this is most of those getting in were from a small set of wealthy schools, and the largest beneficiaries of the change were low-income Asians.

It's great that TJ is now accessible to all residents.

Including the ones who are bad at math

Sorry you kid couldn't get in without buying the test answers, but envy is not a good look on you.

You really don't care that you make everyone that support the current admissions process look racist, do you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

I totally understand where you are coming from.

The thing you are missing is, the metrics people of different cultures are using for "do better" are different.

This is from a chinese kid from bay area who wrote a book or an article that I read a long time back.

Say a family goes to a party, the child brings a book and sits in a corner and reads the book or does homework most of the time.

If it is an asian family, every other asian family would be genuinely impressed and openly express their admiration for the kid. What a studious kid, the kid is amazing, etc. is what they would think.

A white family would be horrified if their kid does something like that.

I stereotyped and it is a gross exaggeration. But it points to the cultural attitudes and what each mean by "do better".

In this sense, you are speaking very specifically what "do better" means and by that metric defining immigrant/culture as doing better.

I am asian by the way. I strongly disagree with the notion that any culture/race/nationality/etc. is better than the other.

In this case, I think we are talking about culture as it relates to educational outcomes.

Some cultures value education more than others.
These differences in cultures create differences in incentives and incentives matter.
You just told a story about a kid bringing a book to read or study at a party and how people in different communities would react to that kids.

These cultures may not be better in every way but they do achieve better academic results.
There are a lot of knock on effects that show up in other ways.

I would say even "achieve better academic results" is in a very narrow sense. If you are talking about GPA, Test Scores, Academic Competitions, then yes. But to me that is too narrow a focus.

Thanks for the nice exchange. I have nothing more to add, so I would stop.

DP. There's plenty of room at TJ to take the standouts in terms of GPA/Test Scores/Courses Taken/Academic competitions, and then fill the remaining seats more broadly. Reasonably speaking, only 50-100 kids in the TJ catchment are academic standouts, and the remaining 450-500 seats could be allocated among qualified students in whatever way FCPS wants without greatly changing anything.

It is true that Asian culture values academics in a way that almost all of the academic standouts will be Asian. That tracks with the fact that almost all kids earning honors at National Mathcounts, USAJMO, USAMO, USA Physics Olympiad, USA Chem olympiad, etc. are overwhelmingly Asian. It's also true that academic standouts in FCPS belong at TJ and shouldn't be at the mercy of a sparse process that relies almost entirely on personal essays.

I don't know if you are saying that the 450-500 students are unnecessary or unimportant to the 50-100 students you are talking about but the pond affects the fish.
If the other students don't provide enough background enrichment they will simply be a distraction.
If the faculty has to teach to mediocre students, they will not be able to teach to the students you are targeting.
You can't always tell which student will truly shine in the long run but the best bets are all at the right tail of the distribution.
Picking for something other than merit means you have created a porous filter for talent.
I

PP here. What I'm saying is that even in the old, merit based system, there were many, many more qualified kids than TJ slots. Once you get past the top 100, there isn't really that much difference between #300 and #1000. TJ absolutely should implement a baseline test and push the middle schools to stop inflating grades. They should also consider math level and teacher recommendations. It is likely that they could still achieve broad representation across all FCPS middle schools if they were to implement this.

Strongly pro-reform here and the above is largely correct. To my mind, the way to do this would be to have a significantly more robust application process that takes more factors into account, select the 50-100 outliers first, and THEN engage in the 1.5% allocation among all schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

I totally understand where you are coming from.

The thing you are missing is, the metrics people of different cultures are using for "do better" are different.

This is from a chinese kid from bay area who wrote a book or an article that I read a long time back.

Say a family goes to a party, the child brings a book and sits in a corner and reads the book or does homework most of the time.

If it is an asian family, every other asian family would be genuinely impressed and openly express their admiration for the kid. What a studious kid, the kid is amazing, etc. is what they would think.

A white family would be horrified if their kid does something like that.

I stereotyped and it is a gross exaggeration. But it points to the cultural attitudes and what each mean by "do better".

In this sense, you are speaking very specifically what "do better" means and by that metric defining immigrant/culture as doing better.

I am asian by the way. I strongly disagree with the notion that any culture/race/nationality/etc. is better than the other.

In this case, I think we are talking about culture as it relates to educational outcomes.

Some cultures value education more than others.
These differences in cultures create differences in incentives and incentives matter.
You just told a story about a kid bringing a book to read or study at a party and how people in different communities would react to that kids.

These cultures may not be better in every way but they do achieve better academic results.
There are a lot of knock on effects that show up in other ways.

I would say even "achieve better academic results" is in a very narrow sense. If you are talking about GPA, Test Scores, Academic Competitions, then yes. But to me that is too narrow a focus.

Thanks for the nice exchange. I have nothing more to add, so I would stop.

DP. There's plenty of room at TJ to take the standouts in terms of GPA/Test Scores/Courses Taken/Academic competitions, and then fill the remaining seats more broadly. Reasonably speaking, only 50-100 kids in the TJ catchment are academic standouts, and the remaining 450-500 seats could be allocated among qualified students in whatever way FCPS wants without greatly changing anything.

It is true that Asian culture values academics in a way that almost all of the academic standouts will be Asian. That tracks with the fact that almost all kids earning honors at National Mathcounts, USAJMO, USAMO, USA Physics Olympiad, USA Chem olympiad, etc. are overwhelmingly Asian. It's also true that academic standouts in FCPS belong at TJ and shouldn't be at the mercy of a sparse process that relies almost entirely on personal essays.

I don't know if you are saying that the 450-500 students are unnecessary or unimportant to the 50-100 students you are talking about but the pond affects the fish.
If the other students don't provide enough background enrichment they will simply be a distraction.
If the faculty has to teach to mediocre students, they will not be able to teach to the students you are targeting.
You can't always tell which student will truly shine in the long run but the best bets are all at the right tail of the distribution.
Picking for something other than merit means you have created a porous filter for talent.
I

PP here. What I'm saying is that even in the old, merit based system, there were many, many more qualified kids than TJ slots. Once you get past the top 100, there isn't really that much difference between #300 and #1000. TJ absolutely should implement a baseline test and push the middle schools to stop inflating grades. They should also consider math level and teacher recommendations. It is likely that they could still achieve broad representation across all FCPS middle schools if they were to implement this.

Strongly pro-reform here and the above is largely correct. To my mind, the way to do this would be to have a significantly more robust application process that takes more factors into account, select the 50-100 outliers first, and THEN engage in the 1.5% allocation among all schools.

I am not going to equate "pro-reform" with racist because it does not seem like you have any racist intent but a lot of people use "pro-reform" as a euphemism for wanting to achieve race driven results.
I don't think there is a problem with giving FARM kids a boost.
I don't think there is a problem with picking up to half the class based on their middle schools.
BUT the FARM kids chosen should be based on merit, and that includes a test.
BUT the kids from each middle school should be picked based on merit and this includes a test.

I have seen this movie before and making these adjustments at the high school admission level doesn't work out the way you think.
The kids you gave the boost to, either based on economic status or their middle school will be much more likely to be at the bottom of the class.
They are much more likely to require extra counseling and remedial help.

Intervention in the high school admissions is far too late to have any sustainable effect.
We have to recognize that black and hispanic communities face different issues.
If we see how third generation hispanics are doing compared to second generation compared to immigrants, we see a very familiar progression. A progression we saw with the italian and irish immigration waves.
If we see actual discrimination against this group we ought to address it but there is nothing wrong with the hispanic community's development curve.

The black (and native american) situation is different.
The cultural scars from the oppression and discrimination there are of an entirely different order of magnitude.

[Anonymous]

For many years, people have been appalled at how a public school magnet excluded so many groups in the community. The class of 2024 had less than 1% (0.6%) of the students from low-income families. Very little representation from URMs and MSs with many low-income families. TJ was mostly filled with kids from affluent "feeder" middle schools.

FCPS has changed the TJ admissions process multiple times over the years to address systemic inequalities.
https://www.fcag.org/tjadmissions.shtml

Expensive test prep has also been an ongoing issue that exacerbated the lack of representation from certain MSs and groups.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” [school board member] Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

"McLaughlin, like other board members, still worries about Washington’s booming test-prep industry. Modeled on Korean “cram” schools, classes meet after school, on weekends, and throughout the summer. “They’ve become professionals at that process of getting into TJ,” says Josh Silverman, a private tutor in the area."


Paying to have access to previous test questions on an NDA-protected test provides an unfair advantage to wealthy kids in admissions for this public school program.

[Anonymous]

2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”



6. COURT RULED THERE IS NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ASIAN STUDENTS
https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221280.P.pdf
Pg 7
“we are satisfied that the challenged admissions policy does not disparately impact Asian American students”

SCOTUS left ruling in place:
https://virginiamercury.com/2024/02/20/supreme-court-wont-hear-thomas-jefferson-admissions-case/



7. NO DISCRIMINATION
There are MORE Asian students at TJ since the admissions change than almost any other year in the school’s history.

Asian students still make up the majority of students. More than all other groups, combined.

And Asian students are still accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students (class of 25).

The number of Asian students enrolled at TJ by school year (fall):


The data also shows that Asian students were still accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students. The acceptance rate for Asian students drives the mean since they comprise such a large % of applicants and acceptances.

Asian 19%
Black 14% (5% lower)
Multiracial/Other* 13% (6% lower)
Hispanic 21%
White 17%



8. LOW-INCOME ASIAN STUDENTS BENEFITED THE MOST FROM CHANGES
https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221280.P.pdf
page 16
"Nevertheless, in the 2021 application cycle, Asian American students attending middle schools historically underrepresented at TJ saw a sixfold increase in offers, and the number of low-income Asian American admittees to TJ increased to 51 — from a mere one in 2020."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

I totally understand where you are coming from.

The thing you are missing is, the metrics people of different cultures are using for "do better" are different.

This is from a chinese kid from bay area who wrote a book or an article that I read a long time back.

Say a family goes to a party, the child brings a book and sits in a corner and reads the book or does homework most of the time.

If it is an asian family, every other asian family would be genuinely impressed and openly express their admiration for the kid. What a studious kid, the kid is amazing, etc. is what they would think.

A white family would be horrified if their kid does something like that.

I stereotyped and it is a gross exaggeration. But it points to the cultural attitudes and what each mean by "do better".

In this sense, you are speaking very specifically what "do better" means and by that metric defining immigrant/culture as doing better.

I am asian by the way. I strongly disagree with the notion that any culture/race/nationality/etc. is better than the other.

In this case, I think we are talking about culture as it relates to educational outcomes.

Some cultures value education more than others.
These differences in cultures create differences in incentives and incentives matter.
You just told a story about a kid bringing a book to read or study at a party and how people in different communities would react to that kids.

These cultures may not be better in every way but they do achieve better academic results.
There are a lot of knock on effects that show up in other ways.

I would say even "achieve better academic results" is in a very narrow sense. If you are talking about GPA, Test Scores, Academic Competitions, then yes. But to me that is too narrow a focus.

Thanks for the nice exchange. I have nothing more to add, so I would stop.

DP. There's plenty of room at TJ to take the standouts in terms of GPA/Test Scores/Courses Taken/Academic competitions, and then fill the remaining seats more broadly. Reasonably speaking, only 50-100 kids in the TJ catchment are academic standouts, and the remaining 450-500 seats could be allocated among qualified students in whatever way FCPS wants without greatly changing anything.

It is true that Asian culture values academics in a way that almost all of the academic standouts will be Asian. That tracks with the fact that almost all kids earning honors at National Mathcounts, USAJMO, USAMO, USA Physics Olympiad, USA Chem olympiad, etc. are overwhelmingly Asian. It's also true that academic standouts in FCPS belong at TJ and shouldn't be at the mercy of a sparse process that relies almost entirely on personal essays.

I don't know if you are saying that the 450-500 students are unnecessary or unimportant to the 50-100 students you are talking about but the pond affects the fish.
If the other students don't provide enough background enrichment they will simply be a distraction.
If the faculty has to teach to mediocre students, they will not be able to teach to the students you are targeting.
You can't always tell which student will truly shine in the long run but the best bets are all at the right tail of the distribution.
Picking for something other than merit means you have created a porous filter for talent.
I

PP here. What I'm saying is that even in the old, merit based system, there were many, many more qualified kids than TJ slots. Once you get past the top 100, there isn't really that much difference between #300 and #1000. TJ absolutely should implement a baseline test and push the middle schools to stop inflating grades. They should also consider math level and teacher recommendations. It is likely that they could still achieve broad representation across all FCPS middle schools if they were to implement this.

Strongly pro-reform here and the above is largely correct. To my mind, the way to do this would be to have a significantly more robust application process that takes more factors into account, select the 50-100 outliers first, and THEN engage in the 1.5% allocation among all schools.

I am not going to equate "pro-reform" with racist because it does not seem like you have any racist intent but a lot of people use "pro-reform" as a euphemism for wanting to achieve race driven results.
I don't think there is a problem with giving FARM kids a boost.
I don't think there is a problem with picking up to half the class based on their middle schools.
BUT the FARM kids chosen should be based on merit, and that includes a test.
BUT the kids from each middle school should be picked based on merit and this includes a test.

I have seen this movie before and making these adjustments at the high school admission level doesn't work out the way you think.
The kids you gave the boost to, either based on economic status or their middle school will be much more likely to be at the bottom of the class.
They are much more likely to require extra counseling and remedial help.

Intervention in the high school admissions is far too late to have any sustainable effect.
We have to recognize that black and hispanic communities face different issues.
If we see how third generation hispanics are doing compared to second generation compared to immigrants, we see a very familiar progression. A progression we saw with the italian and irish immigration waves.
If we see actual discrimination against this group we ought to address it but there is nothing wrong with the hispanic community's development curve.

The black (and native american) situation is different.
The cultural scars from the oppression and discrimination there are of an entirely different order of magnitude.

You need to get back on your meds. The current and former process is race blind. Even the current US Supreme Court thought the C4TJ suit was a joke and declined to take it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

I totally understand where you are coming from.

The thing you are missing is, the metrics people of different cultures are using for "do better" are different.

This is from a chinese kid from bay area who wrote a book or an article that I read a long time back.

Say a family goes to a party, the child brings a book and sits in a corner and reads the book or does homework most of the time.

If it is an asian family, every other asian family would be genuinely impressed and openly express their admiration for the kid. What a studious kid, the kid is amazing, etc. is what they would think.

A white family would be horrified if their kid does something like that.

I stereotyped and it is a gross exaggeration. But it points to the cultural attitudes and what each mean by "do better".

In this sense, you are speaking very specifically what "do better" means and by that metric defining immigrant/culture as doing better.

I am asian by the way. I strongly disagree with the notion that any culture/race/nationality/etc. is better than the other.

In this case, I think we are talking about culture as it relates to educational outcomes.

Some cultures value education more than others.
These differences in cultures create differences in incentives and incentives matter.
You just told a story about a kid bringing a book to read or study at a party and how people in different communities would react to that kids.

These cultures may not be better in every way but they do achieve better academic results.
There are a lot of knock on effects that show up in other ways.

I would say even "achieve better academic results" is in a very narrow sense. If you are talking about GPA, Test Scores, Academic Competitions, then yes. But to me that is too narrow a focus.

Thanks for the nice exchange. I have nothing more to add, so I would stop.

DP. There's plenty of room at TJ to take the standouts in terms of GPA/Test Scores/Courses Taken/Academic competitions, and then fill the remaining seats more broadly. Reasonably speaking, only 50-100 kids in the TJ catchment are academic standouts, and the remaining 450-500 seats could be allocated among qualified students in whatever way FCPS wants without greatly changing anything.

It is true that Asian culture values academics in a way that almost all of the academic standouts will be Asian. That tracks with the fact that almost all kids earning honors at National Mathcounts, USAJMO, USAMO, USA Physics Olympiad, USA Chem olympiad, etc. are overwhelmingly Asian. It's also true that academic standouts in FCPS belong at TJ and shouldn't be at the mercy of a sparse process that relies almost entirely on personal essays.

I don't know if you are saying that the 450-500 students are unnecessary or unimportant to the 50-100 students you are talking about but the pond affects the fish.
If the other students don't provide enough background enrichment they will simply be a distraction.
If the faculty has to teach to mediocre students, they will not be able to teach to the students you are targeting.
You can't always tell which student will truly shine in the long run but the best bets are all at the right tail of the distribution.
Picking for something other than merit means you have created a porous filter for talent.
I

PP here. What I'm saying is that even in the old, merit based system, there were many, many more qualified kids than TJ slots. Once you get past the top 100, there isn't really that much difference between #300 and #1000. TJ absolutely should implement a baseline test and push the middle schools to stop inflating grades. They should also consider math level and teacher recommendations. It is likely that they could still achieve broad representation across all FCPS middle schools if they were to implement this.

Strongly pro-reform here and the above is largely correct. To my mind, the way to do this would be to have a significantly more robust application process that takes more factors into account, select the 50-100 outliers first, and THEN engage in the 1.5% allocation among all schools.

I am not going to equate "pro-reform" with racist because it does not seem like you have any racist intent but a lot of people use "pro-reform" as a euphemism for wanting to achieve race driven results.
I don't think there is a problem with giving FARM kids a boost.
I don't think there is a problem with picking up to half the class based on their middle schools.
BUT the FARM kids chosen should be based on merit, and that includes a test.
BUT the kids from each middle school should be picked based on merit and this includes a test.

I have seen this movie before and making these adjustments at the high school admission level doesn't work out the way you think.
The kids you gave the boost to, either based on economic status or their middle school will be much more likely to be at the bottom of the class.
They are much more likely to require extra counseling and remedial help.

Intervention in the high school admissions is far too late to have any sustainable effect.
We have to recognize that black and hispanic communities face different issues.
If we see how third generation hispanics are doing compared to second generation compared to immigrants, we see a very familiar progression. A progression we saw with the italian and irish immigration waves.
If we see actual discrimination against this group we ought to address it but there is nothing wrong with the hispanic community's development curve.

The black (and native american) situation is different.
The cultural scars from the oppression and discrimination there are of an entirely different order of magnitude.

You need to get back on your meds. The current and former process is race blind. Even the current US Supreme Court thought the C4TJ suit was a joke and declined to take it.

C'mon, we all know that this change was about race.
Even the Tj students know this.
https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

The problem with this is most of those getting in were from a small set of wealthy schools, and the largest beneficiaries of the change were low-income Asians.

It's great that TJ is now accessible to all residents.

Including the ones who are bad at math

Sorry you kid couldn't get in without buying the test answers, but envy is not a good look on you.

They're never going back to the corrupt system that allowed parents to use wealth and privilege to impact the process. The data shows that TJ is doing better than ever now too.

[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:At the most fundamental level it is the woke who are racists. They assume blacks and Hispanics are not capable and hence need to tip scales in their favor.

It is not black, Hispanic, white or asian that matters in most things, but the income/wealth level.

If you look at a say just those families with masters degrees, their kids average about the same level regardless of their race. A black kid from highly educated parent would be just as capable in every single respect to a kid from other races with similarly educated parents.

Woke people would rather they feel superior than help the poor.

People of the same income but from different cultures have different academic outcomes.
Immigrants do better than natives.
asian immigrant cultures do better than mainstream american culture at every income level

Of course income matters but culture is generally more predictive of outcomes than income level.

I totally understand where you are coming from.

The thing you are missing is, the metrics people of different cultures are using for "do better" are different.

This is from a chinese kid from bay area who wrote a book or an article that I read a long time back.

Say a family goes to a party, the child brings a book and sits in a corner and reads the book or does homework most of the time.

If it is an asian family, every other asian family would be genuinely impressed and openly express their admiration for the kid. What a studious kid, the kid is amazing, etc. is what they would think.

A white family would be horrified if their kid does something like that.

I stereotyped and it is a gross exaggeration. But it points to the cultural attitudes and what each mean by "do better".

In this sense, you are speaking very specifically what "do better" means and by that metric defining immigrant/culture as doing better.

I am asian by the way. I strongly disagree with the notion that any culture/race/nationality/etc. is better than the other.

In this case, I think we are talking about culture as it relates to educational outcomes.

Some cultures value education more than others.
These differences in cultures create differences in incentives and incentives matter.
You just told a story about a kid bringing a book to read or study at a party and how people in different communities would react to that kids.

These cultures may not be better in every way but they do achieve better academic results.
There are a lot of knock on effects that show up in other ways.

I would say even "achieve better academic results" is in a very narrow sense. If you are talking about GPA, Test Scores, Academic Competitions, then yes. But to me that is too narrow a focus.

Thanks for the nice exchange. I have nothing more to add, so I would stop.

DP. There's plenty of room at TJ to take the standouts in terms of GPA/Test Scores/Courses Taken/Academic competitions, and then fill the remaining seats more broadly. Reasonably speaking, only 50-100 kids in the TJ catchment are academic standouts, and the remaining 450-500 seats could be allocated among qualified students in whatever way FCPS wants without greatly changing anything.

It is true that Asian culture values academics in a way that almost all of the academic standouts will be Asian. That tracks with the fact that almost all kids earning honors at National Mathcounts, USAJMO, USAMO, USA Physics Olympiad, USA Chem olympiad, etc. are overwhelmingly Asian. It's also true that academic standouts in FCPS belong at TJ and shouldn't be at the mercy of a sparse process that relies almost entirely on personal essays.

I don't know if you are saying that the 450-500 students are unnecessary or unimportant to the 50-100 students you are talking about but the pond affects the fish.
If the other students don't provide enough background enrichment they will simply be a distraction.
If the faculty has to teach to mediocre students, they will not be able to teach to the students you are targeting.
You can't always tell which student will truly shine in the long run but the best bets are all at the right tail of the distribution.
Picking for something other than merit means you have created a porous filter for talent.
I

PP here. What I'm saying is that even in the old, merit based system, there were many, many more qualified kids than TJ slots. Once you get past the top 100, there isn't really that much difference between #300 and #1000. TJ absolutely should implement a baseline test and push the middle schools to stop inflating grades. They should also consider math level and teacher recommendations. It is likely that they could still achieve broad representation across all FCPS middle schools if they were to implement this.

Strongly pro-reform here and the above is largely correct. To my mind, the way to do this would be to have a significantly more robust application process that takes more factors into account, select the 50-100 outliers first, and THEN engage in the 1.5% allocation among all schools.

I am not going to equate "pro-reform" with racist because it does not seem like you have any racist intent but a lot of people use "pro-reform" as a euphemism for wanting to achieve race driven results.
I don't think there is a problem with giving FARM kids a boost.
I don't think there is a problem with picking up to half the class based on their middle schools.
BUT the FARM kids chosen should be based on merit, and that includes a test.
BUT the kids from each middle school should be picked based on merit and this includes a test.

I have seen this movie before and making these adjustments at the high school admission level doesn't work out the way you think.
The kids you gave the boost to, either based on economic status or their middle school will be much more likely to be at the bottom of the class.
They are much more likely to require extra counseling and remedial help.

Intervention in the high school admissions is far too late to have any sustainable effect.
We have to recognize that black and hispanic communities face different issues.
If we see how third generation hispanics are doing compared to second generation compared to immigrants, we see a very familiar progression. A progression we saw with the italian and irish immigration waves.
If we see actual discrimination against this group we ought to address it but there is nothing wrong with the hispanic community's development curve.

The black (and native american) situation is different.
The cultural scars from the oppression and discrimination there are of an entirely different order of magnitude.

You need to get back on your meds. The current and former process is race blind. Even the current US Supreme Court thought the C4TJ suit was a joke and declined to take it.

C'mon, we all know that this change was about race.
Even the Tj students know this.
https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/

#fakenews

TJ uses a race blind selection process.
It is majority Asian.
Even the far right SCOTUS wouldn't take the C4TJ suit

[Anonymous]

^ Don't forget the largest beneficiary of the change were low-income Asians!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2. CONCERN ABOUT TJ PREP INDUSTRY
There was also public concern about the TJ test prep industry that led, in part, to changes in the admissions process. By reverse engineering the admissions criteria/process, prep companies offered kids an unfair advantage in admissions. In fact, back in 2017 the SB switched to quant-q, which intentionally didn’t share prep, in an effort to reduce this unfair advantage.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“ “Is it gonna once again advantage those kids whose parents can pay to sign them up for special prep camps to now be prepping for science testing as well?” Megan McLaughlin asked when presented with the new plan.

Admissions director Jeremy Shughart doesn’t think so. The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”



3. QUANT-Q DOESN’T RELEASE MATERIALS
The company that offers Quant-Q intentionally does NOT release materials to the public - it’s very different than SAT, ACT, etc. They want to “measure your natural ability”. And test takers agreed to not share any parts of the test.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/04/26/is-the-no-1-high-school-in-america-thomas-jefferson-fairfax-discrimination/
“The firm that markets the math portion of the test, Quant-Q, doesn’t release materials to the public, a practice that should make them harder for test-prep schools to crack.”

Based on the NDAs, any test prep books or companies that obtain and share example quant-q test questions may have been unethically, or even potentially illegally, produced.

https://insightassessment.com/policies/
“Test Taker Interface User Agreement
In this agreement, each person who accesses this interface is called a “user,” and whatever a user accesses is called an “instrument.”
Copyright Protected: The user acknowledges that this online interface and everything in it are proprietary business property of the California Academic Press LLC and are protected by international copyrights. Except as permitted by purchased use licenses, the user agrees not to reproduce, distribute, hack, harm, limit, alter, or edit this interface or any part of any instrument or results report, table or analysis stored in, generated by, or delivered through this interface.

Non-Disclosure and Non-Compete Agreement: The user agrees not to copy, disclose, describe, imitate, replicate, or mirror this interface or this instrument(s) in whole or in part for any purpose. The user agrees not to create, design, develop, publish, market, or distribute any comparable or competitive instrument or instruments for a period of up to four years from the date of the user’s most recent access.

[i]"Remember that the goal of a critical thinking assessment is to measure your natural ability to think critically, so there’s no need for extensive preparation. Just be yourself and approach the assessment with a clear mind."



4. TJ STUDENTS ACKNOWLEDGED UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
TH students and others have acknowledged the unfair advantage that money can buy.

https://www.tjtoday.org/29411/features/students-divided-on-proposed-changes-to-admissions-process/
“ “Personally, TJ admissions was not a challenge to navigate. I had a sibling who attended before me. However, a lot of resources needed to navigate admissions cost money. That is an unfair advantage given to more economically advantaged students,” junior Vivi Rao said. ”



5. TJ STUDENTS ADMIT SHARING ADMISSIONS TEST QUESTIONS, INCLUDING QUANT-Q
TJ students admitted both on DCUM and on Facebook, anonymously and with real name, that they shared quant-q test questions with a test prep company or they saw nearly identical questions on the test.
https://www.facebook.com/tjvents/posts/pfbid0jKy4hotXF8AxKwfHm2MAVi7e2yYoCqtrTTXPYsszAdQg6uMoTmReMidqyM1mpu9Bl

https://www.tjtoday.org/23143/showcase/the-children-left-behind/
“ Families with more money can afford to give children that extra edge by signing them up for whatever prep classes they can find. They can pay money to tutoring organizations to teach their children test-taking skills, “skills learned outside of school,” and to access a cache of previous and example prompts, as I witnessed when I took TJ prep; even if prompts become outdated by test changes, even access to old prompts enables private tutoring pupils to gain an upper edge over others: pupils become accustomed to the format of the writing sections and gain an approximate idea of what to expect.”



6. COURT RULED THERE IS NO DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ASIAN STUDENTS
https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221280.P.pdf
Pg 7
“we are satisfied that the challenged admissions policy does not disparately impact Asian American students”

SCOTUS left ruling in place:
https://virginiamercury.com/2024/02/20/supreme-court-wont-hear-thomas-jefferson-admissions-case/



7. NO DISCRIMINATION
There are MORE Asian students at TJ since the admissions change than almost any other year in the school’s history.

Asian students still make up the majority of students. More than all other groups, combined.

And Asian students are still accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students (class of 25).

The number of Asian students enrolled at TJ by school year (fall):


The data also shows that Asian students were still accepted at a higher rate than almost all other groups, aside from Hispanic students. The acceptance rate for Asian students drives the mean since they comprise such a large % of applicants and acceptances.

Asian 19%
Black 14% (5% lower)
Multiracial/Other* 13% (6% lower)
Hispanic 21%
White 17%



8. LOW-INCOME ASIAN STUDENTS BENEFITED THE MOST FROM CHANGES
https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinions/221280.P.pdf
page 16
"Nevertheless, in the 2021 application cycle, Asian American students attending middle schools historically underrepresented at TJ saw a sixfold increase in offers, and the number of low-income Asian American admittees to TJ increased to 51 — from a mere one in 2020."

As a public service, this post should be pinned to the top of this forum.