TJ Discrimination Case

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure it is, unless you're one of the nutjobs who narrowly construes merit to mean "performance on a standardized test".

What other merit is there? Or should everyone get a participation trophy in life?

Wow, those are some pretty thick blinders you've got on. GPA (worth about 7.5% of the total points and barely a factor), ongoing demonstrated interest in relevant topics (not assessed for admissions), aptitude/talent shown in the day-to-day classroom (not assessed for admissions. Teachers have no input), capability relative to peers in the same school environment (not assessed in admissions), creative/flexible thinking (not assessed in admissions), ability to apply existing knowledge to new topics (not assessed in admissions), resiliency/ability to independently overcome new challenges (not assessed in admissions), ability to communicate complex ideas concisely (okay. This one they do cover in the admissions process), how quickly they pick up new concepts (not covered in the admissions process), self-motivation (not covered in the admissions process), on and on... all things that standardized tests are generally fairly poor at measuring (unless you wanted to develop tests specifically.

All of the things you listed are great and would point to a highly capable TJ student. Unfortunately, none of those are being assessed or evaluated for admissions. Instead, they're basing their decisions almost solely on how well the kid brags about themselves and claims to conform to the Portrait of a Graduate, and how well the kid answers a trivial science question that pretty much any above average kid will crush with little trouble. If you wanted all of your listed attributes in the application process, then GPA should have more emphasis, essays should have more meat, teacher recommendations should still be used, and the kids should be required to explain in detail their STEM involvement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The TJ lawsuit folks should keep getting continuances until the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action at which point their lawsuit will have a better chance.

I'm not sure that it would. The judge found the changes were made with discriminatory intent.
However, if TJ never existed and a school was opened brand new with this admissions process, I don't think it would be considered racist.
The issue is they changed it with an eye on reducing numbers for Asians, but was on its face racially neutral. Geography is being used as a proxy for race, but they are not admitting to it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ lawsuit folks should keep getting continuances until the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action at which point their lawsuit will have a better chance.

I'm not sure that it would. The judge found the changes were made with discriminatory intent.
However, if TJ never existed and a school was opened brand new with this admissions process, I don't think it would be considered racist.
The issue is they changed it with an eye on reducing numbers for Asians, but was on its face racially neutral. Geography is being used as a proxy for race, but they are not admitting to it.

Weird I read the judge laughed it out of court because they couldn't show any harm done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure it is, unless you're one of the nutjobs who narrowly construes merit to mean "performance on a standardized test".

What other merit is there? Or should everyone get a participation trophy in life?

Wow, those are some pretty thick blinders you've got on. GPA (worth about 7.5% of the total points and barely a factor), ongoing demonstrated interest in relevant topics (not assessed for admissions), aptitude/talent shown in the day-to-day classroom (not assessed for admissions. Teachers have no input), capability relative to peers in the same school environment (not assessed in admissions), creative/flexible thinking (not assessed in admissions), ability to apply existing knowledge to new topics (not assessed in admissions), resiliency/ability to independently overcome new challenges (not assessed in admissions), ability to communicate complex ideas concisely (okay. This one they do cover in the admissions process), how quickly they pick up new concepts (not covered in the admissions process), self-motivation (not covered in the admissions process), on and on... all things that standardized tests are generally fairly poor at measuring (unless you wanted to develop tests specifically.

All of the things you listed are great and would point to a highly capable TJ student. Unfortunately, none of those are being assessed or evaluated for admissions. Instead, they're basing their decisions almost solely on how well the kid brags about themselves and claims to conform to the Portrait of a Graduate, and how well the kid answers a trivial science question that pretty much any above average kid will crush with little trouble. If you wanted all of your listed attributes in the application process, then GPA should have more emphasis, essays should have more meat, teacher recommendations should still be used, and the kids should be required to explain in detail their STEM involvement.

Oh, I completely agree the admissions process needs significant improvement from where it's at today, but the point stands that the PP's question "What other merit is there [aside from performance on standardized tests]?" was completely idiotic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ lawsuit folks should keep getting continuances until the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action at which point their lawsuit will have a better chance.

I'm not sure that it would. The judge found the changes were made with discriminatory intent.
However, if TJ never existed and a school was opened brand new with this admissions process, I don't think it would be considered racist.
The issue is they changed it with an eye on reducing numbers for Asians, but was on its face racially neutral. Geography is being used as a proxy for race, but they are not admitting to it.

Not exactly, they changed the process to allow underrepresented groups a level playing field. Remember many families were buying the admission test which was not exactly fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ lawsuit folks should keep getting continuances until the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action at which point their lawsuit will have a better chance.

I'm not sure that it would. The judge found the changes were made with discriminatory intent.
However, if TJ never existed and a school was opened brand new with this admissions process, I don't think it would be considered racist.
The issue is they changed it with an eye on reducing numbers for Asians, but was on its face racially neutral. Geography is being used as a proxy for race, but they are not admitting to it.

Not exactly, they changed the process to allow underrepresented groups a level playing field. Remember many families were buying the admission test which was not exactly fair.

Exactly, but some choose to view a change to the status quo as an attack on them rather than rectifying a system that was clearly broken. I don't believe the system is fixed by any means but it does seem a little better.

[Anonymous]

Cheaters before may have seen some questions similar to the quant Q, but they still needed to be solid students with strong recommendations and a strong comprehensive packet. Cheaters now can much more easily gain admissions by googling the science/math question and having someone else write or proofread their essays. It’s mind boggling that anyone thinks a process based almost entirely on unproctored essays is an improvement over the old very comprehensive system.

[Anonymous]

The essays are going to be proctored this year

[Anonymous]

The essays are no different from a college application.

Not sure whats “woke” or political about it. Plus they look at GPA and have a math or science problem essay.

Haters going to hate, I guess

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The essays are no different from a college application.

Not sure whats “woke” or political about it. Plus they look at GPA and have a math or science problem essay.

Haters going to hate, I guess

Name a single decent college that mostly looks at essays with minimal weight given to GPA and no weight given to anything else.

For the TJ application, GPA is worth a very small portion of the possible points. Everything else is based on the two very brief essays. For just about any college, the application involves teacher recommendations, more extensive essays, much more weight for the GPA, consideration of the course rigor, consideration of ECs or any special achievements, and test scores. There is no comparison here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The essays are no different from a college application.

Not sure whats “woke” or political about it. Plus they look at GPA and have a math or science problem essay.

Haters going to hate, I guess

Name a single decent college that mostly looks at essays with minimal weight given to GPA and no weight given to anything else.

For the TJ application, GPA is worth a very small portion of the possible points. Everything else is based on the two very brief essays. For just about any college, the application involves teacher recommendations, more extensive essays, much more weight for the GPA, consideration of the course rigor, consideration of ECs or any special achievements, and test scores. There is no comparison here.

+1
I support the new MS focused system but think they need to add back in different factors in who is chosen to help focus more weight on the GPA, advanced math and teacher recc’s. I would keep the FARMs bump and an ESOL bump but drop other bumps.

[Anonymous]

Weightage is essays, gpa and math/sci problem.

Stop making up BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ lawsuit folks should keep getting continuances until the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action at which point their lawsuit will have a better chance.

I'm not sure that it would. The judge found the changes were made with discriminatory intent.
However, if TJ never existed and a school was opened brand new with this admissions process, I don't think it would be considered racist.
The issue is they changed it with an eye on reducing numbers for Asians, but was on its face racially neutral. Geography is being used as a proxy for race, but they are not admitting to it.

The point about the process being changed with an eye toward reducing Asians, even if it were true (which it is not), would stand as grounds for consequences for those who made the decision and NOT grounds for reverting to a prior admissions process.

You were correct when you made the example of “what if it were a brand new school”. The new admissions process would be 100% legitimate - and that’s why it will remain in place at least until a new school board is seated in January of 2024.

[Anonymous]

pp is wise, unlike many of us here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The TJ lawsuit folks should keep getting continuances until the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action at which point their lawsuit will have a better chance.

I'm not sure that it would. The judge found the changes were made with discriminatory intent.
However, if TJ never existed and a school was opened brand new with this admissions process, I don't think it would be considered racist.
The issue is they changed it with an eye on reducing numbers for Asians, but was on its face racially neutral. Geography is being used as a proxy for race, but they are not admitting to it.

Not exactly, they changed the process to allow underrepresented groups a level playing field. Remember many families were buying the admission test which was not exactly fair.

Exactly, but some choose to view a change to the status quo as an attack on them rather than rectifying a system that was clearly broken. I don't believe the system is fixed by any means but it does seem a little better.

in a nutshell