Admissions to change at Thomas Jefferson High, and others

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the lottery idea. And the reserved slots by geography. It is a public school, it should serve all students.

Why not enter all students who complete algebra I in middle school with a B average or better into the lottery? No special test, no extracurriculars or essays.

Exactly.

NP with an elementary schooler so no current dog in this fight. If you do nothing else starting in Pre-K to prepare kids at all the middle schools for the rigor of TH, then do the reserved slots matter? Do you then need to downgrade the rigor of TJ because the kids may have the ability but not the requisite knowledge to succeed because they are behind others?

I’m sure I’m missing something, but that’s my initial thought.

There are thousands of kids in FCPS who can handle the rigor of TJ very, very well - many of them don't apply to the school, but that's a separate conversation. While there are serious workload issues at the school, it's wrong to suggest that a different crop of students wouldn't be able to "handle" the rigor. And it's equally wrong to assume that the exam in its current form offers any insight into students' ability to handle the rigor. It measures high-speed quantitative analysis, reading comprehension, and familiarity with the scientific method and rudimentary data analysis - all of which are questions of what the student has been exposed to previously, not their ability to handle advanced material. There's a very important difference there.

The only thing that TJ would realistically need to adjust is the number of base-level (i.e. Geometry or TJ Math 1) sections that they offer to incoming freshmen - which is not really a big deal. Indeed, if you actually talk to math teachers at TJ, many of them are frustrated with the level of acceleration of the students that come in because their math foundations are weaker. They have learned how to do the advanced math, but not really how to understand it on a conceptual level. TJ would offer the same classes and the same rigor - you'd just have a very slightly higher volume of students at lower math levels that they already offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As an AAP teacher, I see too many kids who are admitted to the program and whose math or reading skills are below grade level. It's true, and it needs to be fixed. These kids struggle to keep up. It's not fair to them - it's not meeting their needs.

This is interesting. Maybe we should look at kids who get admitted but then struggle, as this teacher says many do.

Since you only gain admission by passing the test, if you get in there and can't do the work... back to your home school.

+1. Doesn't TJ give you the boot if you get below a B+? Why should kids be allowed to stay in AAP if they can't keep up?

Isn't that why the term 'twice execptional' was invented? AAP isn't about being a good student, it's about being gifted and it's possible to be both gifted and a terrible student

That is not what twice exceptional means. 2E kids are kids who are gifted and have learning disabilities or ADHD or Autism or something else going on that impacts their ability to learn. 2E acknowledges that there are kids who have exceptional intelligence and learning issues that make it harder for them to demonstrate that they are exceptionally bright.

you mean gifted kids who are terrible students?

No. You can have LD's or ADHD or other developmental issues and do well in school. It is harder and there are accommodations but you it does not mean being an awful student. There are parents of kids who are 2E who are frustrated because they cannot get services for their kids because their kids are doing well in school due to their innate intelligence helping them stay on pace early in school. Then when the kids get to Middle School they start to struggle because school becomes more challenging and they don't have the accommodations that they need. There are kids with LD's, ADHD, and other developmental issues that struggle in school but not all do.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think you should be allowed to pay for summer, for-credit courses in middle school. If your kid wasn’t placed in geometry or Alg 2 in 8th based on testing too bad, the herd needs to be culled somehow.

[Anonymous]

We did away with these types of schools in the 1960s as it was determined that minorities while they were in separate but equal schools were not getting equal education.

TJ seems illegal as it is operated today.

It should be shut down and made into a regular school to help with overcrowding.

If TJ parents want their kids to get advanced math they should send their kids to community college early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the lottery idea. And the reserved slots by geography. It is a public school, it should serve all students.

Why not enter all students who complete algebra I in middle school with a B average or better into the lottery? No special test, no extracurriculars or essays.

Exactly.

A B average in middle school in Algebra is a low bar for TJ. TJ rejects hundreds of students every year who have all As, including in Geometry.

I guess you could do that if your main goal was increasing the number of Blacks and Hispanics. Make no mistake, though, New TJ wouldn't be much more than an Academy program, it wouldn't continue to offer the same number of higher level courses, and it likely would be considered inferior to many of the neighborhood schools.

This is not even close to true. And in reality, an effort of this type to increase representation would change the identity of maybe 10-15% of each incoming class - and the current bottom 10-15% of each TJ class would do better in college admissions at their base school (and many of them drop out anyway during their freshmen year!). So you'd essentially be trading out that group for a group of students who would significantly enrich the academic environment through diversity of experience, and would probably have a major delta in their eventual outcomes over their base high school - a delta that is much more significant than what you find coming from the wealthier schools.

[Anonymous]

Great. I pray that they actually do SOMETHING about the gender imbalance as well.

[Anonymous]

I have a high schooler and middle schooler in FCPS, not TJ or TJ bound.

So glad they will be graduated by the time the trickle down effect of this change occurs. FCPS has been slowly sinking and this is more weight in that sinking ship. The county going downhill, caliber of students seeking private or moving elsewhere, home prices will drop, less people will be interested in living here or moving here because of the overall decline.

Once they’re graduated, I will sell my home while there will still be a profit and move to a LCOL area.

The woke crowd can have TJ and turn it into the sad state of the other schools in Alexandria.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a high schooler and middle schooler in FCPS, not TJ or TJ bound.

So glad they will be graduated by the time the trickle down effect of this change occurs. FCPS has been slowly sinking and this is more weight in that sinking ship. The county going downhill, caliber of students seeking private or moving elsewhere, home prices will drop, less people will be interested in living here or moving here because of the overall decline.

Once they’re graduated, I will sell my home while there will still be a profit and move to a LCOL area.

The woke crowd can have TJ and turn it into the sad state of the other schools in Alexandria.

Good. The housing prices here are insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the lottery idea. And the reserved slots by geography. It is a public school, it should serve all students.

Why not enter all students who complete algebra I in middle school with a B average or better into the lottery? No special test, no extracurriculars or essays.

Exactly.

A B average in middle school in Algebra is a low bar for TJ. TJ rejects hundreds of students every year who have all As, including in Geometry.

I guess you could do that if your main goal was increasing the number of Blacks and Hispanics. Make no mistake, though, New TJ wouldn't be much more than an Academy program, it wouldn't continue to offer the same number of higher level courses, and it likely would be considered inferior to many of the neighborhood schools.

This is not even close to true. And in reality, an effort of this type to increase representation would change the identity of maybe 10-15% of each incoming class - and the current bottom 10-15% of each TJ class would do better in college admissions at their base school (and many of them drop out anyway during their freshmen year!). So you'd essentially be trading out that group for a group of students who would significantly enrich the academic environment through diversity of experience, and would probably have a major delta in their eventual outcomes over their base high school - a delta that is much more significant than what you find coming from the wealthier schools.

I'm not prepared to accept this based on your predictions, which have no basis in empirical data.

Changing TJ to a lottery system where students with qualifications well below the current TJ student body logically can be expected to significantly alter both the applicant pool to TJ and the profile of the admitted students.

At some point, one has to ask what purpose TJ would then serve. It seems the answer is that New TJ would exist primarily to demonstrate that more students besides Asians can get through a STEM-oriented curriculum. That might be a valuable demonstration project, if it then served as a basis to extend that understanding to other schools, but TJ has not functioned as an incubator for teaching ideas that are then more widely deployed. It has always been insular and inward-looking. Replacing one bubble with a different one may not be worth the trouble. Given the profound discomfort that has existed around TJ for decades, FCPS might well be served at this point by converting it back into a neighborhood school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a high schooler and middle schooler in FCPS, not TJ or TJ bound.

So glad they will be graduated by the time the trickle down effect of this change occurs. FCPS has been slowly sinking and this is more weight in that sinking ship. The county going downhill, caliber of students seeking private or moving elsewhere, home prices will drop, less people will be interested in living here or moving here because of the overall decline.

Once they’re graduated, I will sell my home while there will still be a profit and move to a LCOL area.

The woke crowd can have TJ and turn it into the sad state of the other schools in Alexandria.

Boo hoo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't admission be based on merit?

Does merit include kids whose parents start reading to them, exposing them to science, and exposing them to math when they are infants?

Research shows that kids whose parents read to them from when they are babies are far better prepared for school then kids who do not. My kid had access to lots of books. We read to him every day, many times throughout the day. He had access to blocks, magnatiles, legos, tinker toys, and other engineering/construction type toys. We took him to museums and watched science based tv shows with him. We could do that because we could afford those objects, knew about the library, and had the time to take him places and do things with him. A family who makes less money then we do and does not have the same background cannot provide the same opportunities.

Kids from that family are not less intelligent then my son, they have had fewer opportunities to develop their intelligence. Their parents don't have the money or time or knowledge or combination of all three. So those kids are far more likely to be excluded from AAP and TJ simply because their parents lack the resources to provide for them what I could provide for my son.

Does merit include tutoring that starts in Kindergarten or even earlier? That tutoring gives kids an advantage in school and testing, which is more likely to lead to AAP and TJ.

We have not done any extra tutoring for our son, he is 8. We encourage him in his interests, we play math games and encourage him at home. He was accepted into AAP.He had a huge advantage over kids whose parents couldn't/didn't/don't know how to give their kids the same opportunities that we gave our son. How many kids entering AAP have had the benefits my son had and then add tutoring on top of it. Tutoring starts in pre-school for some families. There are test centers to prep kids for the NNAT, CogAT, and TJ exams. Is that merit?

You call it merit, others call it prepping and advantages that not every family knows about or can afford.

I don't call it prepping. I call it good parenting. Do you think setting a schedule and making sure your kids do their homework and go to bed on time prepping? There are plenty of parents who don't do this, buy their kids phones in elementary and let them have unlimited access. You have to decide what's important in your house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great. I pray that they actually do SOMETHING about the gender imbalance as well.

+1

I cannot believe that there is not more outrage about this. I know race is the hot topic right now, but the lack of access for girls into TJ has been a problem for YEARS. Only 40% of the students are female, but almost 50% of the applicants are female.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the lottery idea. And the reserved slots by geography. It is a public school, it should serve all students.

Why not enter all students who complete algebra I in middle school with a B average or better into the lottery? No special test, no extracurriculars or essays.

Exactly.

A B average in middle school in Algebra is a low bar for TJ. TJ rejects hundreds of students every year who have all As, including in Geometry.

I guess you could do that if your main goal was increasing the number of Blacks and Hispanics. Make no mistake, though, New TJ wouldn't be much more than an Academy program, it wouldn't continue to offer the same number of higher level courses, and it likely would be considered inferior to many of the neighborhood schools.

This is not even close to true. And in reality, an effort of this type to increase representation would change the identity of maybe 10-15% of each incoming class - and the current bottom 10-15% of each TJ class would do better in college admissions at their base school (and many of them drop out anyway during their freshmen year!). So you'd essentially be trading out that group for a group of students who would significantly enrich the academic environment through diversity of experience, and would probably have a major delta in their eventual outcomes over their base high school - a delta that is much more significant than what you find coming from the wealthier schools.

I'm not prepared to accept this based on your predictions, which have no basis in empirical data.

Changing TJ to a lottery system where students with qualifications well below the current TJ student body logically can be expected to significantly alter both the applicant pool to TJ and the profile of the admitted students.

At some point, one has to ask what purpose TJ would then serve. It seems the answer is that New TJ would exist primarily to demonstrate that more students besides Asians can get through a STEM-oriented curriculum. That might be a valuable demonstration project, if it then served as a basis to extend that understanding to other schools, but TJ has not functioned as an incubator for teaching ideas that are then more widely deployed. It has always been insular and inward-looking. Replacing one bubble with a different one may not be worth the trouble. Given the profound discomfort that has existed around TJ for decades, FCPS might well be served at this point by converting it back into a neighborhood school.

It is a mistake to assume that the admissions process as currently constructed perfectly identifies the most qualified students. It doesn't.

Empirically, the bottom 10-15% of TJ's students over the past 20 years or so generally attend schools like GMU, JMU, VCU, and some of the SEC or Big Ten schools that are willing to offer them some money to come. It is impossible for me to believe that these students, most of whom have much higher aspirations in terms of ranking, wouldn't do much better at their base school - empirical data on this is really impossible to get to, but these students are hampered at TJ by a relatively lower GPA.

I think any lottery system would probably be partial in nature and would require some minimum level of achievement in order for students to qualify. The serious proposals that are out there are not considering just opening TJ to anyone and everyone who wants to apply for whatever reason.

[Anonymous]

You all are so racist, targeting a school because it has a majority of Asian students. It seems that it's ok to be anti-Asian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shouldn't admission be based on merit?

Literally nothing in the country is based on true merit.