TJHSST Admissions Revised Proposal to be sent on 10/6

[Anonymous]

I would encourage people to demand TJ’s closure or conversion to either a neighborhood school or academy facility to reduce the amount of navel-gazing. The narcissism of TJ parents, students, and alumni is astonishing. I know some TJ alums in their 40s who never talk about anything other than TJ, prattle on about their “gifted” pre-K and elementary school kids, and assume their kids will go there as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would encourage people to demand TJ’s closure or conversion to either a neighborhood school or academy facility to reduce the amount of navel-gazing. The narcissism of TJ parents, students, and alumni is astonishing. I know some TJ alums in their 40s who never talk about anything other than TJ, prattle on about their “gifted” pre-K and elementary school kids, and assume their kids will go there as well.

Not any worse than Harvard grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would encourage people to demand TJ’s closure or conversion to either a neighborhood school or academy facility to reduce the amount of navel-gazing. The narcissism of TJ parents, students, and alumni is astonishing. I know some TJ alums in their 40s who never talk about anything other than TJ, prattle on about their “gifted” pre-K and elementary school kids, and assume their kids will go there as well.

Not any worse than Harvard grads.

Harvard is a private university.

TJ is supposedly a public high school. And it’s only one of many high schools in FCPS. For Brabrand and the school board to devote so much time and energy in the middle of the worst educational crisis of our generation is ludicrous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would encourage people to demand TJ’s closure or conversion to either a neighborhood school or academy facility to reduce the amount of navel-gazing. The narcissism of TJ parents, students, and alumni is astonishing. I know some TJ alums in their 40s who never talk about anything other than TJ, prattle on about their “gifted” pre-K and elementary school kids, and assume their kids will go there as well.

Yep. Most are white and assume their 5-year-old kids will go to TJ or, if not, still attend an elite college, but they are all about reducing the number of Asians at TJ under the guise of increasing URM enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are such total idiots. Once they start setting aside seats for so-called “top performers” they are basically admitting their lottery is a complete sham intended only to change the racial composition. And TJ being TJ the students and parents will try to reverse engineer the admissions and figure out which kids got in as “top performers“ and which ones were lottery admits.

Brabrand is the worst superintendent we’ve ever had. He has an uncanny ability to come up with stupid proposals that make no sense. This is the TJ equivalent of the “hybrid model” all over again, and we all know how that worked out.

He should just leave now.

I'm completely in agreement that Brabrand has shown himself to be not good, for any number of reasons (whether his replacement would be any better, or just an idiot of a different breed, would be the topic of a separate discussion). I certainly haven't convinced myself that the current plan is any good, yet. However, I think you're arguing from a place of passion rather than reason, because I don't agree with most of your rationale:

1. "they are basically admitting their lottery is a complete sham intended only to change the racial composition" - they aren't "basically" admitting it, that's the stated purpose of it. That's what they want to have happen. If it succeeds (far from a guarantee because there are a lot of things not considered), then they've achieved partial success. If it succeeds without destroying what TJ fundamentally is (a far more dubious proposition), then they've completely succeeded.

2. "parents will try to reverse engineer the admissions [to figure out how to be one of the top 100]" - that's true whether it's the top 100 or the top 500, so it's neither an indictment or endorsement of the current proposal.

3. Yes the hybrid in-person plan was a fiasco. Yes, we can also associate the word "hybrid" with this idea. That's a fairly superficial association. There's nothing wrong with "hybrid" in and of itself. The much stronger criticism is that it's the same group of minds behind both of them, and that group of minds hasn't shown itself to be good in the past.

[Anonymous]

Seems like the separate 100 slots have been added only to make sure they can ensure the racial and SES mix that they want (which they realized may not happen with a pure lottery). It doesn't seem to have anything do with finding gifted students or outliers who need more advanced courses than their base school offers.

[Anonymous]

Exactly— it is really unclear how the Experience Factors will be used, either for the 100 or the lottery.

[Anonymous]

This is following the typical path of most things Brabrand touches. It starts out bad, gets gradually worse, and then it just comes to a complete halt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP is for the brightest students so it naturally makes sense the bulk of the admits would come from those ranks

As many others have said the real way to address equity is to fix AAP

Appeals should be eliminated so pushy UMC whites and asians can't game the system and special efforts should be taken to better identify smart URM

Why can’t both happen? We can’t wait another ten years.

Yep, it’s been a decade already with platitudes and hand-wringing about the system needing to be fixed.

It needs to be changed. Now.

A decade? I remember discussing it in senior history class with my teacher as a student in 2001! FWIW, he said at the time that TJ was very diverse, it just didn't have many Latino/a and African-American students. So basically the same issue they have today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would encourage people to demand TJ’s closure or conversion to either a neighborhood school or academy facility to reduce the amount of navel-gazing. The narcissism of TJ parents, students, and alumni is astonishing. I know some TJ alums in their 40s who never talk about anything other than TJ, prattle on about their “gifted” pre-K and elementary school kids, and assume their kids will go there as well.

Yep. Most are white and assume their 5-year-old kids will go to TJ or, if not, still attend an elite college, but they are all about reducing the number of Asians at TJ under the guise of increasing URM enrollment.

As a TJ alumna, I

1) don't assume my local kids will go there and
2) don't know any other TJ alumni who do, or who talk about TJ all that often

[Anonymous]

In 2001, it was majority white. Only turned majority asian american around 2012.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 2001, it was majority white. Only turned majority asian american around 2012.

Hmm how convenient. That's when the applications apparently started dropping. Primary motivation is definitely not about URMs, somebody should ask Braband that question point-blank.

[Anonymous]

Hmm... select 100 brightest kids among students with a desired experience score (ESL, from underrepresented middle schools, etc.) and ensure seats for them, the rest go by lottery. These 100 students are not the top achievers among everyone but the top achievers among the underrepresented applicants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmm... select 100 brightest kids among students with a desired experience score (ESL, from underrepresented middle schools, etc.) and ensure seats for them, the rest go by lottery. These 100 students are not the top achievers among everyone but the top achievers among the underrepresented applicants.

correct the overall student body is going to be less academically prepared or advanced than the top classes at most high schools. There is really no reason to go to TJ if this idiotic plan goes through

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 2001, it was majority white. Only turned majority asian american around 2012.

Sure, but Washington Post was still writing hand wringing articles about it when it was majority white.