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Federal judge rules that admissions changes at nation’s top public school discriminate against Asian
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Anonymous
If white families were so interested in TJ then more would be applying. Sorry that doesn't fit with your false narrative. What happened was that people looked at the demographics with the old TJ admissions process and saw how few black/hispanic/ED kids were admitted. For the class of 2021... Out of the 179 who black kids applied, only 9 got it. Out of the 220 hispanic kids, only 8 got it. Out of the 289 ED kids, only 8 got it. In the entire class of 490 students. Respectively, they were 1.8%, 1.6%, and 1.6% of the class. They make up 10%, 27%, and 27% of FCPS students. https://www.fcps.edu/news/fcps-offers-admission-tjhsst-490-students How can you look at those numbers and NOT think that is a problem? |
Anonymous
It a problem. One caused in the pipeline. The percentages admitted were based on percentages enrolled by grade level math, not race. The reason why you saw percentages of 1.8% and 1.6% is because of the students enrolled in Honors Geometry, and above, in 8th grade, only 1.8% and 1.6% were Black and Hispanic. |
Anonymous
Link/citation? |
Anonymous
This issue has existed for some. The demographics of the county haven't shifted that much since 2010. Here is some data from 2010. The issue is the pipeline. Get more URMs into Honors Geometry by getting more ready to take Algebra I in 7th grade. Offer summer pre-Algebra after 6th grade. 8th Grade Enrollment by Ethnicity - as of September 2010 White(6107),Black(1369), Hispanic (2493), Asian(2500),Other(571) Math 8 -White 1504 (25%) -Black 754 (55%) -Hispanic 1487 (60%) -Asian 476 (19%) Other (27%) Algebra 1 -White 1885 (31%) -Black 371 (27%) -Hispanic (26%) -Asian 635 (25%) -Other 170 (30%) Algebra 1 Honors -White 1938 (32%) -Black 205 (15%) -Hispanic 326 (13%) -Asian 800 (32%) -Other153 (27%) Geometry Honors -White 766 (13%) -Black 37 (3%) -Hispanic 41 (2%) -Asian 545 (22%) -Other 90 (16%) Algebra 2 Honors -White 14 (.2%) -Black 2 (.1%) -Hispanic 2 (.08%) -Asian 44 (2%) -Other 5 (.9%) |
Anonymous
Clearly there is a problem. But just because there is a problem, doesn't mean the problem is with the admission process itself. Are the admission standards racist by discriminating against blacks and hispanics even when two applicants are equally qualified? If not, then the problem isn't with the admission process. Why are so few blacks and hispanics admitted? How do their qualifications compare to other applicants? |
Anonymous
Whether someone cares about being racially discriminated against is not a consideration in whether or not racist policies are good or bad. Racist policies are bad on their own, without needing to check with the victims if they are okay with it. |
Anonymous
1 - This is not really the point of TJ to educate as many kids as possible, but rather to educate the top X number of kids based on their qualifications. Building additional schools to admit more students necessarily means you'll be lowering the entrance standards, which is counter to the goal of the school. 2 - The key driver for this is not the schools, not charities, or mentors. It falls to the parents, the families, and the culture they live in. Without strong parental support, external efforts will have very limited success because most children, regardless of race, are not self sufficient enough to succeed without parental/family support. That's just the nature of being children. |
Anonymous
Believe it or not, advocates for TJ reform agree completely with you. But if you believe that it's only (or even mostly) white folks who obtain fraudulent diagnoses in order to gain advantages in admissions processes, you would be 100% wrong, at least with respect to TJ admissions. |
Anonymous
This would only be true if you accept the belief that every eligible student would apply to TJ. The deeply flawed "study" conducted by C4TJ presumed that EVERY eligible student would apply and therefore had a total number of applicants ~9000. That number has no basis in reality, so it's not useful in evaluating what would have been the result of a merit lottery process. The only way you're going to see the number of white students increase under ANY process is if more of them apply. I am of the opinion that more applications across the board would be a good thing for TJ, but even with all of the lowered barriers for 2025 (no fee, no exam) you saw a very slight increase in white applicants and offers that didn't come close to tracking with those from underrepresented groups. There is simply NO metric you can point to that suggests that this was about helping white kids. And to suggest there is indicates either willful or malevolent ignorance. |
Anonymous
Been saying this for years, but if we want the numbers in honors Geometry and above to dictate the results of the TJ admissions process, then the minimum math level to apply in 8th grade should be Geometry or above. It never has been, but it's been almost a de facto barrier to admission because something like 93% of offers in recent years have gone to students in Geometry or above (per the Admissions Office). Based on what I am told, this year it was about 75-80% of offers - still an extremely high number and much higher than it was 15, 20, or 25 years ago. |
Anonymous
Obviously there is a problem. Solution is not Asian bashing/demonizing - they are not the cause. It is very clearly a pipeline problem which can be solved by a collaborative approach - maybe even including the TJ students. Having them mentor middle school kids etc. Destroying the school standards and introducing criteria with an express intent to decrease Asians in not the solution. Root cause analysis, people. Not lazy, wrong solutions. |
Anonymous
The argument that most pro-reform people have been making is that we've done a poor job historically of measuring who is more or less qualified to go to TJ, and perhaps more importantly whether or not there should be multiple avenues to be qualified to go to TJ. By creating a pathway for the most qualified students from each middle school to attend (and perhaps 1.5% is too much! Maybe it should be 1%...) and by seeking qualified students from different educational backgrounds, you are by definition finding the students who have made the most of their unique circumstances. In my experience with TJ, those are the students most likely to get the most out of their experience - moreso than the 60th, 70th, or 80th most qualified student at a Carson or a Longfellow. We do need to add more non-exam elements to the application process in order to paint a better picture of the student, but we have a strong starting point here to build off of. Students from the class of 2026 will actually have kids from underrepresented schools to look up to within their environment next year - assuming the current process remains in place at least for another year. |
Anonymous
A racist reform is a strong starting point? In what world are we living in? |
Anonymous
Lazy? You're under-estimating the degree of malicious intent of the liberal people. The very purpose of the TJ reform was to reduce the Asian population. They're NOT interested in the root causes, PERIOD! |
Anonymous
There can be no productive conversations about this situation and how to move forward with people who are hell-bent on the idea that the new process is actually racist. We can have conversations about the intent behind them, and those are backward-looking. That's fine and relevant. But no one has actually made a cogent point to support that the mechanics of the new process itself are racist. Indeed, when I asked the question previously, the only answer to it was to dismiss it as a hypothetical. But if we want to look forward, we have to address the process itself above and beyond its intent. |