TJ Discrimination Case

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.

That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.

The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.

It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.

True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.

A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.

I see where you're going here but there are two issues, one of which we should all be agreeing on:

1) In previous years, students at non-AAP middle schools had virtually zero representation at TJ and this created a perpetual cycle of not knowing about its existence or believing that they could apply. I'd be in favor of reducing the allocated seat number to 1%, which would open up about 100 unallocated seats for the broader pool. A place like Glasgow would thus have about 8 allocated seats instead of 12, and so forth. The new process is admitting a few too many students from Prince William County, if I'm being honest.

2) We should all agree that FCPS should be working at great speed to provide AAP and LLIV resources at all neighborhood middle schools with the goal of eventually eliminating centers and requiring all students to attend their zoned school. Once we do this, the geographical allotment question shouldn't be an issue at all.

I was surprised to see they give schools in Loudoun and Prince William the same 1.5% allocations. Is this required by some state law? I would expect they would only give seats to Fairfax and make the other counties pay and have their students in the general pool.

PP. This (only FCPS getting allocated seats) is what I expected would happen when the original plan was announced, but it’s not what happened.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.

That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.

The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.

It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.

True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.

A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.

I see where you're going here but there are two issues, one of which we should all be agreeing on:

1) In previous years, students at non-AAP middle schools had virtually zero representation at TJ and this created a perpetual cycle of not knowing about its existence or believing that they could apply. I'd be in favor of reducing the allocated seat number to 1%, which would open up about 100 unallocated seats for the broader pool. A place like Glasgow would thus have about 8 allocated seats instead of 12, and so forth. The new process is admitting a few too many students from Prince William County, if I'm being honest.

2) We should all agree that FCPS should be working at great speed to provide AAP and LLIV resources at all neighborhood middle schools with the goal of eventually eliminating centers and requiring all students to attend their zoned school. Once we do this, the geographical allotment question shouldn't be an issue at all.

I was surprised to see they give schools in Loudoun and Prince William the same 1.5% allocations. Is this required by some state law? I would expect they would only give seats to Fairfax and make the other counties pay and have their students in the general pool.

PP. This (only FCPS getting allocated seats) is what I expected would happen when the original plan was announced, but it’s not what happened.

Gee, maybe the School Board didn’t really know what is was approving. I’m shocked, especially with such luminaries as Karl Frisch, Karen Keys Gamarra, and Laura Jane Cohen on the Board.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, TJ has not been selecting the top students within a school, who would make the most use of the advanced classes.
I should say FCPS is not selecting the top students, as my understanding is TJ doesn't handle the admissions.

That is incorrect only the top 1.5% of students are selected from each school.

The top according to their scoring, which unfortunately doesn't do a good job of identifying the top students.

It absolutely does identify the top students. The old system just identified those who could afford to buy the test. This is vastly better.

True but I like to come up with an alternate definition of merit that suits my preferred outcome.

A system for a regional school that assigns a minimum percentage of seats to every middle school, including schools that don't have AAP programs and have few LLIV-eligible students, and then relies on more subjective factors might be more geographically diverse but is definitely not going to identify the top students in the region and may not even identify the top students at an individual school.

I see where you're going here but there are two issues, one of which we should all be agreeing on:

1) In previous years, students at non-AAP middle schools had virtually zero representation at TJ and this created a perpetual cycle of not knowing about its existence or believing that they could apply. I'd be in favor of reducing the allocated seat number to 1%, which would open up about 100 unallocated seats for the broader pool. A place like Glasgow would thus have about 8 allocated seats instead of 12, and so forth. The new process is admitting a few too many students from Prince William County, if I'm being honest.

2) We should all agree that FCPS should be working at great speed to provide AAP and LLIV resources at all neighborhood middle schools with the goal of eventually eliminating centers and requiring all students to attend their zoned school. Once we do this, the geographical allotment question shouldn't be an issue at all.

I was surprised to see they give schools in Loudoun and Prince William the same 1.5% allocations. Is this required by some state law? I would expect they would only give seats to Fairfax and make the other counties pay and have their students in the general pool.

PP. This (only FCPS getting allocated seats) is what I expected would happen when the original plan was announced, but it’s not what happened.

Gee, maybe the School Board didn’t really know what is was approving. I’m shocked, especially with such luminaries as Karl Frisch, Karen Keys Gamarra, and Laura Jane Cohen on the Board.

Weird, the change was to ensure these programs were open to all students not just those who could afford to buy the test answers so was in the county's best interests at least the majority of residents, but sure a small group of vocal parents are disgruntled since they can no longer easily buy their way into TJ and also this new process opens it up to more low-income students who previously were mostly filtered out since they lacked access to high-end prep.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Not in the United States of America. Asians are like 6% of the population so that doesn’t add up. My daughter has 26 Asian students in a class of 31 but the whole state of Virginia is like 7%. SMH

FCPS is about 20% Asian students.

Then it's crazy to think there's discrimination when TJ is like 70% Asian.

Especially since selection is a race-blind process.

Many would prefer to believe in wacky conspiracies even if there's no evidence to support this

My favorite conspiracy theory - Asian kids bought the answers from Curie.

They didn’t buy the answers. They bought access to materials from a secured exam.

That’s not up for debate among serious people who know what is going on in Northern Virginia.

It was clear to everyone that this was going on. Not sure why some are trying to sweep it under the rug. Things had gotten so bad that the school board had to change the admission process since only wealthy applicants could afford to buy their way in.

Yes, it does seem odd they're trying to rewrite history to support this false narrative of a past that never was. Everyone who knows anything also was aware there was widespread cheating.

Agree under the new system the top kids are getting in not just those who require prep to give the appearance of gifted.

Test scores and the remedial math classes don't support your conclusion that "the top kids are getting in." I know the truth hurts, but just own it. Come out and say I don't care if the best and brightest are getting in, it's a county-wide school that needs to serve all of the taxpayers in the county so each middle school gets some seats and we aren't going to require a competitive math test to get in as we think a student body with ESL, URM, and low income students that may not fare as well on such a test is more important. Why is that so hard to come out and say that? FCPS pretty much said exactly this. Why can't the rest of us?

They actually do but some parents insist on spreading this false narrative. TJ is stronger than ever now that the playing field is level and they've put an end to cheaeting.

Discrimination against Asians does not make TJ stronger. And back up that cheating accusation with something. The county did not raise any alleged "cheating" in the lawsuit brought by Coalition for TJ. If there was any basis for the cheating narrative it would have come out. No such accusation has ever been made in a public forum.

DP. There was no need to bring it up from a legal perspective and would have just made the case muckier from an evidentiary standpoint.

Good points. The facts were already bad enough from FCPS's perspective than calling additional attention the facts would have made things that much worse for FCPS. They will only prevail if the appellate courts shut their eyes to the facts and pretend FCPS was starting from a blank slate when it adopted the new system.

LOL, you fancy yourself quite the legal eagle, don’t you.

It's hard to claim discrimination with a straight face when your 70% of a school.

The new racist admission policy illegally excluded qualified Asians and TJ is now about 56% Asians and it would be at least 85% Asians w/o the new form of illegal 'Chinese exclusion acts'.

Let’s make sure we don’t forget that the largest beneficiary group of the admissions changes were poor Asian students. By a WIDE margin.

Independent research has backed this up. 36 Asian students who were admitted received bonus points for economic disadvantage. That was the largest group of students admitted to receive any of the “experience factor” points. No other group received more than 15 in any area.

In the mean time, at least 360 qualified Asian applicants were excluded. Learn to do some basic math.

Qualified students are excluded from every application and test in school in the world every year. There aren't enough seats in the classroom for everyone you think is "qualified." That's life. Why is that so hard to understand? And isn't it wonderful that a great education can be obtained in many different places such that it actually doesn't matter which school you attend? Grow where you are planted. Any kid as bright at you say they are will be able to excel anywhere. This is also true of preschools and colleges.

The other notion I object to is qualified according to who? Certainly not the committee that made a selection. They picked the applicants who they believed were most qualified. Sure, some privileged kids may score higher than kids in a low-income school, but that doesn't mean they're more qualified or deserving. I'm more impressed with kids who are succeeding in spite of the obstacles they face than a few kids who had every possible advantage and still weren't able to rise to the top of their school.

DP - this is important. Many parents in this area believe that TJ admissions is ultimately a reward for the hard work of the family in optimizing their child's application - this is why on many Facebook posts within one specific community (more granular than just "Asians") you will see the parents congratulated rather than the child. It's kind of gross to watch, honestly.

More than anything, I see the admissions changes as an attempt to mitigate the influence of parents who are hyper-focused on TJ as an outcome - and when I see which parents are the ones yelling and screaming about their convoluted definition of "merit", it seems to me that it's working exactly according to plan.

If all goes well, hopefully we'll see parent behaviors start to change as over-advancement in math, a narrow focus on STEM extracurriculars at too-early ages, and standardized exam prep are disincentivized by the new process. Perhaps those families will indeed find somewhere else to take their kids, which would be a huge win across the board for the region.

My family is Korean-American and this poster is spot on. I’m tired of us getting lumped in to this broad “Asian” category when everyone knows what is actually happening under the surface. Families like mine have been in America for multiple generations (I grew up in Annandale) and this is the case for most of the East and Southeast Asian families that are in this area. We raise our children to understand the value of a great education just like our parents did for us, but we do not equate that with prestige or try to box anyone else out using our resources.

It sickens me when I see people like Nomani and Dutta and Jackson and Miller claiming to stand up for “Asians”. You don’t stand up for Asians - you stand up for a small group of well-resourced Asians who are conflating privilege with merit. And you’re evil and disgusting for claiming that you represent us. We deserve better than you.

The Korean parent I spoke to wasn't too happy to find out that their child's chance of admission went down 90% because of the reforms.

How exactly did she calculate that 90% statistic?

This was my calculation, and I think I was wrong about the reform. It wasn't TJ, which maybe has chances dropping by half at some schools, but for AOS which set a maximum quota per school.
This parent's child went to a school that was way above its quota in prior years.

No clude but using local norms are the gold standard in selection for gifted education.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:There are clowns on both sides, and they’ve been sucking all the oxygen out of the room and wasting everyone’s time for years. It didn’t start with, nor will it end with, the Coalition for TJ. When you set a single school up as the scarce resource that is infinitely superior to the alternatives, of course people will fight incessantly over access.

Rather than continue to incentivize parents and local activists to keep fighting over access to TJ like a bunch of rab lats, which is all the various groups like the NAACP, TJAAG, and Coalition for TJ have been doing for years, it is time to realize families could have access to far greater resources, if only FCPS was not allowing those resources to lose value because we elect a bunch of cretins to the School Board who think it’s their prime mission in life to favor some of the lab rats over others and not to consider the bigger picture.

Shut it down.

1) Equating the activities of frankly any group (and you can add FCAG to that list) with the nonsense that the Coalition has brought to bear over the past three years is evidence of either plain ignorance or malicious ignorance. Only one of those groups has shut down multiple School Board meetings by behaving like petulant three-year-olds who had their toys taken away from them, and it's the Coalition.

2) The TJ building post-renovation is not set up to accommodate any other type of school besides TJ in its current form. It can't house an academy (unless it's tiny), and it certainly can't house a neighborhood school. Over $100M of public and private capital was sunk into that renovation to create a school that, despite all of the whining and moaning in fora like this one, actually does a superior job of serving both its students and the STEM community writ large. Shutting it down because there are arguments about access to it is the literal definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

In other words, you've temporarily moved the goalposts to where you want them and expect everyone else to pipe down and accept that result.

There's no indication that's going to happen, and every indication that it won't. TJ will just continue to be a punching bag, depending on who appears to have the upper hand in or with FCPS at any particular moment.

Also, I'm not persuaded TJ could not house either an expanded Academy program, where students only came to TJ for courses not available at their base schools, or serve as a neighborhood school again. If middle schools can get repurposed as high schools, as was the case with Falls Church HS, then a STEM magnet high school can be repurposed as a neighborhood high school, especially when you consider the overcrowding that persists in multiple high schools, the negative aspects of having high schools with 2700-3000 kids, and the costs associated with finding a suitable campus for a brand-new school.

If FCPS really cares about equal opportunities and fairer outcomes, it should not maintain TJ as a STEM magnet. It's turned into a perennial time suck and source of controversy, and could be put to better use in the interests of FCPS students as a whole.

1) I haven't done anything. The goalposts have been moved by someone else to where they wanted them. I'd like to see them in a different place than where they are now, but that's not relevant to this discussion.

2) Again, disagreement about what should happen with TJ - which is FAR louder and more destructive on one side than the other, and failure to acknowledge this is brutally disingenuous or just plain ignorant - is not any sort of argument in favor of elimination of the school. By that logic, we should eliminate the existence of literally any scarce resource that people to which people argue about access.

3) That's fine that you're not persuaded. It's common knowledge. If you converted TJ to an Academy model, at least 2/3 of the building's space would be wasted, and if you converted it to a neighborhood school, you'd have to spend at least eight figures retrofitting it to that purpose. There's a lot bigger difference between TJ and a neighborhood high school than there is between a neighborhood middle school and a neighborhood high school. That's why $100M of public and private money was invested to convert TJ from a building that was designed to house a neighborhood school to a building designed to house a STEM-focused full-service high school. And besides, Falls Church has been inadequate to its task as a high school for decades.

4) You words are eloquent, but you have not made an argument for TJ's closure besides "people are angry about it". A solution which would create a similar outcome in terms of wasted time would be for FCPS to simply assert that they won't spend any more School Board time on the TJ matter, but they won't do that because they know that the trolls will complain of being "silenced".

1) Putting aside your personal involvement in the advocacy to change the TJ admissions process, any rational reader keeping up with this thread would perceive that you are generally supportive of the 2020 admissions changes and broadly dismissive of those who oppose those changes. Whether you might make further, incremental changes if you were king is really besides the point, which was to respond to your effort to deny the reality that TJ policies and practices have been a constant source of criticism and distraction from FCPS's other business for many years.

2) I don't see Asra Nomani, Harry Jackson, Glenn Miller, etc. as any more destructive than Sujatha Hampton, Vanessa Winter Hall, Jorge Torrico, etc - they all seek to make TJ the center of a disproportionate amount of FCPS attention and resources in order to further their own personal visions of what TJ should be and who it should and should not serve. This type of bitter divide did not exist when TJHSST opened in the mid-80s, but it has now existed for many years. The players change, but the controversy persists, to the detriment of the vast majority of other schools and students whose needs either go unaddressed entirely or receive only a fraction of the attention constantly lavished on TJ.
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#fakenews

[Anonymous]

Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

I don't think anyone cares about sports or other extracurriculars since that's not related to education. Let's focus on fair access to academic opportunities in public education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

They do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

I don't think anyone cares about sports or other extracurriculars since that's not related to education. Let's focus on fair access to academic opportunities in public education.

Year all those UMC white male lacrosse bros have no advantage on Wall Street..oh wait

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/wall-street-remains-occupied-lacrosse-bros/314926/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-22/wall-streets-lacrosse-mafia?leadSource=uverify%20wall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

They do not.

You're welcome to start that if it's your passion, but that has nothing to do with public education. It's a voluntary extracurricular that people choose to spend their free time on for whatever reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

They do not.

You're welcome to start that if it's your passion, but that has nothing to do with public education. It's a voluntary extracurricular that people choose to spend their free time on for whatever reason.

False. Athletics are an important part of the foundation of education, which is why every public school system in America supports its students' participation in athletics. The benefits to students are incalculable - which is probably why over half of TJ students in any given year participate in interscholastic athletics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Does TJs competitive sports teams have a specialised recruitment program ? That’s one way to increase African American enrolment. Hold an open recruiting day for football and basketball only for 8th graders in the neighbourhood middle schools.

They do not.

You're welcome to start that if it's your passion, but that has nothing to do with public education. It's a voluntary extracurricular that people choose to spend their free time on for whatever reason.

False. Athletics are an important part of the foundation of education, which is why every public school system in America supports its students' participation in athletics. The benefits to students are incalculable - which is probably why over half of TJ students in any given year participate in interscholastic athletics.

Addendum: Apart from simple awareness efforts (letting people know that TJ exists and has a strong athletic program), it would be inappropriate for athletic programs at TJ to engage in significant recruiting efforts.

[Anonymous]

Why? Sports powerhouse high schools all over the country pride themselves in giving out athletic scholarships and or priority admissions in order to create the strongest team possible. That includes publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why? Sports powerhouse high schools all over the country pride themselves in giving out athletic scholarships and or priority admissions in order to create the strongest team possible. That includes publics.

What publics give scholarships?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why? Sports powerhouse high schools all over the country pride themselves in giving out athletic scholarships and or priority admissions in order to create the strongest team possible. That includes publics.

What publics give scholarships?

I never said any did. Public school kids can transfer to out of zone schools to play for their team for mutual benefit for the kid and the coach/team.