TJ Discrimination Case

[Anonymous]

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

+1
Exactly. Keep the 1.5% bit fix now those kids age picked within a school. Perhaps slotting slightly more seats for AAP centers.

[Anonymous]

It would really be better at this point just to shut down the magnet program at TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It would really be better at this point just to shut down the magnet program at TJ.

This.

This is what they should have done back in 2020.

[Anonymous]

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

DP. I am all in favor of sending gifted and unmotivated or underperforming or unrecognized students to AAP. But TJ is a different story. It's a school for gifted and motivated kids, the unmotivated gifted kids would not be in the right place there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would really be better at this point just to shut down the magnet program at TJ.

This.

This is what they should have done back in 2020.

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.

It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

DP. I am all in favor of sending gifted and unmotivated or underperforming or unrecognized students to AAP. But TJ is a different story. It's a school for gifted and motivated kids, the unmotivated gifted kids would not be in the right place there.

Yeah, you definitely need to educate yourself. It’s not about “unmotivated” students. Your casual racism is gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

DP. I am all in favor of sending gifted and unmotivated or underperforming or unrecognized students to AAP. But TJ is a different story. It's a school for gifted and motivated kids, the unmotivated gifted kids would not be in the right place there.

Yeah, you definitely need to educate yourself. It’s not about “unmotivated” students. Your casual racism is gross.

For AAP admissions, the point of universal testing is to objectively find the unrecognized gifted kids. The problem (aside from prepping) is that the number of unrecognized URM kids isn't as high as some people want to see. So there must be some kind of flaw with the test, rather than a flaw with assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

DP. I am all in favor of sending gifted and unmotivated or underperforming or unrecognized students to AAP. But TJ is a different story. It's a school for gifted and motivated kids, the unmotivated gifted kids would not be in the right place there.

Yeah, you definitely need to educate yourself. It’s not about “unmotivated” students. Your casual racism is gross.

For AAP admissions, the point of universal testing is to objectively find the unrecognized gifted kids. The problem (aside from prepping) is that the number of unrecognized URM kids isn't as high as some people want to see. So there must be some kind of flaw with the test, rather than a flaw with assumptions.

You are actually going to play the “some minority groups just aren’t as smart” card? I’m guessing you’d be pretty offended if someone raised you a “some minority groups are just robots with no interests or contributions outside of STEM and violin grinding.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.

It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.

Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

DP. I am all in favor of sending gifted and unmotivated or underperforming or unrecognized students to AAP. But TJ is a different story. It's a school for gifted and motivated kids, the unmotivated gifted kids would not be in the right place there.

Yeah, you definitely need to educate yourself. It’s not about “unmotivated” students. Your casual racism is gross.

For AAP admissions, the point of universal testing is to objectively find the unrecognized gifted kids. The problem (aside from prepping) is that the number of unrecognized URM kids isn't as high as some people want to see. So there must be some kind of flaw with the test, rather than a flaw with assumptions.

You are actually going to play the “some minority groups just aren’t as smart” card? I’m guessing you’d be pretty offended if someone raised you a “some minority groups are just robots with no interests or contributions outside of STEM and violin grinding.”

That has been used millions of times and it lost its value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

DP. I am all in favor of sending gifted and unmotivated or underperforming or unrecognized students to AAP. But TJ is a different story. It's a school for gifted and motivated kids, the unmotivated gifted kids would not be in the right place there.

Yeah, you definitely need to educate yourself. It’s not about “unmotivated” students. Your casual racism is gross.

For AAP admissions, the point of universal testing is to objectively find the unrecognized gifted kids. The problem (aside from prepping) is that the number of unrecognized URM kids isn't as high as some people want to see. So there must be some kind of flaw with the test, rather than a flaw with assumptions.

You are actually going to play the “some minority groups just aren’t as smart” card? I’m guessing you’d be pretty offended if someone raised you a “some minority groups are just robots with no interests or contributions outside of STEM and violin grinding.”

Anyone making such a claim is delusional, or just unable to grasp that no IQ test is perfect. Factors like wealth, privilege and culture confer an advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

This is the real challenge facing FCPS moving forward.

There isn't really a good argument to stop with the middle school allocation process, and that has created wonderful new diversity in the hallways and in each individual classroom. The culture of TJ remains alive and well in the face of individuals outside of the community who seek to destroy it.

But there is a serious question regarding whether or not the current admissions process is actually identifying the students who will contribute the most to the educational community of the school. The previous process certainly did not - it merely identified who was most likely to score well on college entrance exams - but there's not a whole lot of evidence that the new process does either.

Given that we've established that standardized exams are occlusive to the process of evaluating students, the best answer seems to be a re-imagined teacher recommendation form that asks teachers to compare students to one another within their respective classrooms and offers them the opportunity to write on behalf of or against a very small group of students.

Middle school teachers know who the students are in their building who most belong at TJ through a combination of aptitude for the material and dedication to the collaborative educational process and they should be afforded the opportunity to weigh in on the matter.

I would strongly suggest you education yourself on bias in the identification of gifted students.

Sure. Only been around them for my entire life.

But again, we’re not just talking about gifted students here - we’re talking about students who would make the strongest and most positive total impacts to the TJ community as a group, rather than as individuals.

It is has been empirically established that Asians are rated relatively lower on “group contribution” at Harvard and other places. The Supreme Court will decide whether these proxies for discrimination will pass muster.

Of course, but fortunately race isn't a factor for TJ admissions since it's a race blind process so the SCOTUS decision is irrelevant.

It was designed and implemented to reduce Asian students at TJ. We won't have to wait long for SCOTUs to tell us.