Any TJ Staff on this Forum?

[Anonymous]

Very interested in your opinions on the proposed changes to admission process.

I am a TJ parent and most every teacher has told parents they chose to come to TJ.

I am aware of all the efforts by students/alumni groups to address diversity, but the administration and staff have generally stayed out of it - wise decision.

Wonder if you would share thoughts here. What adjustments will TJ have to make?

[Anonymous]

Former staff. It's unlikely that much will change. I do expect that a far greater number of students will enter the school at the level of Geometry, depending on how the applicant pool is siphoned into the "merit lottery", but the students that we get will all be solid students. Those kids who come in in Geometry will still finish up with Calculus, and as such might have to wait until their senior year to take AP Physics, but that's not really a big deal.

Truth be told, a lot of the students that they get now (I still talk to my colleagues over there) are students that the math teachers have to work with on a deeper level because they're artificially advanced in math through summer programs and work at home. According to the math staff, it's a very rare student that should be entering TJ at the level of Pre-Calculus, but that number seems to get higher every year and the foundations get weaker. I'm just glad I didn't teach math.

But otherwise....they won't have to make too many adjustments. The school will run as it normally does, with some changes in course selections. I imagine it'll be refreshing to have some new perspectives, though. I'm very curious to see how many underrepresented students actually apply and accept their offer of admission.

[Anonymous]

The administration didn’t stay out of it yesterday. She approved of the proposal. This is a principal who has never really seemed to like the school which has been unfortunate for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former staff. It's unlikely that much will change. I do expect that a far greater number of students will enter the school at the level of Geometry, depending on how the applicant pool is siphoned into the "merit lottery", but the students that we get will all be solid students. Those kids who come in in Geometry will still finish up with Calculus, and as such might have to wait until their senior year to take AP Physics, but that's not really a big deal.

Truth be told, a lot of the students that they get now (I still talk to my colleagues over there) are students that the math teachers have to work with on a deeper level because they're artificially advanced in math through summer programs and work at home. According to the math staff, it's a very rare student that should be entering TJ at the level of Pre-Calculus, but that number seems to get higher every year and the foundations get weaker. I'm just glad I didn't teach math.

But otherwise....they won't have to make too many adjustments. The school will run as it normally does, with some changes in course selections. I imagine it'll be refreshing to have some new perspectives, though. I'm very curious to see how many underrepresented students actually apply and accept their offer of admission.

OP here. Thanks for this! I think I agree - more kids starting with Geometry, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Better foundation. I also wonder about the acceptance rate - the school will still have a reputation as requiring tremendous amounts of homework, time sacrifices for families, and limited opportunities for non-STEM classes. Not sure any of that will change.

[Anonymous]

Former staff here. Agree with previous commenter that if this stops over-acceleration in math that would be a good thing, although I still think parents will push their kids ahead. However, I have several concerns about this process:

-Most teachers that I know feel that the student information sheet as it exists now is a terrible part of the application and measures what activities parents push their kids into, not anything intrinsic to the student. Several years ago they did an analysis that found that the student information sheet was negatively correlated with performance at TJ, and now that's the only qualification for the lottery other than GPA? Doesn't seem great.

-A ton of kids get straight A's in middle school, and you need some way of differentiating those who get straight A's because they are really smart, and those who get straight A's because they spend all their time being tutored, retake everything, etc. In an ideal process the test and teacher recommendations would provide this information, but it does seem like the test is more and more reflective of who had access to certain prep programs rather than actual ability.

-The lottery offers the potential for the very best student in all of FCPS to be rejected because they were unlucky. This seems awful.

My proposal would be to include grades and teacher/principal recommendations and no student information sheet (I do feel that ideally there should be an admissions test, but I don't know that in reality there exists a test that reflects ability rather than prep courses), and use this to select the top ~150 students for admission. Then the remaining ~350 students who meet minimum qualifications can be accepted through some sort of geographic lottery. This way the kids who truly need to be at TJ would not be subject to the whims of a lottery, and there are still plenty of opportunities for students from all backgrounds to gain admission. (The 150/350 numbers are flexible; if data shows that it's closer to ~100 students who stand out from the pack, we could make it a 100/400 split; just have some way to provide a better "guarantee" that the very top students get accepted.)

[Anonymous]

OP again. Also, thanks! I was very surprised at the dropping of the teacher recommendations. I did see an earlier comment that some feeder school teachers had become very adept at writing the recommendations compared to other MS, so maybe that was the issue.

I was wondering if teachers/principals should be tasked with identifying the top X number of kids in their middle school to be put into the lottery. TJ could provide instruction to the MS not used to lots of kids applying on what qualities they should be looking for.

[Anonymous]

9:56 has great ideas! I wish the Brabrand and the Board were actually asking staff how to improve the admission process instead of plowing forward with a plan based on incomplete information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Also, thanks! I was very surprised at the dropping of the teacher recommendations. I did see an earlier comment that some feeder school teachers had become very adept at writing the recommendations compared to other MS, so maybe that was the issue.

I was wondering if teachers/principals should be tasked with identifying the top X number of kids in their middle school to be put into the lottery. TJ could provide instruction to the MS not used to lots of kids applying on what qualities they should be looking for.

Brabrand said teacher recommendations are biased based on an AAP consultant report so he doesn’t trust teacher recommendations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Also, thanks! I was very surprised at the dropping of the teacher recommendations. I did see an earlier comment that some feeder school teachers had become very adept at writing the recommendations compared to other MS, so maybe that was the issue.

I was wondering if teachers/principals should be tasked with identifying the top X number of kids in their middle school to be put into the lottery. TJ could provide instruction to the MS not used to lots of kids applying on what qualities they should be looking for.

9:56 here. I remember hearing reports at one point that at a certain middle school the principal was reviewing the teacher recommendations and basically making sure they were all glowing. I don't know if/how that was resolved. I thought of having teachers/principals at middle schools rank/list the very top students who absolutely should get into TJ, and while I think they would do a pretty good job of identifying the top students, it also seems like a terrible position to put those people in. Maybe a little better if it's the principal rather than teachers, but still problematic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP again. Also, thanks! I was very surprised at the dropping of the teacher recommendations. I did see an earlier comment that some feeder school teachers had become very adept at writing the recommendations compared to other MS, so maybe that was the issue.

I was wondering if teachers/principals should be tasked with identifying the top X number of kids in their middle school to be put into the lottery. TJ could provide instruction to the MS not used to lots of kids applying on what qualities they should be looking for.

9:56 here. I remember hearing reports at one point that at a certain middle school the principal was reviewing the teacher recommendations and basically making sure they were all glowing. I don't know if/how that was resolved. I thought of having teachers/principals at middle schools rank/list the very top students who absolutely should get into TJ, and while I think they would do a pretty good job of identifying the top students, it also seems like a terrible position to put those people in. Maybe a little better if it's the principal rather than teachers, but still problematic.

ETA: Despite the reports of principals monitoring the teacher recommendations, I still feel those are the best method we have for identifying the very best students and providing more context about the students' grades.

[Anonymous]

They do it for AAP, so why can't they do it for TJ?

[Anonymous]

What is the point of looking for advanced kids if they aren't going to teach advanced classes anyway? Better foundations? you can get it in your IB school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Former staff here. Agree with previous commenter that if this stops over-acceleration in math that would be a good thing, although I still think parents will push their kids ahead. However, I have several concerns about this process:

-Most teachers that I know feel that the student information sheet as it exists now is a terrible part of the application and measures what activities parents push their kids into, not anything intrinsic to the student. Several years ago they did an analysis that found that the student information sheet was negatively correlated with performance at TJ, and now that's the only qualification for the lottery other than GPA? Doesn't seem great.

-A ton of kids get straight A's in middle school, and you need some way of differentiating those who get straight A's because they are really smart, and those who get straight A's because they spend all their time being tutored, retake everything, etc. In an ideal process the test and teacher recommendations would provide this information, but it does seem like the test is more and more reflective of who had access to certain prep programs rather than actual ability.

-The lottery offers the potential for the very best student in all of FCPS to be rejected because they were unlucky. This seems awful.

My proposal would be to include grades and teacher/principal recommendations and no student information sheet (I do feel that ideally there should be an admissions test, but I don't know that in reality there exists a test that reflects ability rather than prep courses), and use this to select the top ~150 students for admission. Then the remaining ~350 students who meet minimum qualifications can be accepted through some sort of geographic lottery. This way the kids who truly need to be at TJ would not be subject to the whims of a lottery, and there are still plenty of opportunities for students from all backgrounds to gain admission. (The 150/350 numbers are flexible; if data shows that it's closer to ~100 students who stand out from the pack, we could make it a 100/400 split; just have some way to provide a better "guarantee" that the very top students get accepted.)

Agree with pretty much all of this. Brabrand and Shughart did mention that they were rethinking the questionnaire because of issues about resume-boosting - not sure what that will look like.

I would like to see teacher recommendations too but agree that they can be very problematic.

I'd love to see a 100/400 split with no indication to the students as to who was selected by which process. I actually think that someone needs to take this to the work sessions and town halls as a real proposal that can prevent the scenario you described - there truly are a good number of kids who genuinely wouldn't be well served at a base high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the point of looking for advanced kids if they aren't going to teach advanced classes anyway? Better foundations? you can get it in your IB school.

Ummm.... they are still going to teach crazy advanced classes and have the exceptional world-class labs. That won't change because a few more kids start in Geometry. The school used to be that way anyway - it used to be EXTREMELY rare that a student would come in any higher than Alg2 but now it's commonplace, and to the detriment of the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the point of looking for advanced kids if they aren't going to teach advanced classes anyway? Better foundations? you can get it in your IB school.

Ummm.... they are still going to teach crazy advanced classes and have the exceptional world-class labs. That won't change because a few more kids start in Geometry. The school used to be that way anyway - it used to be EXTREMELY rare that a student would come in any higher than Alg2 but now it's commonplace, and to the detriment of the school.

Actually, that's not true. I have a friend whose two children went to TJ, one in 2004, the other in 2011. She said there was a world of difference between these experiences, and the one in 2011 was way watered down. This is a person who is a scientist at a large high-tech company, with a "mathy" family and mathy kids. This is what she had to say:

"Here is a typical sequence of math classes in school:
Pre-algebra
Algebra 1;
Geometry;
Algebra 2;
Pre-Calculus;
AP Calculus AB;
AP Calculus BC;
Multi variable Calculus;
Linear (Matrix) Algebra;
Ordinary Differential Equations;
Complex Analysis;
and may be a few others.
Now.
***The trick is that different kids take these courses at very different grades! And many kids skip many of the steps!***
Pre-Algebra is regularly skipped. Geometry and Algebra-2 sometimes are taken during the same year, in parallel. AP Calculus AB is regularly skipped. Algebra-1 can be taken as early as 3-rd grade (I know one case) or as late as grade 10.
As a result, the kids who are coming to TJ **now** may have taken all math including AP Calculus BC already, before their 9-th grade. Or at least Pre Calculus. **These kids are ready to take Calculus based Physics right then, in 9-th grade.** And they are ready to understand complex algorithms taught in Artificial Intelligence courses.
How was TJ getting kids who are that advanced? The answer is simple - very tough entrance exams provided that preparedness filter.
Now take away the entrance exams. The kids who will come to TJ on lottery will be getting their GPA 3.5 in courses as simple as Allegra-1. The kids who were taking tough exams were able to pass them because they were getting their GPA 3.5 in courses as complex as AP Calculus BC. It is a **tremendous** difference in the level of preparedness. Can be as much as SIX YEARS WORTH OF DIFFERENCE!!! Naturally the level of math courses offered in the "new TJ" will have to go down to accommodate the new crop of students.

This can be achieved with zero private tutors and zero dollars. My son came to TJ having finished AP Calculus BC in 8-th grade. This was completed in his regular school. He took AP Calculus BC while still in middle school (he had to cross the football field and enter the high school building). " END QUOTE

Now, if you want to make an argument that TJ should NOT teach classes that advanced, that's up to you.