Reply to Fleeing APS schools for FFX County

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]FFX is a sprawling, overly large almost impossible to comprehend entity, spanning from the sad backwaters of the Springfield area to the gleaming McMansions of western FFX.  You must choose your pyramid extremely carefully.  But in general, the FFX high schools run circles around Arlington high schools.[/quote]

Based on what?   Certainly not based on the Holy Grail of NOVA high schools:  admission to UVA and William & Mary.  Virtually all the top students in NOVA apply to one or the other, and often both, and the admit rates last year were 42 and 47 percent for FCPS and 37 and 53 percent for APS.  No discernible difference.  But I wonder what FCPS would look like if TJ students were excluded?  I bet FCPS would fall below APS.

Outside of Langley, which has an extraordinarily privileged population, no school in Fairfax even arguably "runs circles" around APS.[/quote]

TJ students [i]are[/i] FCPS students, for the most part.  Why exclude them?[/quote]

Because Arlington students can go to TJ just as easily as Fairfax kids.  It’s open to both.  Duh. [/quote]

Is it really open, though?  The small numbers of Latino and African American students suggest that something is woefully unfair about the process.[/quote]

There is nothing woefully unfair in the process.  There are families that invest a significant amount financially into getting tutors, having their kids attend Johns Hopkins CYT math camps, and participating in robotics and science camps.  All of this costs money.  Many minority families can't afford this, so their kids have a harder time competing for TJ slots.  That's not something wrong with the TJ admissions process, it's just a result of wealth disparity.  TJ applicants are also a self selecting group.  All the Asian families I know start preparing from a very young age.  TJ is probably at least 60 percent Asian.  I also don't worry about whether there is anything woefully wrong with TJ admissions because I'm not sure that in its current state it's somewhere I think kids should aspire to be.  I would worry more about making sure that minority kids across the board are getting a good education and forget about the hand wringing regarding whether minorities make it into TJ.[/quote]

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