Reply to Coalition4TJ’s request to block TJ admissions process DENIED 6-3 by Supreme Court

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Reply to "Coalition4TJ’s request to block TJ admissions process DENIED 6-3 by Supreme Court"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's funny (and sad) how Asians are mad at African Americans while the number of white students getting in hasn't been impacted.

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I think you are interpreting this wrong. I am an asian and I am not mad african americans or whites. In fact, I am happy that more african americans are able to get into TJ. What I am mad at is the process fcps implemented with out thinking through much and in fact going with not so explicit target of cutting down asian students from specific feeder schools without saying race anywhere, but old critiera that was taken out or weightage/points given to new criteria so undermine advantages for specific groups of kids. In the end, they came up with a process that could easily eliminate more deserved students vs others as the new process makes it difficult to identify talent. I would rather be so much happier if they just implemented a lottery for all the qualified candidates as it will be totally unbiased and fair. [/quote]
it seems more likely because the spots for others have to come from somewhere and with Asians having 70%+ of all spots they were impacted but are still the most well-represented group...[/quote]

It’s not that I don’t get it. Of course the numbers have to come from somewhere. What I am basically pointing at is the new admission process makes it difficult to identify the STEM talent especially when the writing skills (essay and portrait sheet) gets 2X weightage as compared to entire GPA for all courses put together and on top the unweighted GPA discourages taking advanced courses.

You don’t believe me when I say that my kid probably has equal chances of getting in his feeder school compared to some of his friends who are taking Algebra 2 and even pre-cal in 8th grade. Under the older system with teacher input he would have very little chance. But I still think its unfair for my kid to get selected over his much smarter friends (according my kid), if it actually happens. [/quote]

All of the kids have to take Honors or AAP Science and Math and at least one other class as an honors class. So their overall GPA included a minimum of three honors classes. I am not sure if electives even have an honors option.

How do you identify STEM talent in 8th grade without including the extra curricular activities? Activities that not every kid has access to because of lack of knowledge, parents with time to take them to and from, or the money to afford the activity. Is it fair that I can afford to send my kid to RSM and robotics club while a kid from a lower SES family is needed at home to watch his/her siblings and cannot afford either activity? That kid could be interested in STEM but never got the chance to explore it to figure that out because they were not exposed while my kid got to take art classes, coding classes, robotics, rec sports, and other things in order to figure out what he liked. Requiring that kids have a solid academic background to attend TJ allows kids who are smart and have STEM skills to attend a school that will push them and expose them to activities and courses that they may not have access to.

I know kids who passed all the tests and had teacher recommendations and were accepted to TJ who went to college and became English Teachers. They had all the STEM credentials a kid needed but could careless about STEM. They went to TJ because their parents wanted them to go there because it was the best and they did great. But they were not STEM kids.

I do think the bar should be raised and that kids should need to have Geometry and Algebra 1 in MS to apply, I don't think that is unreasonable. I think they should keep the guaranteed seats from each MS school. I think you should be judged against the students at the MS school you choose to attend. [b]You have a choice to attend a Center school or not, if you choose the Center school you are accepting the fact that there will be more competition for those seats. [/b]I am fine with bringing back letters of recommendation. But TJ should look like the County. There are plenty of smart, motivated kids at lower SES MS who will do well there and they should have a seat at the school. The old system was structured in a way that made that incredibly hard and favored higher SES families. There is nothing wrong with balancing that out and there is nothing wrong with giving kids who have had far fewer opportunities a chance to discover STEM. [/quote]

I don't think we should put so much responsibility on 6th graders and [b]their school choice shouldn't determine their chances of getting into TJ.[/b] If you really want to do it the right away, there shouldn't be a default placement for AAP kids into center school. Instead, at orientation, counselors should openly tell all the 6th graders about how their school choice hurts or benefits their chances of getting into TJ and kids who knew and care about TJ should really think choose their middle school carefully etc. Most 6th graders aren't even aware of this and probably not thinking about high school prospects in 6th grade. My strong opinion is kids chances shouldn't be hurt by his/her choice of middle school and if it does it is totally unfair.

In our case, we were hardly thinking about TJ in 6th grade and our biggest worry at the time was elem->middle transition and what courses/electives to plan and choose when we had so many options to choose from unlike elementary school. We just went with the default placement. Even if they asked us to make our middle school choice based on TJ, we probably would have paid much attention to it.

The best solution (as you said earlier) is to raise the bar a little higher by making Geo Honors required by 8th grade (make Algebra I HN open to all in 7th) and also require all the core courses in both 7th and 8th grade to be Honors (already open to all), raise the min GPA to 3.75 (required to be maintained by end of 8th or admission can be revoked), consider at least 3 quarters of 8th grade GPA at selection time (slight delay in decisions, but plenty of time as there won't any essays to grade etc) and require at least 1 or 2 STEM electives that were offered at their attending middle school. This should cut down the pool a bit, but ensures that TJ aspirants clearly demonstrate interest in STEM by taking advantage of all the resources available at whatever middle school they are attending. Then, choose the kids via LOTTERY from all the who met the criteria and remained in the pool. It eliminates all the bias, whether it is racial, geographical, teacher/school, financial etc. I know our opinions don't really matter, but for the sake of discussion, what do you think about this?

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I think you make some fair points and I could see something like this working if you give it time for Alg 1 to be offered openly everywhere in 7th without an IOWA gatekeeper. But I've never liked the lottery concept because I still think you run into too many kids being left out who would genuinely be best served at TJ and cannot be well-served anywhere else.

I bolded the piece about school choice determining TJ access because in reality, the previous admissions process did just that. If you were at a center school, you had an EXCELLENT chance to get in for various reasons, and if you didn't, you were likely out of luck. The number of structural advantages that center schools had under the previous process goes far beyond just having more AAP students - you had entire communities that prioritized the TJ process for years and helped each other with navigating it for years. The new admissions process gives every interested student a chance to believe that they might be selected and afforded the advanced opportunities.[/quote]

If the new admission process provides better opportunity for all kids, then there is no need to punish the kids who happened to default center school as they weren’t aware it would hurt their TJ chances right? [/quote]

I would not have had an additional experience factor for “attends underrepresented school” on top of the 1.5% allocation. That was a bridge too far, I thought.[/quote]

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