Reply to FCPS plans to "reform" TJ?

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "FCPS plans to "reform" TJ?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Pat Hynes
@VotePatHynes
·
Mar 20
Does sound like TJ. DiBlasio’s proposed solution for NY is to admit the top students from every middle school - geographic equality as a stand-in for equity. Might work. Look at SF’s experience with Lowell HS - geography-plus. FCPS will begin TJ reform plan this year.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Has anyone been following this?[/quote]

No, but this is a terrible idea. It came up a few years ago and a bunch of parents said outright that they'll simply rent in less-desirable school middle school boundaries to increase their kids' chances if FCPS goes this route. [b]FCPS is loathe to admit it, but they're well-aware that the county has a vested interest in not losing the TJ and AAP parents.[/b] I think they'll talk a big game but never follow through.[/quote]

LOL!

And... where exactly are these parents going to go?

Too funny pp!  [/quote]

LCPS to AOS and AET.  MCPs to RMIB and Blair.  Basis. Someone will give these kids the STEM education they want.

There are articles interviewing Amazon and they chose NOVA despite the high COL because of its “STEM pipeline” AAP to TJ to VT. Although VT is having issues. And VA pledged a billion dollars towards STEM education to get Amazon. Not a billion dollars in infrastructure. A billion dollars in education.  TJ has a big impact on regional economic success and VA’s quest to become less dependent on the federal government.  You may not like it.  You may laugh. But it’s true.

It’s a governors school. Ultimately, this goes through Richmond, not the SM. Every year the Eastern County Rep bring this up because they hate the imbalance between the Carson RRMs admit numbers and Eastern country admission numbers. And every year it does in committee with the Eastern County Rep being the only vote for.

From the outside looking in, messing with TJs success in the wake of Amazon is insane.  It’s meant to be 100% merit based. It is not meant to be Harvard. It’s meant to be MiT. You could change its mission, but then you get a mediocre school.

And yes.  TJ moves heaven and Earth to get qualified URMs and low SES to apply.  If you fit these categories, you can do a two year MS program with mentoring and summer institute and TJ and TJ prepping classes and access to things like robotics teams to prepare you. Paid for by the Jack Kent Cook Foundation. It has not moved the needle.

If FCPS wanted better representation, they pull IB out of the Eastern County HSs and make them more attractive places to send smart kids.  People commuting would love to live in Annandale or Alexandria vs Herndon.

But if this did come to pass, yes. Parents would rent an apartment their kids 8th grade year. Pick the least competitive HS, and tutor their kids like heck.  It would make it easier, not harder, to game the system. [/quote]

Early oughts TJ grad here.  Pre-emergence of test prep, back when the student body was demonstrably better rounded.  The school's demographic diversity (which wasn't great to begin with, but at least nominally mirrored the county breakdown) has tanked since then, with no appreciable improvement in college placement results (same or fewer Ivy admits/attendees, UVA admits down).  Maybe there's more scholarship money floating around now, but we had Intel finalists and state science fair winners in addition to regional and state championship sports teams and robust curricular music programs (3 full class periods of chorus!).  To my mind, two things have changed - the addition of the 4th history credit requirement for the FCPS advanced degree, which meant that with TJ grad requirements, students could no longer take a non-academic curricular elective without taking summer school, and the rise of test prep/parental involvement.  I'm very curious about whether admissions testing can ever stay ahead of the test prep mills...[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics