Reply to Northam’s “Anti-Asian, Anti-Immigrant” School Initiative

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No the point is the majority of AAP kids are fine in the regular classroom  AAP is a bloated joke 15-20%+  and again used too much by pushy parents to get away from normal and poor kids

G&T should be actual G&T for the top 1-2% max.[/quote]

I grew up poor and now have a daughter at TJ. She loves it there. There are a few frustrating things, but overall loves it. In my opinion, TJ should be merit only admissions. There are other solutions to help get better racial diversity.

Just an idea:  What if FCPS put in each elementary school with the highest numbers of free/reduced lunch 2 full time teachers with STEM backgrounds whose job was ONLY to run free/reduced cost STEM after school activities? These teachers would work from 3-9pm. For instance, 45 minute math classes grouped on ability, not age, going over more challenging math starting in 2nd  grade and material needed for AMC8/Math Counts for older/more advanced kids. These two teachers could do Science Olympiad starting with 3/4 grade in A level and B level for 5/6th grade..Java/Python/ASCL taught for 5/6th grade grouped on advanced ability, scratch for beginner kids. There are many other STEM activities that could be done, like Quiz Bowl or any number of small engineering build projects. Having a student participate in activities like this will build up their stem background, math ability, reading level, and problem solving. Many wealthier FCPS elementary schools have a parent run system like this. However, in a poor elementary school it’s unrealistic to think a household with adults working 2 jobs each can volunteer the hours needed. Many of these parents want this for their kids but lack the stem background to volunteer to run/teach these groups.

The background that these two teachers per school could give these kids would ensure that these kids had a real chance at TJ merit based admissions and the ones admitted could not just succeed, but excel. Simply giving a poor kid a 6 week TJ test prep class in 7th grade isn’t enough in 2020.  I know that means investing $200K per school (2 teacher salaries/benefits and say $5K year in fees/supplies ), but how much have other programs like Young Scholars cost? What if this was done at the 10 poorest elementary schools, plus 2 poorest middle schools? The cost is ~$ 2.4 million per year. The long term benefits could be huge.

In my opinion, wealthy parents would love to see schools like TJ torn down. The only kids who got this type education in the 80’s were rich private school kids. Now there are so many specialty high schools, many private schools want to go to no SAT/ACT/AP/ect. for top collage admission. In my opinion,  
many public students from schools like TJ outperform their private school counterparts. Please don’t tear down TJ. [/quote]

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