Reply to Did TJ release the stats of admission by middle school?

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Reply to "Did TJ release the stats of admission by middle school?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=pettifogger][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Or get spanked by the voters (parents) which I highly doubt.[/quote]

If it's really as bad as everyone says it is, then the School Board elections should go overwhelmingly in the conservatives' favor.

My guess is that most parents are not nearly as unhappy as the very small subsegment of folks who comment on this board alongside the very vocal superminority on Twitter.

Not to mention the folks that were nominated for the School Board on that side are so far outside the mainstream of Fairfax County education policy as to be unrecognizable - and that several are running with the express intent of financially kneecapping the public school system....

Prepare to be disappointed. Become a serious party if you intend to create change.[/quote]
I don't know or really care about party affiliation, but if education is a priority, one should be taking a close look at those who actively teach. For instance, Peter Gabor (https://petergabor.org/) is a TJ teacher, majored in math from MIT, has a phD in computer science from Princeton, and taught and is still teaching at TJ for many years. This is promising to see, because we really need more actual teachers running for the school board who have deep content expertise and are actually close to the students and the learning.

WaPo posted all the candidates running here. If folks want to vote for meaningful change, they should be closely studying this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/10/07/fairfax-county-school-board-election-guide/[/quote]

Agree he is impressive.
But eventually they will come for him.
Maybe not this year, but as standards for TJ admissions relax to deliver the desired equitable outcomes, his standards and rigor of his course will follow by necessity or he will leave. It’s that simple. It’s how they will kill the “elite TJ model”. And it’s a feature, not a bug. Equitable doesn’t mean fair shot—it means same outcome. Equity doesn’t simply elevate the disadvantaged. It dilutes the exceptional. And, by design, it turns everything into mediocre.
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The standards have gone down over the past two decades to accommodate the lower-caliber students who used prep to appear gifted. I'm actually hoping the new process helps reverse the trend by favoring naturally gifted students.[/quote]
Unfortunately the new admissions has resulted in selecting kids who perform academically worse in every measurable way than many students not selected. Do you have any suggestions on how to measure natural giftedness?[/quote]

I get that you prefer a system that is easily gamed but the new process has had the opposite effect. The newest crop of students are performing far better than those admitted under the old system and the school environment is less toxic too.[/quote]
I understand you can’t answer the question. Can you explain how you are measuring their performance you claim is “far better?” Because all the measurements indicate otherwise.[/quote]

You are the one claiming things have gotten worse. I haven't seen a shred of real evidence to that effect just some bitter parents who miss being able to buy their way in. Please show me tangible proof that TJ is worse off now that kids from schools other than the most wealthy have a shot at admission.[/quote]
This years Math and Science SOL scores may be the worst ever at TJ.[/quote]

Science is 100% and math is 99 straight from VDOE. What's the issue? English is 98.5 but that makes a lot of sense assuming some exceptionally gifted ELL kids are now being accepted.[/quote]
You have to drill down and look at the pass advanced rates, which are quite low for a school like TJ.  [/quote]

Lower than previous years? What have the last 10 years looked like. [/quote]
VDOE has previous results here, under the School-Test-By-Test entries. https://www.doe.virginia.gov/data-policy-funding/data-reports/statistics-reports/sol-test-pass-rates-other-results
As a data point, TJ had the following pass advanced rates for the 2016/17, 2017/18,  and 2018/19 school years.
Algebra II: 89, 94, 94
Chemistry: 87, 91, 94
World History II: 85, 82, 78

VDOE shows the following pass advanced rates for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 years:
Algebra II: 63, 53, 58
Chemistry:  - , 52, -
WH II: -, 53, 28

It's a pretty sharp decline.
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I think it may be worse than you describe here. You didn’t include geometry for the newer scores. Those scores are worse than many middle school averages. [/quote]

At TJ, SOL used to be referred to as [b]'LOL's [/b]since they were a joke and some 99% passed Pass Advance few several ago. [/quote]

+1[/quote]

Parents have complained about how "easy" the SOLs are so they keep making them harder.  Parents don't notice so they keep complaining they're too easy while also complaining that students aren't learning as much.  They are having it both ways but it's unfair.  [/quote]

SOL's are still LOL's but no longer concentrated for kids in TJ. The kids are now distributed across more high schools, which is a good thing. TJ is more closer to other well performing high schools in FCPS now. I would not be surprised if slowly they end the unique high end courses offered in the school due to lack of kids interested in the higher level courses. No matter how many academic statistics  is presented some people are in denial.

[/quote]

None of this is correct.  [/quote]

Gotta give them points for pushing the false narrative though.[/quote]

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