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]PP. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I just want to take a 50,000 ft view of the issues being debated here. [b]The fact that the current Supreme Court, as conservative as they are. still let the new admissions policy stand should be a signal that the war is lost.[/b] Even if there will still be changes to the new admissions system, it seems highly unlikely to ever go back to the way it was.

I sympathize with the old admissions system, but I also don't think it was ever appropriate to set up a public school in this way. This is what private schools should be for. A private school can offer financial aid to those who can't afford it.

I also think all TJ parents need to take a step back and consider whether TJ is really the best thing for their kids. Having so many high-achieving kids clumped together in that school actually makes it harder for them to be accepted to a top school. MIT isn't going to admit 50 TJ kids in any given year. It is very much harder to stand out there. I get that iron sharpens iron, but it also comes with a significant risk of having nothing to show for all the effort than if they had just gone to their local high school.

I married into an Asian family, and I know that many times the drive to go TJ is from the parents who demand the kids to go to the "best" school or the "prestigious" school without considering that it is more than likely not going to be the big stepping stone they think it will be. Even the guy who wrote the op-ed in the Washington Post, while I respect his accomplishments, he could gotten into the Naval Academy and had all his success coming from any of the other excellent public schools in the area, because kids do it all the time. It's not like he invented the iPhone or made the next major scientific discovery, which is what the intense nature of TJ would lead one to believe is going to happen.

[/quote]

You must be high. I also don't have a dog in this fight but it's not clear at all that this racist admissions policy will be allowed to stand in the long term. Roberts has been very vocal about his negative view on affirmative action and any other racially motificated government policies that discriminate on the basis of race, even if it is done through proxies of facially neutral measures. Note that the Supreme Court's decision on the application to vacate is not a ruling on the merits of the case, but consideration of procedural/administrative issues. In this case, I suspect that Roberts, Barrett, and Kavanaugh considered the potential impact on the current batch of students if the stay was vacated, because FCPS did not prepare for an alternative admission process. Despite concerns of students having their constitutional rights violated by the new admissions policy, the courts, including SCOTUS, tend to let existing procedures stand unless there was some serious procedural error made in the appeals court.

Now, onto the rest of your points. I don't understand why you find selectivity to be an issue for publicly funded educational institutions. Are you saying there should be no public colleges, and that if we do have public colleges, every single one of them should admit every student that applies? Aside from admissions, there are a lot of achievement-based opportunities and privileges even inside any given public high school. A student doesn't go into the next level of higher math until they've achieved a sufficient grade in a prerequisite class. Just because the bar is often set fairly low doesn't change the fact that there is a bar, and that failing students do not advance. Being able to take the next level class is not automatic, but an earned privilege that is the outcome of some prior achievement. Being able to get into TJ based on demonstrated merit is the same concept in this sense.

The rest of your rationalizing about whether TJ is healthy or unhealthy, and the existence of alternatives is relevant to exactly one person: you. These are subjective opinions and are no more valid than any one else's, including those of parents who find that the rigor of TJ is a great fit for their kids, and that it is the place where their kids can obtain a superior education and be exceptionally well prepared for future studies and professional work in STEM fields.

Lastly, none of what you wrote, regardless of the underlying logic and passion, excuses the fact that the new admissions policy was implemented with racist intent and effect. Shame on you for making excuses for its continued existence. [/quote]

Well said! [/quote]

I'm the PP. I respect your viewpoints, though you undermined yourself by starting out with an immature comment about being high.  I'm a lawyer, and I understand the procedural issues involved, but the court could have stopped it, and the fact is that they didn't. This is going to go on for years, and in the meantime the new system is going to be entrenched.

As to your question about selective admission of public institutions, I am only speaking of secondary and lower schools. This is much more personal for people than at at the college level. For 100 years, people have been trained to see a direct connection between their local property taxes and their local schools. I think it sticks in the craw of a lot of people who live near TJ that they can't attend their local school by right. And to make matters worse, this school is located in an area with a lot of people who can't afford the extended tutoring sessions and consulting needed to have a good shot at attending the school. The local kids close to TJ are also not in the attendance zones of the top "feeder" schools to TJ. Thus, the perception among many people is that lower income people are subsidizing MC and UMC kids most of whose parents could afford a private school or increased tutoring.

From that perspective, I think TJ has been begging for a challenge to its system for a long time. If the school was nestled safely away in Great Falls or Mclean, the perception of privilege wouldn't be so "in your face".  Just looking at if from a 50,000 ft view, as a I said, the old system is not likely to ever come back, and I would say with certainty that whatever new system is eventually put in place, it is going to look a lot more like the current system than the old test system.

So, to sum up, I think the parents in the lawsuit, rather than spending their treasure on lawyers, would be better off endowing a new private school with all of the rigor they want for TJ.

And my final note being again, TJ doesn't really lead to any different outcomes for kids than any other of the great public and open schools around here. While the kids may want that educational experience, considering the above, the TJ parents should be required to send them to a private school to get it.

In the end, that's what we are really debating. The TJ parents want a free ride for this enhanced experience. And the other side is saying, no, either open it up to more people or make a regular high school. I don't see how the TJ parents are going to win this fight in the end. 
[/quote]

I'm the PP you intended to reply to. The "high" comment was a sarcastic reference to your "50,000 ft view". I am not a lawyer, but it's clear to me that you do not understand the procedural issues involved because you failed to mention them. Even now you are just making a superficial observation that the court could have vacated the stay but didn't, without giving any nuanced consideration as to why they acted in the way that they did that would support your claim that the "war is lost". Your reference to the new system becoming entrenched ignores the fact that intervening cases such as the one regarding Harvard and UNC will have set the necessary standards for the upcoming review in the appeals court. Of course, no one knows how the Harvard and UNC cases will turn out, but that is precisely the point: it's premature to claim that the "war is lost" for anyone who is informed on the topic at hand, whether it is the underlying facts, merits of the arguments, or the procedures of the courts. You appear to have little to no grasp of any of these concepts.

Your original statement only mentioned "public schools". Your current attempt to draw distinctions among selective admissions of public institutions, limiting your scope to only secondary and lower schools, is completely arbitrary. You've provided no rational basis for making such a distinction based on facts or principles. While a student has a by-right privilege to attend their local high school, that privilege is not absolute - there are grounds for expulsion. In other words, the students have to meet a standard of conduct in order to remain in their local public high school. Again, just because the bar is set very low doesn't change the fact that there is a standard that must be met. Warm feelings based on proximity to an institution are not a recognized justification for admissions. People who are generational residents of Charlottesville VA do not enjoy automatic admissions into UVA. If you want to pursue an argument based on people feeling attachment to the schools they attend, this attachment is much stronger for colleges vs secondary and primary schools. When was the last time a fellow lawyer told you what high school he attended instead of which college or law school they went to?

Once again, whether you think TJ leads to a better outcome, whether it is a good school choice, matters only to you. Other parents can and do feel differently and their subjective preferences are just as valid as yours. Your continued insistence that you know better than other parents about what's good for their kids shows that you need some training in recognizing and controlling hubris.

Per your final note, you seem to be entirely unaware of the fact that TJ is funded by state and local taxes paid for by people who live in nearby counties, including parents of students that attend TJ. Given the often-cited statistics of TJ students coming from mostly affluent families, these same parents are likely the ones who pay the higher tax rates and own more expensive homes, and therefore pay higher property taxes. To the extent that they are among the upper end of the tax payment percentiles, they effectively subsidize the social services enjoyed by those who pay less taxes.[/quote]

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