Reply to student admissions and TJ lawsuit

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Everyone focuses on race and the effect on Asians, but this really [i]isn't[/i] about race as much as it is about socioeconomic status which are, admittedly, intertwined. If there are poor Asian kids attending Sandburg MS, then they will benefit from the policy change. It's the wealthy families in Chantilly and Great Falls pyramids that stand to lose spots, which is why there is so much vocal outrage.[/quote]

DP.  One reason Asians are outraged and feel targeted is the decision to award the top 1.5% spots based on attending school rather than zoned school.  Most AAP eligible Asians will send their kids to the center for the stronger education.  Or, they already chose to live in-bounds to a center school for the stronger academics and higher ratings.  Taking the top 1.5% of the kids at a non-AAP middle school means that you're choosing among kids who deferred AAP for middle school or didn't qualify in the first place.  That's going to ensure that few of those kids are Asian.

If eventually all MS have AAP and no one leaves for the center, the problem will fix itself.  [/quote]

This has been one of my chief complaints with TJ reform as well. The other is, since GPA is not weighted, there is no advantage to kids who took harder/honors courses and did well. Increased diversity is fine, but these two items are clearly done to remove the advantage the kids coming from academic oriented families have. This particularly affects asians and others to a lesser extent. But, I do not think it is fair to discriminate against smarter or hardworking students this way.

I would have preferred a common test that removes the teacher bias in grades, but I am not particularly upset about since it reduces (not eliminate) extensive prepping. However, its sad that so much of the grade depends on the teacher. For example, my kid barely managed to get A- in english in 7th as teacher practically didn't teach anything and favored kids who entertained the unrelated BS she used to talk during the class. However, the same kid is got almost perfect scores in every other 7th grade course and also 8th grade courses including english.

In the long run, I don't think TJ matters as much as we think. Its a lot easier to stand out in base school and get into better colleges as a result. The major we choose and to a lesser extent the college we get the 'final' degree (BS, MS etc) actually matters in career and not the HS we once attended. This is not to deny that TJ will offer better exposure/course options, but if the kid is motivated, this can easily be compensated. So, there is no need to get obsessed over TJ at this time. At least this is what we told our kid. :)
[/quote]

Pro-reform poster here. This is a really smart and solid take.

The difficulty is that you can't really introduce any kind of exam without inviting a huge influence of exam prep - UNLESS you use the exam purely as a measure of competency and then throw away the scores such that a passing score qualifies you for selection but a perfect score is no better than a passing score. And of course, exam prep points to motivation on the part of the parents as well as financial resources, neither of which is a reflection on the students themselves.[/quote]

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