Reply to New TJ Lawsuit Filed 3/10/21 by Pacific Legal Foundation

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]One of the most surprising things about this thread is how much more reasonable the folks who are advocating for change are compared to the folks advocating for maintaining the status quo.

I don't really have a dog in this fight because my kid graduated from TJ years ago but it's a lot easier to side with the folks who want to make TJ more accessible to a broader demographic.[/quote]

To be fair, some of us oppose the changes not because we think the status quo is great, but rather because the changes are ill-conceived and won't accomplish anything.  If FCPS wants more URM and lower income kids in TJ, and if they want to eliminate kids who are there purely due to extensive prepping, they should implement much stronger early programming.  Strengthen the Young Scholars program.  Offer free after school and summer enrichment to kids who otherwise wouldn't receive it.  Expand programs like AVID to elementary school to help URM or low income kids succeed in advanced math or AAP.  This would lead to more underrepresented kids who could succeed at TJ.
Without this, they're paying lip service to wanting more minorities at TJ, but they're doing nothing to aid them in being qualified for a school like TJ.

They should also keep some degree of testing, but not place so much weight upon it.  They could switch tests every year to make it more difficult for people to prep.  They could even create their own math test each year.  The tests should do two things: detect kids who have deficiencies that make them unlikely to succeed at TJ and detect kids who are so brilliant or advanced that they really need a school like TJ.  Most of the non-brilliant, highly prepped kids wouldn't fall into either of those categories, so their prepped scores wouldn't necessarily help them.

[/quote]

This is a very fair response and well-thought out. It is much appreciated.

Everyone seems to agree that early programming needs to be improved in order to aid in this process (though sometimes I don't believe that the status-quo crowd actually wants this - rather that it's a convenient way to kick the can down the road) but there are two key points to consider:

1) Doing this AND working on the TJ admissions process to make each more equitable are not mutually exclusive

2) The things you're talking about would cost the county a LOT of money, and it's not clear that families would be interested in the additional expense because it's essentially a wealth transfer

With regard to the exam.... It's a more complicated question than this. It's not really to their advantage to have either a TJ teacher or another local teacher (I know some have offered) provide such an exam - doing so would invite conflict-of-interest issues and accusations - so they sort of have to have it be provided by someone like Pearson. And when you do that, it's expensive and results in the type of application fee that you had previously.[/quote]

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